[dathinab]

I've been using Arch since ~8 years and at least for me updates breaking stuff is rare, and every time it happens there was a simple easy work around the problem (like downgrading for a day or two at which point the bug was fixed).

Through without question a major reason why the (few) problems I did ran into haven't been a problem was due to my understanding of Linux.

The is the misconception that Arch is bleeding edge, it's not. It's the latest stable releases of the software it composed of. And at least for my use cast the amount of headache it reduces by doing so far outweighs the amount of problems I ran into (which are in my experience few, and iff you have the necessary skills normally easy to work around).

[simion314]

I believer you, what I dislike is those people that push everyone into Arch and omit to add the things you added.

I bet that a vanilla LTS where you only update for security reason is more stable and risk free.

[dathinab]

Tbh. I would never directly(1) recommend arch to anyone for a simple reason, it requires some linux/unix skills to be worth it.

If you have the skills I don't need to directly recommend it to you, you already know it.

If you don't know it you likely don't have the necessary skills.

Through by being opinionated about the choice of packages and way of setup and adding a QA Team, more CI and slightly delayed (non-security) updates (like 1 day or two) you probably could produce a grate experience even for casual users. Hm, but then as a company producing a custom Linux distro is rarely worth it and often special purpose enough to not care about the benefits this approach would bring.

(1): But still indirectly advertise it.

[simion314]

I don't think a rolling release will ever work for casual users, there are too many configurations of hardware and things you might not know people are using, some package update could affect someone printer and you cost this person a job opportunity.

You would at least have to block the AUR on such a distro, there are too many patched kernels/packages there and too many recommendations to install X from the AUR.

Then you have the GUI chnanges in apps, it is too frustrating to make the user learn weekly some new GUI workflow because app X decided to improve stuff.

Arch has a great use case for people that actually need latest stuff and for the people that just really want the latest stuff to satisfy their appetite of checking new features.