I realized my VLC was broke some point in the week after updating Arch. I spend time troubleshooting then find a forum post with replies from an Arch moderator saying they knew it would happen and it’s my fault for not wanting to read through pages of changelogs. Another mod post says they won’t announce that on the RSS feed either. I thought I was doing good by following the RSS but I guess that’s not enough.

I’ve been happily using Arch for 5 years but after reading those posts I’ve decided to look for a different distro. Does anyone have recommendations for the closest I can get to Arch but with a different attitude around updating?

  • propter_hog [any, any]
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    1115 days ago

    I’d recommend opensuse tumbleweed. It’s still a rolling distribution, it still has more bleeding edge software, but its package manager, zypper, does atomic updates, so if something doesn’t install right it rolls it back.

    • @[email protected]
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      415 days ago

      That’s the real thing for me: how painless is it to live with long term? After I’ve installed a couple of weird things, and configured some stuff custom - is this a distro that keeps rolling into the future, or is it one that makes me wish I had the time to re-install from scratch every 6 months?

  • ses hat
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    1016 days ago

    I had the same problem, i did start with arch ,but man i remember doing a update after 4 days(4Gb of new updates) and my system faild to boot. From that moment i went debian route.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      116 days ago

      I like having Timeshift in place for if I can’t figure out what went wrong.

      In this case, I didn’t use VLC until days after I had updated so my mind didn’t go to an issue from updating right away. I make a high amount of accidental inputs while using laptops and I don’t always notice so a lot of my issues end up being unintentional configuration changes from weeks or months ago.

  • Eugenia
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    16 days ago

    I prefer Debian-Testing. Basically, a rolling release, but not unstable. Arch is akin to Debian -Sid, which is unstable. The latest packages are brought in to -Sid after some rudimentary testing on -experimental. But only the stuff that make it and are solid on -sid, make it to -testing. Basically, Debian has 2 layers of siphoning bugs before they even make it to -testing. And that’s why the -stable branch is so solid, because whatever makes it there, has to go through the 3 branches.

    So if you like rolling releases with much newer packages, consider -testing. The easiest way is to wait for the Trixie release, and then do the manual update to -testing by changing the repository names (there are online tutorials about it). The other way is to get a -testing iso, but these usually are broken because most people “upgrade” their installed distro to testing instead of just install it outright.

    • @[email protected]
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      114 days ago

      The old preferred way is to run testing/unstable with apt-pin (testing repos with higher priority). This way, if a package causes breakage, it’s a quicker fix from unstable than from testing. Also, security patches come to unstable first.

    • @[email protected]
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      216 days ago

      The other way is to get a -testing iso, but these usually are broken because most people “upgrade” their installed distro to testing instead of just install it outright.

      I’ve installed Debian testing from ISO a handful of times and never had any issues.

      • Eugenia
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        315 days ago

        Very often it’s broken. I had two such instances. Even Debian recommends that you just upgrade from stable.

        • @[email protected]
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          415 days ago

          They are included in the updates to -testing.

          Only after they meet the requirements to be moved from unstable.

          From the wiki:

          It is a good idea to install security updates from unstable since they take extra time to reach testing and the security team only releases updates to unstable.

          and

          Compared to stable and unstable, next-stable testing has the worst security update speed. Don’t prefer testing if security is a concern.

          - https://wiki.debian.org/DebianTesting

          There is some advice on that page about how to deal with security updates for testing and I’m wondering how people who use testing take that advice, and what changes they make to get security updates. Or maybe you don’t bother. That’s what I mean.

      • Eugenia
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        215 days ago

        There are security updates on testing. Maybe not as fast as they’re on Sid, but they are.

  • @[email protected]
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    15 days ago

    Based on what you describe, I would strongly recommend going with OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. It’s just as bleeding-edge as Arch, but all packages go through automatic testing to ensure they won’t break anything, and if some manual actions are required, it will offer options right before update. Moreover, snapper in enabled by default on btrfs partitions, and it makes snapshots automatically before updates, so even if something breaks somehow, reverting takes a few seconds.

    One small footnote is that you’ll need to add separate VLC repo or Packman for VLC to have full functionality - proprietary codecs are one of the rare things official repos don’t feature for legal reasons.

    On Arch rant: I’ve always been weirded out by this “Arch is actually stable, you just have to watch every news post for manual interventions before every update, oh, and you better update very often” attitude.

    Like, no, this is not called stable or even usable for general audience. Updating your system and praying for it not to break while studying everything you need to know is antithetical to stability and makes for an awful daily driver.

    • @[email protected]
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      916 days ago

      you just have to watch every news post for manual interventions before every update, oh, and you better update very often

      You have to watch the factory mailing list and make any manual interventions for Tumbleweed, and frankly, you should be watching the news and taking any action required no matter the os.

      • @[email protected]
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        15 days ago

        A decent daily driver distro for regular user should not break on blind update - at most, it should warn the user automatically before applying updates. If user is expected to check news every time they want to update their system - it is not a good fit for anyone but enthusiasts.

        • @[email protected]
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          715 days ago

          Where did you get the idea that Arch is a daily driver for regular user? The very distro that tells in big letters: stuff can break, you better watch out on updates? The very distro that has command-line install process with chroot-like commands as official one?

