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The Arch Linux paradox. To update or not to update. (lemmynsfw.com)

submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by [email protected] to c/arch

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Does updating more often make things break more often? Or does updating less often make things more likely to break when you do finally update? Or do things randomly break regardless and there's not a damn thing you can do to prevent it either way?

If anyone else is having problems with the latest updates making their ax200 wifi speed capped at 3.4mb/s and has found a fix that doesn't involve buying new hardware or reinstalling the os, I would love to hear it.

I would like to think installing new updates will eventually fix the problem but I've never seen updates fix anything Iike that ever, not even once.

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[–] BetterDev 2 points 9 months ago

Ah yes, I know the feeling well. I know it sounds crass, but I see this as one of the features of Arch.

Solving this will teach you things about your computer, and computers at large, that you'd otherwise never encounter.

If your box breaks due to updates often, one of two things is wrong:

You have a brittle install that relies on low quality or conflicting packages
Your procedure for updating needs refinement

Let me tell you what I mean by that:

if you build a lean system that only contains the necessary dependencies for your use case, it should be easy to track down where your issue originated.
- Use dmesg or journalctl to search for problems
When you update, you should read the output of your terminal and respond to it. It will typically let you know if there's any issues.

I wouldn't be half the sysadmin I am today if I hadn't spent literal weeks fixing things I broke by upgrading, changing something and rebooting, or similar practice.

The next level is finding the commits to the FOSS responsible for your problem, and pushing the fix yourself.

That being said, there have been several occasions when Arch will post an update on their homepage titled "Manual intervention required". Following the contained advice, if you're affected by the issue, will usually be the easiest path forward.

I know you came here looking for answers, I'm sorry, I don't have them for you. What I do have is encouragement, and the wisdom of someone who's gone through the same gauntlet you're going through now. Stick with it. You will succeed if you try hard enough, and it is worth it in the end.