I have long taught that there are (at least) two computers; the one you tinker with, and the one you use for actual productive work -- "Don't tinker with the production machine".

So I have Debian Stable on the servers, and on the main laptop, and on the travel laptop.
If I have a machine I put Arch on, I don't expect the installation to survive more than a few days because it's a machine to experiment on (although I'm just as happy experimenting on a non-prod Debian machine).

@JaggyJeff
Give MX a try - I've found it to be "just the thing" for a lot of desktop and laptop installs.

mxlinux.org

Debian since 2001.

Tried Mandrake, Red Hat, etc, but Debian remained as the best choice for desktop and servers.

Around 2003 Knoppix was my portable system, because I didn't own a laptop.

Later (2007) switched to Kubuntu for desktop, but debloating every new installation.

Nowadays Debian remains as the best choice for servers, and Proxmox for virtualization.

I’ve noticed that people often confuse stability ( = doesn’t change) with reliability ( = doesn’t fail). These are two different software attributes.

From my experience having a stable system, like Ubuntu LTS, can leave you with stale bugs that were accepted and will never be fixed (I’m not going to say a word about Debian because I haven’t used it much). Personally, I choose reliability over stability, as I get irritated by bugs but I like new features. I suspect this is also the preference of majority of users.

OTOH, on rolling release distros you get bug fixes as quickly as any new features and as quickly as new bugs as well. The truth is that reliability doesn’t depend on the release model. It’s rather a matter of testing. Testing strategy may influence the release model yet it’s not a direct dependency.

26 years ago.

lists.debian.org/debian-sparc/…

I use Arch as my daily OS, I update once a week, I can't remember the last time I had to do anything manually, it works pretty reliably.

I used Debian for years before Arch, I switched because of KDE that was always out of date and I specifically choose Arch because I liked their wiki.

On my home server I still use Debian because I want to forget about it. They're different, but good in their own ways.

Yep. There's a reason why nobody uses Arch for servers or production workstations.

I use only one operating system at home, on my servers and at work: Debian Stable

maybe I'm doing something wrong but I haven't had any notable issues with Arch...

I few problems like network crashes etc. that remedy with `sudo pacman -Syu`; also I once managed to lock myself out somehow typing my password, although that was likely a PEBKAC issue 😅

I hear this sentiment a lot, but I don't get it. I've been using #ArchLinux as my daily driver for years now. Yes, it's true, I ‘feed it pacman -Syu’ every day, but that's really all I have to do — and honestly, if it was actually a big deal for me I would just automate this. I've never had to deal with broken dependencies, nor has a new kernel ever broken anything. There was one brief period were yay stopped working but I just reinstalled it, and it was fine.

Just to be fair, I don't do anything fancy with my computer — I pretty much just code and check my emails — so maybe if I were doing something more complicated then I would see problems. But used as a regular laptop I've found that Arch presents very few problems.

I've even been able to run a few games from #Steam in the past, without any issues, though I don't do that too often.

Maybe you have specific examples in mind?

Debian stable for my servers.
Debian Sid for my laptop.

The Best of both worlds

Ironically that's what using Ubuntu and Debian felt like before I switched to Arch. It always broke you never could just add some project from github as it required newer libraries. And when I run into software issues they almost always were fixed upstream 5 or 10 years ago.

But these days I'm at NixOS though.

Swore by Arch for years, loved the ABS and the AUR, but when I built a home server the maintenance started to become more and more tiresome.

Replaced it with Ubuntu Server LTS a few years ago and haven't looked back ever since.

I also replaced it on my desktop with Bazzite, as I use it mostly for gaming, and connect to the server over ssh for work.

All irony aside, you're exaggerating wildly when it comes to regressions. I've been using it for four years now on several clients and I was honestly surprised that it doesn't show more regressions than Ubuntu LTS (which I used for 15 years prior).

Still, Arch and its hyped derivatives have no place in the hands of beginners.

This feels needlessly antagonistic.

Maintaining Arch isn't that hard. I do it on my gamingPC without really even thinking about it. I am admittedly fairly technical, but it's not remotely as difficult or time consuming as you're describing it.

I understand that this is intended as a joke, but it just sorta comes off as mean spirited.

i needed a good laugh today

Will share this with my brother who keeps on about arch linux

Emm Archlinux是不错的 你的观点也是正确的 绝望的是作为一个极客玩具，本应该被高技术人群使用，然而在中国，它马上与“嘉豪”文化深度绑定了（嘉豪：指中国有些人他自己本来不强，但通过招笑的行为强行把自己包装的很强，以满足虚荣心，从而引起嘲笑），现在是我这种正经用户有时会被称为“嘉豪”，而“嘉豪”的人却准备用它装自己很强。未来，如果这种情况不的以缓和，可能有大量计算机小白涌入Archlinux（哪些小白甚至连Ubuntu都没用过!!!），届时社区会面临巨大的压力，充斥着无意义的提问，而且我们这些正常用户也会受到攻击。我自己很担忧这种情况。我不确定这封帖子是否能被注意，只希望宣泄一下情绪。

注：“小白”：指新手

Arch Linux since 2012 on my main work machine. At the start there were some system changes which required manual intervention but really nothing since then. I only do a reinstall when I change hardware.

But for servers it's Debian, also home server and raspberry. 🍥 ❤

hey man, there's no reason to make fun of each other, you don't need this, they don't need this.

it also deserves to note that SteamOS is based on Arch; it's a hugely popular distro that has arguably added a lot of Linux gamers to the Linux camp.

We're all in this together. No need to kick someone while they're down. it's just useless infighting in the end.

If Debian ends up in a bad place due to targeted hacks, wouldn't you get tired if people started suggesting Arch to you?

@lukaszcjokiel
I saw KDE somewhere around 2004, and as we know, the most important is the first impression. 😉

@nixCraft