          • @[email protected]
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            1015 days ago

            There are distros based on Arch that are proclaimed to be user friendly and ready for general desktop/gaming use. Plus plenty of people online tell others to use Arch as a daily driver.

            Regardless I don’t think an update should happen if it’s going to break something, unless you manually over ride the warnings it should be showing.

            • @[email protected]
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              115 days ago

              Well, Arch wiki explicitly tells you are expected to read the page before doing an update. Those distros which claim to be user-friendly as in “we treat you with kids gloves” definitely should take care of this, no questions here

          • @[email protected]
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            1715 days ago

            Plenty of people seriously propose it as such.

            It is not - at least if you’re not an enthusiast happy to tinker with your system all the time.

            • @[email protected]
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              715 days ago

              Yup, it really is not. Those plenty of people are doing a big disservice to others with such proposing. I am sad to hear it

        • @[email protected]
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          15 days ago

          Anyone who is not curious enough to type yay -Pw before typing yay should probably stick with something like Windows. And even then, you should watch out for the rare manual intervention.

          Edit: Tone.

          • @[email protected]
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            3415 days ago

            FFS dude. It’s not lazy want updates to be as simple and pain free as possible. The entire point of these universal machines is to automate shit so we don’t have to think about it so much. We have different distros to run them because people prefer different ways of doing things. The one you pick doesn’t make you better or worse in any way. OP found out Arch is more work than they want to put up with for their daily driver and the benefits aren’t worth the cost. That’s a pretty big fucking club to be calling everyone in it lazy.

            This kind of elitism is the most unnecessary, useless, vacuous, tedious horseshit and hurts Linux by pushing people away for nothing. Stop it.

          • @[email protected]
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            15 days ago

            I don’t think it makes sense to gatekeep Linux only to those who has time, energy, and dedication to continuously check for necessary interventions and to familiarize themselves with all the terminal utilities in the first place.

            That is a sort of elitism we need to carefully avoid - one, because otherwise it would halven the desktop Linux community, and two, because there’s a huge group of people out there who need what Linux offers, but cannot dedicate themselves to it in the way enthusiasts do.

            For them, there must be an option to push the button and get a smooth update, with everything resolved automatically or prompted in a user-friendly way. Arch is not that.

            You feel comfy doing this - alright, no one stops you, Arch is great and has a purpose. But we should never put blame on users for not using their system The Arch Way™, because it’s too technical, too engaged, and is just a poor fit for most. People will not and should not accommodate for this just to use their system. There’s no need to.

            If someone chose Arch and complains that it breaks things, it could be useful to point out Arch doesn’t have required guardrails to make it operable in a way they expect, and direct the user to other distributions that have them and potentially least painful ways to migrate.

            Having tried Arch and its derivatives, and recognizing their strong points, I can absolutely tell the person needs another distribution, and that’s alright! Whatever fits anybody is up to them. And for stable rolling release experience without the need for manual checking (but also without some of the power features of Arch mainly geared toward enthusiasts) there’s OpenSUSE Tumbleweed.

            Edit: Tone.

            • @[email protected]
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              115 days ago

              I don’t use Arch, I use Endeavour because they took Arch and made it better. As to why I used yay as my example, there are two reasons:

              1. It’s what I use
              2. It’s nice to show how easy and simple it is when it’s done properly and it normally takes 5 seconds, more when you have to do something. No wading through busy mailing lists hoping to spot an issue. I’m looking at you Debian and Tumbleweed!
              • @[email protected]
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                15 days ago

                I see!

                I do, in fact, use Endeavour on my desktop as well, simply because I like snappiness and choice of Arch and similarly don’t wanna bother with the pure one (and also EndeavourOS forums are more friendly in my experience). I run OpenSUSE Slowroll (an experimental Tumbleweed build, same idea as Manjaro, but actually done right) on my other laptop, so can speak from the experience on both ends.

                With Slowroll (and my gf’s Tumbleweed) I’ve only once faced the need for manual intervention, and it was simply to resolve a dependency change by choosing which package to leave - literally enter one number, and then it went on peacefully and correctly installing 1460 updates (yeah, they pushed a big Tumbleweed dump, 3.5 gigs total). On Arch and EndeavourOS, the last intervention was just recently, that’s the one OP talks about, and they do happen more often and are more complicated than I’d like.

                • @[email protected]
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                  215 days ago

                  I used Tumbleweed for eight or so years before switching to Endeavour and it only really bit me hard once. Update, reboot, and sudo no longer worked! If I had spent a bit more time going through the mailing list, I could have made a simple configuration change before rebooting and saved a lot of stress! It affected nearly everybody who installed that particular image.

          • @[email protected]
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            615 days ago

            I have been using Arch, EndouvourOS, and Chimera Linux now for years.

            I never do this.

            As I have been a Linux user since the early 90’s, I don’t think Windows is really the right fall-back for me.

      • Karna
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        1216 days ago

        taking any action required no matter the os

        This is not really true for fixed release distros. I can’t remember when was the last time I had to read through the release note before Ubuntu version upgrade, or upgrading any package.

