Most issues like these are recoverable manually, but Timeshift takes away most of the headache from the process.
You gain a lot more understanding from manually fixing entirely recoverable problems though. Something like Timeshift is more like a last resort sledgehammer tool.
I’ve always thought of dependencies as equivalent to dlls. Is that right?
Usually, but not always. Most of the times a dependency is a software library contained within a shared object file (a .so file), and that is indeed analogous to a dll.
A dependency can be other things as well though, like a specific program that a software package depends on being present. For example, the handbrake program to reencode videos will call ffmpeg under the hood. So naturally ffmpeg is a dependency.
Why is Linux so fiddley with dependencies?
I don't think it is? I mean, software depending on external shared libraries isn't exactly a Linux only concept, and if anything I think most Linux distros' ways of handling dependencies are superior.
The main difference with Windows is that third party software tends to bring their own dlls for anything that's not a standard part of Windows, which is wasteful because of duplication, and less secure because the included libraries may be out of date and contain known security holes.
On Linux, distributions usually have every library under the sun in their repositories, managed by the package manager and kept up to date by the maintainers. As long as you stick to software included with your distro, or software packages for your specific distro, dependencies should be resolved automatically by the package manager. For example: if you download the Google Chrome .deb file, and install it with apt-get, it will pull in all the dependencies it needs to run.
If you go outside of that, for example compiling software yourself, or downloading non-distro specific binaries, you will have to take care of dependencies yourself. Perhaps that's what you mean with the fiddly bit.
Exfat4
this hurts my brain
Very simple, they learned not to care and the ones who did care got weeded out.
Ragebait gets more clicks.
Surely you mean poop lights?
But also I thought Linux distros normally keep the old Kernel around after an update so stuff like this doesn’t cause a boot failure?
Arch has no concept of "previous package", so it doesn't do this.
You could install linux-lts (or one of the other alternative kernels) side by side with the linux package, so you always have a bootable fallback, but like most things on Arch it's not enforced.
Power outages do happen, and I'm pretty sure 90% of the people on this community are not using an UPS.
Given enough users and enough time, it's inevitable that a power outage will happen to some people at an inopportune moment, like while updating an important package like the kernel.
Blaming the user for this is not fair, it's just dumb bad luck.
That said, OP could have done a bit more to fix the issue instead of being an angry man yelling at the cloud. When you're using Arch, the expectation is that you are able to fix relatively simple problems like this, or that you're at least willing to learn it. If you find yourself getting angry when Arch doesn't hold your hand, you probably shouldn't have chosen Arch.
arch-chroot your mounted root filesystem/bootmkinitcpio -p linuxSteps 1,2 and 3 are the entry way to solve all "unbootable Arch" problems by the way, presuming you know what needs to be changed to fix it of course.
Still better than a light sensor in a communal bathroom... outside of the stalls. That's how it is at my workplace. If I spend a bit too long pooping, and nobody else comes in to poop at the same time, I end up in the dark. Then when I have to wipe, I have to either risk opening the stall door and wave into the room, with my dirty ass hanging out, hoping nobody happens to enter the bathroom at that time, or wait patiently for someone to come in and reactivate the light. Makes me wonder how blind people check their wiping: do they go on flavor or smell?
$100 though ... a Chromecast used to be like $35.