this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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A major distro breaking your system is the equivalent of a flower pot falling on your head walking down the street. Does it happen? Sure. Do I want to spend my life wearing a motorcycle helmet and looking up all the time? No.
I'm not saying distros can't crap on you, I'm saying stop tolerating it. Raise a stink or switch distro. There are distros out there where you don't have to live in constant fear and where nothing happens if you don't have snapshots.
I do have backups, precisely because shit happens. But there's a difference between a helmet and health insurance.
Okay what distros are we talking about? What's an example of an unreliable one and what's a reliable one?
I think it's much more complicated than this. Honestly there's a reason it took decades for Linux distros in general to get as stable as they are today. It's really really hard to build an operating system.
I think a better analogy for installing updates on linux would be riding a motorcycle. Accidents happen all the time. They're bound to, be prepared. Just because you can ride for 30 years unscathed doesn't mean you can take that for granted.
.deb distros are doomed from the start if you need to use third-party repos (which you do, for a desktop system) because they always end up undermining the stability of the packages from the core repos in the long run.
Try an Arch-based distro, they're super stable because their compatibility model is more robust, and there are options depending on how much hand-holding you want — ranging from vanilla Arch to Endeavour to Manjaro.
Ya know, this is super interesting you mention Arch. The only person I've known IRL who uses and loves Arch champions it hardcore but with the caveat that you have to be okay with things breaking due to the rolling release model. Due to his guidance I have avoided arch specifically. I've been running Ubuntu based distros a couple of years and only had issues with updates breaking things like 2 times... Both of which didn't require a wipe or anything.
Packages can break, not the distro. Packages can break at any time because there's thousands of them and nobody can check all of them thoroughly. A rolling distro gets you both the bugs and the fixes faster.
Non-apt and non-rolling will limit your options considerably.
I might be confused. I thought that the distro itself was made up of packages and that's what all updates did: update various packages bundled with the distro (plus any you installed yourself)
My 2 cents, OpenSUSE Leap is stable as hell. lots of QA happening with their automated testing, and keeping in lockstep with SUSE releases (now sharing same binaries). Every distro upgrade has gone flawlessly, but when I have had the urge to tinker and do stupid things inf config files the built in btrfs snapshots have been a godsend.
What you wrote and what I'm reading about openSuse leap sound excellent. My only concern is support. Just about all the apps and tools I use are well supported on Ubuntu based systems but I don't recall seeing nearly as much support for rpm based oses, including open suse . What's your experience? If you go to install just any random software you just heard about, how well does it typically go getting it installed/working?
I haven't had issues finding packages, often they may not be on the dev websites that host a deb package, but the main repos contain the general tools, if you need something more "fringe",independent dev or new, then software.opensuse.Org allows you to turn on a search by community or experimental packages (which would be like Arch AUR and contains a lot of rpms) so you can install directly from the website, it will add the neccessary community repos during the install. Or if you don't want to pollute your repo list they typically they have the option : Grab Binary directly. Or ther is an OPI ? Package you install that lets you search locally for community packages. For commerical apps like teamviewer , yubikey,webex etc the rpms were all available to support corporate SUSE users. If you still can't find an rpm, then you run the Alien tool which converts a deb to the RPM installation format. The only issue I had once was the community package had dependencies that were not contained in the users repo so I had to find the dependencies and install those first. That felt like 1990s
This is a great response and I appreciate it a lot. I'm saving it for later!
No problem. Happy New Year. Also it is .org i mistakenly put .com for the opensuse software site. ( I will edit post) Also I should mention if you dont see an officially supported rpm on the software site, it does not mean it isn't there, it now seems to mean it is in the main repos. I think years back they would all show, but maybe due to shared binaries with SUSE they don't bother listing on the https://software.opensuse.org site. So best to check locally in the YAST or Zypper search of your repos first.
Thanks again! And a happy new year to you too