        • @[email protected]
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          1015 days ago

          Ubuntu was by far the worst experience I have had in terms of updates destroying things. The number of times my post update reboot brought me back to a GRUB prompt, I’ll never go back.

        • @[email protected]
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          215 days ago

          I used to think that, then I learnt the truth. Now-a-days, I say that you may as well use a rolling release because it’s not really any more work that a fixed release and you have up to date software.

          • Karna
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            715 days ago

            Just to reiterate the same point - in fixed release, a package version is not released until all known issues are resolved.

            At no point, it is end user responsibility to bother checking anything before installing a new version.

            • RaivoKulli
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              115 days ago

              in fixed release, a package version is not released until all known issues are resolved.

              That’s not really true. It’s more important that the issues are known. Sometimes they actually wait longer to fix issues since it would introduce changes

              • Karna
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                215 days ago

                My bad, I meant “known major issues”. If minor issues are not fixed, they document it on release note. But, at no point any fixed release distro ever released breaking changes “knowingly”.

              • Karna
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                815 days ago

                Bugs are of two types - known (found during testing by Distro maintainer) and unknown.

                Fixed release fixes known bugs before pushing packages.

                It is following the standard development life cycle.

                • @[email protected]
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                  415 days ago

                  Fixed release fixes known bugs before pushing packages.

                  So do rolling releases. What’s your point?

      • Tommi Nieminen
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        515 days ago

        Well… not really. My current installation of Tumbleweed is three and a half years old, and back in 2022 the only reason I re-installed it was changing the NVMe drive. I’ve never read factory mailing list and don’t ever recall having made manual interventions. I’ve just booted it, updated (zypper ref; zypper dup), rebooted and continued working.

        • @[email protected]
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          15 days ago

          You can do this on Arch too and it will work great until it doesn’t. Manual interventions are rare and usually don’t affect everyone.

    • Kilgore Trout
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      1915 days ago

      I upvoted you, I am a fellow openSUSE fan and contributor.

      But I need to point out that if you install VLC from a repository outside of Factory, then it’s not auto-tested.

      Moreover, Packman is external to the openSUSE project altogether. If you use it, you are supposed to “just trust” that everything will be fine.

      You are better off installing VLC through Flatpak.

      • @[email protected]
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        515 days ago

        Fair point! Honestly, that’s exactly what I ultimately went for, I just know there are people around who strongly prefer native packages.

        Flatpak contains all codecs etc., and works flawlessly.

    • @[email protected]
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      815 days ago

      I’m running Arch for a very long time. I agree this is not a distro for general audience. I disagree, however, that it is not stable. When I’m doing work I don’t update my system. I enjoy my stable configuration and when I have time, I do update, I curiously watch which amazing foss software had an update. And I try them. I check my new firefox. I check gimp’s new features. etc… or if I have to do something I easily fix it, like in no time because I know my OS. Then I enjoy my stable system again.

      Do you want to know what’s unstable? When I had my new AMD GPU that I built my own kernel for, because the driver wasn’t in mainline. And it randomly crashed the system. That’s unstable.

      Or when I installed my 3rd DE in ubuntu and apt couldn’t deal with it, it somehow removed X.org. And I couldn’t fix it. That’s also something I don’t want. Arch updates are much better than this.

      • @[email protected]
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        Guess we simply apply different meaning to the word “stable”. (you do you, though, and if it’s alright with your workflow, yay!)

        To me, stable means reliably working without any special maintenance. Arch requires you to update once in a while (otherwise your next update might get borked), and when you update, you may have to resolve conflicts and do manual interventions.

        Right now, I run OpenSUSE Slowroll (beta, not released yet) on one of my machines and EndeavourOS on the other. The former recently had to update 1460 elements, and one intervention was required - package manager asked me if I want to hold one package for a while to avoid potential dependency issues. Later, it was fixed, and otherwise it went without a hitch. This is the worst behavior I’ve seen on this distribution, and so to me it renders “acceptably unstable” for general use (although I wouldn’t give that to my grandma).

    • Übercomplicated
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      115 days ago

      The VLC thing can be solved relatively easily by installing opi with zypper, and then running opi codecs, which will add all the necessary repos and install everything. After that VLC (and h.264 etc) will work like a charm.

      • @[email protected]
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        14 days ago

        True!

        Although, as another commenter pointed out, this will use Packman repo which is not official and apps there are not going through the same testing as in official repos.

        So Flatpak is generally a better option. Still, if you want VLC as a native package, opi is indeed an easy and reliable way of providing it.

  • @[email protected]
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    1214 days ago

    IMHO the actual problem here is the Arch moderator being an ass.

    This happens in all operating systems from time to time. An update kills an app. Usually, the app is wildly out of date and hanging on to the last vestiges of a deprecated call that finally gets removed. I recently experienced this with V4L (for OBS virtual camera) and a kernel update in NixOS. Had one hell of a time tracking it down. It was one of the twice-yearly OS upgrades. Luckily, I had only updated one of my devices, and it still worked on the old one. After tearing apart the changes, I was finally able to specify V4L and a Linux kernel version. Immediately, the problem popped right out. The new kernel now needs a specific value passed for the expected video stream, where it used to use a default if it wasn’t specified.

