Any reason not to just use yay? That’s an alias for yay -Syu, which in and of itself, at least if I understood it correctly, is basically just pacman -Syu and from what I’ve read on the arch wiki-Sy is heavily discouraged.
yay in the example was used to install an AUR; not to update the system which is what you are talking about. And the discouragement you speak of -Sy applies only to pacman upgrades, not AUR helpers. The only reason the y is discouraged in the wiki when installing a package is because it fetches updated data from the repos which might lag the rest of the system (and potentially the resulting dependencies if any). Most of the time it is not a concern as most (quality) software is made to be backwards compatible anyway.
There are so many software devs that package AURs because Arch has made it easy for them to do so. No need to give examples if you are totally fine with your brand of distro.
But whether you’ll hit the minor snag OP memes about depends on your software needs.
I’ve been using Arch for over a decade now. On a laptop, desktop, VPS and now it’s also driving Steam OS on the Deck. I had very little problems with it compared to our Ubuntu setups at work that randomly break on updates. Ubuntu is not as bad as it used to be but from my experience (i.e. the way I use it), Arch has been more stable and reliable.
I haven’t tried not touching it for years to be honest. Longest period without a reboot was something between half a year and a year and it worked without a problem. Check the Arch website, breaking changes or manual interventions are very rare nowadays. There’s just one thing you have to do if you start an update after a long time: make sure to update the keyring first or pacman will exit with an error. That’s also mentioned in the wiki.
I installed Arch on my server because:
I know it very well.
The base system is tiny. Fewer packages = fewer problems. Everything else is in Podman containers anyway.
It’s very flexible. I have a customized encrypted rootfs which needs to be unlocked through SSH, not a very common thing I guess.
No, you need to do system maintenance on Arch at least once a year if you don’t do it after each update. You need to merge configs (I love etc-upgrade from gentoo for this) and find and delete orphaned packages left behind by the rolling release that are still on your system.
But then your installing it locally. The benefit to containers is they can be deleted.
This does not make any sense in this context. Or anywhere else if you want to get real pedantic.
Also Arch is a unstable mess and requires updates way to frequently
Arch can beunstable at times but that’s part of the deal as is with any distro you’ll install and use over time. Requiring updates frequently is also not a valid argument against Arch as you can choose when to update.
Arch ships to new of packages for my comfort. This leads to breakages if you don’t read the update notes. I want my system to stay updated automatically and Arch causes to many headaches.
Software updates can potentially cause issues in general. This situation is not unique to Arch.
There’s nothing wrong with a rolling release model where you get newer software that’s closer to upstream. In most cases, you get security updates faster and in some instances you get bug fixes & new features from upstream that will take weeks if not months to hit “stable” distros.
Not as easy or as convenient as
yay -Sy appnameit actually is, you just append the distrobox command before it
distrobox enter arch -- yay -Sy appnameA simple
yay -Syfrom Arch btw takes less computing power and doesn’t depend on an external dependency.Any reason not to just use
yay? That’s an alias foryay -Syu, which in and of itself, at least if I understood it correctly, is basically justpacman -Syuand from what I’ve read on the arch wiki-Syis heavily discouraged.yayin the example was used to install an AUR; not to update the system which is what you are talking about. And the discouragement you speak of-Syapplies only to pacman upgrades, not AUR helpers. The only reason theyis discouraged in the wiki when installing a package is because it fetches updated data from the repos which might lag the rest of the system (and potentially the resulting dependencies if any). Most of the time it is not a concern as most (quality) software is made to be backwards compatible anyway.But then you stuck with arch. I’ve never had any software that wasn’t a flatpak or in the Debian repos. I use Fedora.
I would say you are stuck on Fedora too, what is your point?
There are quite a number of them, hence the reason for OP’s meme.
Really? I honestly have never had that problem. Can you name a few? (I’m completely serious. Don’t take this as sarcasm)
There are so many software devs that package AURs because Arch has made it easy for them to do so. No need to give examples if you are totally fine with your brand of distro.
But whether you’ll hit the minor snag OP memes about depends on your software needs.
But then your installing it locally. The benefit to containers is they can be deleted.
Also Arch is a unstable mess and requires updates way to frequently
I’ve been using Arch for over a decade now. On a laptop, desktop, VPS and now it’s also driving Steam OS on the Deck. I had very little problems with it compared to our Ubuntu setups at work that randomly break on updates. Ubuntu is not as bad as it used to be but from my experience (i.e. the way I use it), Arch has been more stable and reliable.
I have also had issues with Ubuntu. I just stick with Debian because I don’t have to touch it for years.
Can you do the same with Arch? Also why do you need newer packages on a server? (I’m taking about the VPS)
I haven’t tried not touching it for years to be honest. Longest period without a reboot was something between half a year and a year and it worked without a problem. Check the Arch website, breaking changes or manual interventions are very rare nowadays. There’s just one thing you have to do if you start an update after a long time: make sure to update the keyring first or pacman will exit with an error. That’s also mentioned in the wiki.
I installed Arch on my server because:
No, you need to do system maintenance on Arch at least once a year if you don’t do it after each update. You need to merge configs (I love etc-upgrade from gentoo for this) and find and delete orphaned packages left behind by the rolling release that are still on your system.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/System_maintenance
This does not make any sense in this context. Or anywhere else if you want to get real pedantic.
Arch can be unstable at times but that’s part of the deal as is with any distro you’ll install and use over time. Requiring updates frequently is also not a valid argument against Arch as you can choose when to update.
Arch ships to new of packages for my comfort. This leads to breakages if you don’t read the update notes. I want my system to stay updated automatically and Arch causes to many headaches.
Software updates can potentially cause issues in general. This situation is not unique to Arch.
There’s nothing wrong with a rolling release model where you get newer software that’s closer to upstream. In most cases, you get security updates faster and in some instances you get bug fixes & new features from upstream that will take weeks if not months to hit “stable” distros.
That’s fine if you like that kind of thing. However it isn’t for everyone
Sorry to be a grammar nazi but that’s the second time and it annoys some of us. It’s literally a different word with a different meaning!