    Apple breaks apps all the time. Windows does, but less so. The difference is usually before an update happens, Windows and Apple have had TONs of people testing on their own teams and their insiders people.

    In the end, I just needed to roll back the kernel one revision until the V4L guys make the change, or I needed to recompile V4L myself with the option defaulted to something useful.

    I don’t think you can safely get away from this kind of issue. (app incompatibility on upgrade, not mods being an ass)

    Debian or Mint seem to be pretty welcoming and easy going to get rid of the asshole issues, but chances are, you’re going to break something eventually, and it’s going to be super hard to figure out why and how to get around it.

  • @[email protected]
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    2615 days ago

    I got burned by something like this on Manjaro when a rolling update completely borked my graphics card. The devs reacted in a similar way and it made me realise that my priority is stability over bleeding edge and tinkering.

    On that day I moved to Fedora. Stable as hell, no fuss. My main OS should just work and not kill itself.

    I still love it but jumped over to Bazzite Gnome recently, which is like Fedora with a few bells on top, coupled with having a read-only root-filesystem (stability, man!). It also comes with distrobox, which will let you run arch natively in a container if you need the AUR.

    • @[email protected]
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      I had a similar moment of clarity after troubles with Manjaro and a couple other Arch based distros.

      I really like the idea of a rolling release, but definitely nedd stability first.

      I swung back the other way, and jumped on Ubuntu LTS. And gradually over time I ended up having to get updates from external repos etc, and ended up in the same position where updates broke things or didn’t work.

      Currently running Ubuntu, and I just do an upgrade to the latest release each 6 months - after waiting a month after release date for everything to settle down. The upgrades to new releases have gone smoothly, I get updates to newer versions of software, and it’s been very rare anything breaks. Being a popular distro also means a big community to help with any issues as well.

      Dammit, it’s like I just wrote an ad for Ubuntu!

  • @[email protected]
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    2414 days ago

    Ah yes, the issue with modern Linux, the community.

    I feel the shift to the current “git gud” style of blaming the user in any support has done more damage to Linux then any part of the software.

    • @[email protected]
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      714 days ago

      I don’t feel like this is a terribly recent attitude. It’s definitely one I’ve encountered repeatedly over a decade or more of dipping my toes in the pool. It’s not incorrect in a lot of circumstances, but it’s very difficult to find support when no one wants to help you improve. There’s always been a significant degree of ego in Linux user communities.

      • @[email protected]
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        214 days ago

        Not wanting to help would be better then this, its like they just want to “win” the support ticket. Its so terribly counterproductive.

    • @[email protected]
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      14 days ago

      omg you guys are fragile af

      I just had this exact same issue. I installed the package. Done.

      No whining. It’s one fucking line of code.

      • @[email protected]
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        213 days ago

        Why even type this?

        Do you feel better doing so?

        This is not a support forum, this is not tech support, this is lemmy and other then giving a great example of what the OP is getting at what does your comment address?

    • @[email protected]
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      113 days ago

      the community is the worst part of most things, the RTFM attitude is better than toxic positivity though

      • @[email protected]
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        13 days ago

        Sure, but when I am looking for an answer toxic positivity and RTFM are often the same thing. The number of times people jump up to defend the manual and glaze the program without even checking if the info is in the manual (or if the manual even makes sense at all) is way too high.

        I used to have to work on new stuff all the time and would have to read whitepapers or engineering change docs on the daily, and no the tangled mess most Linux documentation is in does not count as a functioning source of information.

        The part that still grinds my gears is why bother to type out nothing of value like RTFM at all? Forums are filled with terrible posts belittleing the question instead of just answering the question. Its not helping anyone and at least to me makes little sense.

    • @[email protected]
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      313 days ago

      I’m amazed at the idea that in any technical community, an urging to gain more skill in your chosen environment could somehow be seen as negative.

        • @[email protected]
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          213 days ago

          It is most certainly not. (He says, as he comes fuming out of yet another meeting about a ticket that could have been solved at Tier 2 if support would learn how to read a log)

          • @[email protected]
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            113 days ago

            Oh pebkac is alive and well, no doubt about it. But expecting any level of expertise from an non commercial end user while simultaneously shooting down their questions is not going to help.

            • @[email protected]
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              013 days ago

              I absolutely agree, but here’s the problem in this context:

              • OP isn’t non-commercial. By their own words, they’d been doing desktop support for MacOS - plastic-wrapped and glittery, but still a *nix. Five years in, one’s search-fu and tolerance for reading docs should be well developed.
              • Their question was answered by the page they found. OP’s argument is they didn’t like the tone used to reply to THAT post’s OP and concluded from that tone that their expertise wouldn’t be valued “in the way they would like”. There’s room to develop some grit here.
              • Arch isn’t intended for inexperienced users, and that is made clear in the docs. “It is targeted at the proficient GNU/Linux user, or anyone with a do-it-yourself attitude who is willing to read the documentation, and solve their own problems.” (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_Linux#User_centrality) Getting this upset over a single package readjustment, no matter how badly it was communicated, tells me OP doesn’t have a ton of experience with bare metal linux. There’s just no way to sugarcoat that.

              Arch gatekeeps on occasion, yes, but this isn’t that. This is the simple rules of that particular distro. OP is free to find something that better fits their needs; and it appears they have.

              • @[email protected]
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                113 days ago

                I see no problems with someone showing frustration, and in this case I don’t think arch should be proud of this example.

                This is very much that, and why arch has the reputation it does. It will always be a fringe distro with the way the people (you included) shame and gatekeep.

  • @[email protected]
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    5916 days ago

    Arch is really for those who like to troubleshoot and actively maintain things when they break.

    I’m pretty decent with linux and for the most part, I can fix arch when it breaks, but I don’t have the time for that. For that reason, I use Fedora and recommend mint.

      • Derin
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        416 days ago

        I’ve been using arch for almost a decade, and haven’t had the system break.

        I also don’t use aur helpers as I don’t like or trust them - I do tend to read PKGBUILDs before using them.

        Still shocked that OP thought a new opt-depends was “lost in pages and pages of changelogs”.

      • PrivateNoob
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        415 days ago

        I did break my endevaourOS after I was unlucky enough to upgrade when grub got a huge non-bootable bug and probably there may have been some app bugs since which are minor tbh. Like currently I can’t run the bauh app, because it misses “bauh” in the python packages (lol).

        • fushuan [he/him]
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          315 days ago

          Good for you that EOS now runs on systemd-boot, not grub lol. It grabs the EFI lines automatically from the boot partition and it just works. Personally, booting should be as simple as possible, as little personalisation as possible, make it just work.

          • PrivateNoob
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            113 days ago

            Yeah no hate towards grub, because it doesn’t get too much breakful versions, but it’s a bootloader after all. Systemd boot works just fine for me, although I miss the customization aspect of it, but that’s what rEFInd is for.

      • fushuan [he/him]
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        115 days ago

        I sometimes forget or delay updates because of life and have over 500 updates. Skim through them if they are patches, minors or majors, and just run. In any case, my disk’s are brtfs and I have timeshift for backups. If anything breaks horribly a live USB can restore it, if anything is weird I can restore it via UI. It autoruns every time I run Pacman and stores 5 copies of the “before” state. It also creates a daily copy for the last 5 days so 10 copies in total.

        It’s more than enough that if something fails I’ll have something to go back to, and since it internally works with something akin to hardlinks snapshots don’t take that much space.

        I’ve not had issues since setting it up, so, great.

    • @[email protected]
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      1016 days ago

      Yup, OP has done his time in Arch meaning now competent, probably, time to go to Fedora and relax, close enough to the edge but not bleeding, good QA, For extra chill go atomic, check out uBlue…

          • fushuan [he/him]
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            115 days ago

            Can you install an app with GUI in a distrobox that then shows up on the app list? That’d be amazing but I doubt it since it’s using containerization, I wonder what “tightly integrated” really means. Anyway, I’ll look it up, thanks!

  • @[email protected]
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    1615 days ago

    After having a similar feeling as yours I went for NixOS.

    My thoughts then : if it breaks I can rollback, and the unstable channel is quite comparable to what arch offers.

    Now : I’ve moved to stable channel, because it’s updated enough and allows me to only deal with breaking changes twice a year. Moving to NixOS was time consuming (but fun) because it required to rewrite all my dotfiles and learn something new.

    • @[email protected]
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      315 days ago

      What issues did you have? One of the many awesome things about NixOS is that you can write overrides for any particular package if you need an older version, or even to change some options.

  • Carl [he/him]
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    1116 days ago

    This is what drove me to Debian. I like stability, I don’t need cutting edge, simple as.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      016 days ago

      Debian is my go to for setting up a new server because of the stability and project longevity.

      The excitement of features from the cutting edge gives me free energy to start new projects that I don’t experience if I wait for the stable release.

      • @[email protected]
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        215 days ago

        The excitement of features from the cutting edge

        I don’t understand how Debian limits that. You can use Debian for your distribution BUT for whatever you want to be cutting edge, use whatever alternative method you want. It can be alternative package managers, e.g. am but if you want the absolute bleeding edge, go on the repository of the project, get a specific branch, build, install, use. That’s absolutely no problem with even Debian stable.

        I’m genuinely confused at comments implying that have a stable distribution means having outdated software.

        • @[email protected]
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          115 days ago

          For me, at least, that feeling is because I just like knowing my software is up to date. Only rarely do I come across an issue that is solved by a newer version, but that’s just me I’m sure. I definitely see the appeal to not having to think about your desktop applications individually.

  • @[email protected]
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    14 days ago

    So to be clear, you are willing to upend your entire system and potentially your workflow because a single package update was mishandled and because somebody was a little too direct on a forum?

    Have you considered Mac OS? Yes, I’m being snarky, but the Linux world isn’t fully user friendly. If you’re unwilling to roll with the punches, it may not actually be for you.

    EDIT: I guess tough love from somebody who ran slackware from a stack of physical representations of save buttons is unwelcome. Noted.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      814 days ago

      You’ve got it right. I appreciate the directiness of the forum moderator because it was a clear signal to me that the Arch community doesn’t value my experience at the level I would like.

      Supporting iMacs for 8 years taught me Apple doesn’t value my experience either. I’m happy to upend my system and workflow if it means I’m a step closer to living in the world I want to exist. Most of my life is chosen for me so I want the decisions I have control over to be meaningful to me.

      • @[email protected]
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        414 days ago

        I’m truly sorry that’s the takeaway you got from all this. My (attempted) point was along the lines of “Linux is still the wild west.” If you’re looking for appreciation from random people on the internet, you might be in the wrong place.

        Most of my life is chosen for me so I want the decisions I have control over to be meaningful to me.

        I get it, probably more than most (my handle isn’t random). But from that very perspective, IMO you have to be able to withstand a few assholes and pick your battles. An asshole in a forum that isn’t even replying to me specifically doesn’t exceed that threshold.

          • @[email protected]
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            314 days ago

            Heck, I’m feeling that vibe through this whole thread. I weep for the time these folks get to Senior or Associate levels - if they manage to.

            • BETYU
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              212 days ago

              i have no problems with assholes on the internet i find them very entertaining i like the wild west. but i would also like for my computer to work. it just seems the wrong attitude to have for the situation. there not fucking windows with an almost monopoly i find it just very counterproductive and maybe just don’t be like windows in any way. its very bad for first time users that don’t know there is more then 1 place to find info or a solutions. i just don’t respect anybody that sniffs there own farts its just funny.

    • Amju Wolf
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      1514 days ago

      I’m being snarky, but the Linux world isn’t fully user friendly. If you’re unwilling to roll with the punches, it may not actually be for you.

      I guess you’re an Arch user, but this is exactly the wrong thinking. Yes, stuff sometimes break for pretty much every distro, but that doesn’t mean we should dismiss people who want stuff to “just work” (which OP went above and beyond). We should absolutely strive to not break stuff, and if it does be humble and polite. Unless you literally want Linux to never become mainstream…

      And btw I’ve been using Fedora for ages now, don’t have to follow anything, and when stuff breaks they are generally apologetic about it and try to fix stuff.

      • @[email protected]
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        414 days ago

        Yes, I’m an arch user. But that’s not the point. Even using something like mint, you still have to pay attention. Someone who’s not willing to do that needs a curated operating system. Simple as that.

        I also like to watch locally hosted videos from time to time. I also had the problem with VLC. 10 minutes later I had my answer, the problem was fixed, and I went on with my day. I didn’t need to whine about the attitude of someone providing free tech support to someone else, and I didn’t whine about a simple package adjustment.

        I’ll say it again. Linux isn’t for everybody. Not yet. It still takes a little bit of grit.

        • @[email protected]
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          1414 days ago

          So you’ve acknowledged the same issue, and instead of offering a solution to their issue, you decide to criticize them. They even said they’ve used Arch for 5 years. That’s not a small amount of time to be using an OS. You are what’s wrong with the Linux community, not OP.

          • @[email protected]
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            314 days ago

            OP already said their issue was resolved. My response is to the amount of grit OP is showing in their reaction.

            You are what’s wrong with the Linux community, not OP.

            As you like. The grit to find and create one’s own answers is what started the platform. Use it or not, blame the ones who came before you or find your own answers. It’s all up to you. I’ll be nothing more than an unpleasant memory in a day or two.

        • @[email protected]
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          1014 days ago

          I don’t think the answer OP got falls under “tech support” (there would have had to be support for that). Additionally I don’t think anyone should be subjected to whims of authority figures, regardless of project. Being nice is free

          • @[email protected]
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            314 days ago

            Then you and OP might consider spinning up your own distribution from scratch, because one of the basic facts of life in this world is this: As long as you’re taking advantage of the fruits of somebody else’s labor, you’re also subject to their “whims”.

        • BETYU
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          212 days ago

          i don’t really care about being rude. but just saying Linux isn’t for everybody seems stupid to me because this has nothing to do with Linux itself. its about the people you depend on to get your information and no Linux user benefits from making Linux smaller because of attitude on a forum i never got this. i liked arco linux because you had a video for every problem you don’t need a forum moderator to tell you anything if you can see the problem and the solution. seems the best way for everybody to learn and that should be the whole point the rest is just people sniffing there own farts. https://www.youtube.com/@ErikDubois

    • @[email protected]
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      614 days ago

      IMO, you didn’t say anything untrue nor offensive. People just can’t handle if some people straight up tell them world isn’t just a walk in the park ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

      • @[email protected]
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        414 days ago

        Thanks. I have more to say from a long perspective on the subject, but I feel like I might shatter a few psyches along the way.

  • @[email protected]
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    1116 days ago

    Gentoo, honestly.

    The community is much more friendly, the system is probably more arch than arch. The downside is compiling, but big packages have binaries now, and small packages build and install just about as fast as a binary distro.

    Good hunting!

    • @[email protected]
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      216 days ago

      This might be the answer really, Gentoo is my favorite distro in theory. In practice I’m a lazy ass that just ends up installing binary packages for everything and missing the AUR.

      • @[email protected]
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        115 days ago

        I’m lazy too!

        Gentoo stable scratches that itch quite effectively.

        Front loading though, that’ll take some work!

    • @[email protected]OP
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      416 days ago

      Thanks for the suggestion. I enjoyed how much I learned from picking out packages to get Arch working. I’m getting a similar excitement reading about Gentoo use flags. Giving it serious consideration.

      • @[email protected]
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        815 days ago

        The problem with Gentoo is that you can’t install anything in a hurry.

        Run VMs on Arch:

        1. pacman -S virt-manager
        2. Done.

        Run VMs on Gentoo?

        1. Read the Wiki
        2. Find out which USE-Flags you will want
        3. Fnd out the dependencies it’s based on (QEMU), read that Wiki entry too
        4. See what USE-Flags you want
        5. See what Kernel options are needed. Recompile Kernel if changes were necessary.
        6. emerge -av app-emulation/virt-manager
        7. See if you have read the Wikis of all dependencies.
        8. Install.
        9. Read the dependencies wikis for how to set things up.
        10. Done

        Yes, this is an extreme example, but many large packages are a bit like this.
        That’s why you will tripple-check if you really need sonething before installing it on Gentoo, or you are like me and install Boxes in a Flatpak instead.

        Personally i like Gentoo more than Arch because of all the buttons and knobs, and once it’s set up it does not need more time than Arch, but installing stuff is sometimes hard.

        • @[email protected]
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          115 days ago

          I loved Gentoo, it was the first distro I actually stuck with for more than a couple months, I used for 7 years or so.

          I went to arch because something broke (probably my fault) and I needed to write a paper that was due soon, and compilation of the required software took too long, so I switched so it wouldn’t happen again. Arch was sold to me as “Gentoo with binaries”.

          That being said I think you’re being unfair. I read the Arch’s wiki before installing unknown packages, mostly skimming, just like I did with Gentoo but Gentoo’s docs were somewhat superior. The docs were one of the things I missed.

          Most of the time I didn’t read about the use-flags, except for big packages like Gnome. I only changed the use-flags if I knew for sure I wouldn’t use that functionality, so all the maybes and what-ifs still got compiled. TBH fiddling too much with use-flag feels like a newbie thing. On Arch there are actually more steps: I install the big multi-packages then uninstall the ones I don’t want, because those are less than the ones I want, and I don’t risk missing something.

          On neither Gentoo or Arch I read the docs of the dependencies unless there’s a specific reason.

          Same goes for the Kernel. Don’t disable things you don’t know about, enable all things you maybe will use and all the what-ifs. Once I knew what these were, setting this was quick and simple because they are actually just a couple options.

          All that only has to do once, because once you know, even if you reinstall the OS you don’t have to investigate again unless something goes wrong because of changes.

          The community of Gentoo is great! Arch’s community is okay.

          With both Arch and Gentoo you have to learn about the system and make choices. With Gentoo you have to make more choices but making them and learning is easier than Arch. If OP used Gentoo this would have gone smoother.

          • @[email protected]
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            114 days ago

            I agree that the Gentoo wiki is almost always better than the Arch wiki (and would recommend it to any user), but i really doubt installing complicated packages is remotely as hard as on Gentoo.

            While i have never used Arch before, i did use Manjaro, and there stuff was always just install the package and be done. I never had to alter the Kernel config, and all program features were just there. I also had VMs on Manjaro, and i do not remember any manual configuration (though that was many years ago, so maybe i misremember).

            Recently i wanted to encode a video in ffmpeg, but it didn’t work. After a bit of searching i found that the codec requires a use-flag to be set. Classic Gentoo moment.

            It’s not that i dislike Gentoo. In fact i do not consider returning to Arch (but i might switch to NixOS if my Gentoo install breaks). But i wouldn’t switch to any other distro.
            It’s just that Gentoo is configured in a way that is so minimal by default that even basic use-cases require changes in the Kernel config: systemd? Kernel config. Bluetooth? Kernel config. LUKS? Kernel config. Amdgpu? Yes, exactly. BTRFS? Yes. Blender? Yeah OK, that goes without kernel config.
            And the worst about the Kernel config: You don’t know which values are set by default. You might just end up in nconfig realizing that the values were already set.

            Then there is the instability in the distKernel (which i use). I think i started with Kernel 5.10LTS ish. Every upgrade went well until like 6.1 LTS, when Emerge complained about i think module ordering or something. It would not emerge a newer Kernel any more, which made me reset my Kernel config and redo it entirely because i thought Kernel 5 and 6 configs might be incompatible. That worked (somehow) until 6.6 LTS, which i wanted to install at version 6.6.6 LTS. But emerge complained it could not install it. I waited and ignored the update, and eventually got trough at version 6.6.20 or so. After that it refused to update again, which made me blacklist all non LTS kernels. I am now on 6.12 LTS, even though i am not a LTS guy, simply because i don’t want the hassle.

            And still, after all of this effort for being minimal, it boots in like 20s, while Arch does it in like 3 or so. Gentoo hates me.

      • @[email protected]
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        15 days ago

        Gentoo certainly teaches you a lot, but I would never recommend it to an average user. If you want to get any benefit from use flags for any packages, you will be compiling them from scratch and possibly their dependencies as well. Small packages are pretty fast, sure, but if you try to do something like compile Firefox, you could be waiting all day for that if you don’t have a Threadripper or similar.

        Practically, unless you run exotic hardware you’re unlikely to get any actual tangible benefits from tweaking most use flags on most packages. Which begs the question of why you’re using such a low-level distro in the first place…

        Idk maybe I just didn’t get it, but my month of running Gentoo was mostly just annoying. Again, great learning experience, but didn’t make sense to me as a daily driver. It feels like it’s for people who want to pore over the detailed patch notes for every package on their system, which is clearly not OP.

        NixOS gives me enough control over how individual packages are configured if I really want it, but in a way that stays entirely out of my way until I specifically want to fiddle. I’m not saying NixOS is any better for a new user, but as a pretty experienced one I found it more rewarding once I understood the ecosystem.

        • @[email protected]
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          115 days ago

          I’m a social worker, not a CS major.

          Firefox, binaries.

          Benefits, community and flexibility.

          Basically what OP is asking for, yes?

  • @[email protected]
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    yeah i had that happen to me too, didn’t look in the update screen because updates before went with a breeze but i took another look after VLC wouldn’t play anything, it was something with the VLC plugins and i needed to reinstall those, just had to do sudo pacamn -S vlc-plugins-all to get VLC to play video files back, but man, that should have been in the news imo.

    • @[email protected]
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      715 days ago

      I had the same issue, hadn’t found the solution yet (also didn’t looked too hard) and while I sort of agree that it should have been in the news I also understand why it’s not (it only affects people with VLC, and not everyone uses VLC, if every time a package gets split it was in the news the news would be all about that). That being said I think that there were other solutions that would have been much better, namely split the package with a mandatory dependency on vlc-plugins-all and convert that to optional dependency in a month or two, that way everything keeps working as is for people during the transition, but after a short while it can be modularized.

      • @[email protected]
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        314 days ago

        Even better would be to automatically install vlc-plugins-all for people upgrading, so that it preserves the existing behavior.

        • @[email protected]
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          114 days ago

          Yes, that’s what I said, but AFAIK the only way to achieve that is to make it a mandatory dependency.

  • @[email protected]
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    2716 days ago

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_astonishment

    Someone should inform whoever made that change. If a package is split in a new release, the initial state should match the final as closely as possible, in this case by installing the new optional dependencies automatically. (Although I’m not sure why they’d want to split everything out like that anyway; no other VLC distribution does that, so splitting is itself a violation.)

    Maybe Manjaro might be an alternative? I haven’t personally used it. I don’t like this kind of surprise, so I stick to boring distros like Debian. I used to use CentOS but it was too boring.

    • @[email protected]
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      1216 days ago

      Manjaro is significantly worse with updates breaking.

      I used for a little while in 2018 and again in 2019, both times ended because it once became stuck in a boot loop after updates, and another time couldn’t boot after updates.

    • @[email protected]
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      115 days ago

      the initial state should match the final as closely as possible, in this case by installing the new optional dependencies automatically

      Sometimes. Some of us out there have use cases where we really, really don’t want our systems making choices for us and would rather read the notes every time. One could equally well argue that an OS whose entire purpose is letting the user make the choice suddenly doing something automatically without asking for input is the break in state that users would find astonishing.

      • @[email protected]
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        115 days ago

        I’d say you want Linux from Scratch then, but even then the Linux kernel maintainers are making choices for you.

        But Linus is very firm in that they never break userspace, so you should never see an issue like this when updating the kernel.

        • @[email protected]
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          115 days ago

          Not necessarily

          Had a kernel update which couldn’t read a specific HDD controller chip. Since then I always install LTS version along with regular just for booting up if the kernel upgrade fails.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      416 days ago

      You just gave me words for something that was previously just vague internal grumbling and emotions.

      Manjaro knows how to aesthetically please me with their color choices and background art. I’ve got a negative impression from various podcasts and forum posts but I’m realizing I need to look into that more because I can’t recall specifics besides something about a past issue with package distribution.

      • 𝕛𝕨𝕞-𝕕𝕖𝕧
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        15 days ago

        i would recommend against manjaro or endeavorOS and such similar arch based distributions. they’re neat and more stable but have similar issues sometimes, for example the manjaro maintainers are generally known as pretty egregiously irresponsible.

        arch is kind of a clusterfuck. the user experience is really poor for a modern linux distribution and the community has an insular attitude of calling everything a skill issue.

        i used and maintained a bunch of arch systems for a long time. if you do this you inevitably end up using AUR packages, as some utilities a normal person would use for home and server shit are only available through AUR. updating gets fucky and it’s way more annoying bc you end up needing to constantly read long ass changelogs bc some dude changed the formatting in one UI element and pushed to main at 3AM and it won’t just updated with -Syu or similar args.

        i was talking about this earlier on lemmy as an example of terrible UX and all the arch fanboys came to downvote me and write paragraphs in droves talking about how it’s actually just the user’s fault for using the AUR and that i don’t know how pacman works. one guy claimed it’s like Debian PPAs. uh no, the AUR is far less optional lmfao. and i do know how yay and pacman work, i had no trouble, i was just pointing out it was annoying to deal with constantly when using a system like a normal person.

        when an OS has no user in mind when designing it… it’s kind of a shit OS and apparently forms a shit culture around it too, in my experiences the past few years on the internet.