[hnarn]

This isn't Arch Linux we're talking about, it's the presumably tested and released operating system for the most premium personal computing hardware in the world. I'm not saying you shouldn't back up your stuff but your expectation on user behavior is unrealistic to put it mildly.

[dual_dingo]

I am not very experienced with Arch, but my impression is that it is actually more reliable when updating/upgrading then going to a new major MacOS release, which is an absolute disagrace given the fact that Apple can actually test their stuff on every single hardware model it is supposed to run.

And no, my experience on general user behaviour is to expect no backup, but this isn't Auntie Ednas crocheting Facebook group, but Hacker News :)

[jamil7]

> I am not very experienced with Arch, but my impression is that it is actually more reliable when updating/upgrading then going to a new major MacOS release

I used Arch briefly and this was not my experience, but at least in that community it's kind of expected that you understand this is a possibility and a tradeoff of running the OS.

[qwerty456127]

Use Manjaro then. It's a polished and reasonably tested Arch (roughly saying kind of like what Ubuntu is to Debian). Never had a single problem with it.

[pharmakom]

Ubuntu… polished? Ha!

[qwerty456127]

There always is a huge room for subjectivity, edge cases and other critique in this. But generally saying I'd say yes. My experience mostly is about desktop/laptop (non-gaming, on-board video only) though.

[heurisko]

Same. The Ubuntu long term support releases are quite conservative.

I did find the Unity interface more polished however.

It seemed like Canonical did a lot of UX research, to make things like the "power off" button adjoin the corner of the screen, so you could imprecisely flick the cursor and know it has hit the target. It also worked a lot better under old hardware.

I still use Unity with community support. It's a shame, I think as I remembered seeing the Unity interface at work sometimes and thinking that Ubuntu was making inroads.

[simion314]

>I am not very experienced with Arch, but my impression is that it is actually more reliable

It is only an impressions, Arch fanboyus will quietly try to fix the mess and blame themselves for the bugs, only some honest users will tell you straight in the face "never update Arch without first reading some news page and never update if you don't hve the time to rollback and fix shit".

[TimeBearingDown]

Both things are true.

Arch is, in my experience, much more stable, and yet you should glance at the news page and run full system upgrades when you could spare some downtime if you had to.

[II2II]

I would only call it a disgrace if the issue did not appear in testing yet appeared for a large number of users or if Apple released and update where problems appeared during testing.

Keep in mind these upgrades are being done to an OS that has a unique history based upon how the computer was used in the past. Issues that did not appear in testing are going to come up after release. Then there is the potential defects in the manufacture of a particular unit or due to how it was handled. In other words, it is legitimate to miss an uncommon fault.

As for Arch, I understand why the warnings exist. That being said, I have found it to be very reliable. I typically attribute it to changes being incremental, meaning that problems are less likely to arise; and due to development being done in the open, resulting in a larger pool of testers before it even hits rolling distributions like Arch (never mind distributions that do their own testing).

[circularfoyers]

I think the notable difference is that macOS has a standard release cycle of about a year, whereas Arch has a rolling release cycle. This why there's more possibility for breakage, as many of the core libraries or other software are likely having their versions bumped. This is based on my knowledge of how most standard release distros function and which I assume is Apple's update policy for software they ship.

Even assuming this is the case, it still doesn't excuse how they weren't able to uncover this in their testing, since they only have to test against their own set of hardware.

[ungamedplayer]

Imagine the hardware that arch has to support vs the hardware configurations that arch has to support.

Makes you think on the QE that goes into the release.

[jonaustin]

Honestly, this is some FUD; I've used Arch for 10 years; upgrading at least once a week, and the only time an upgrade has really messed things up was when they switched to systemd.

Also used Macbooks at work for 10 years, and I'm far more wary of apple upgrades.

[forgingahead]

My expectation for user behaviour is that users, regardless of self-identified tech competency, shouldn't upgrade their OS on the first day of a new release. I find that there's nothing that one can miss out on with a new release.

[seniorivn]

what's the point of a release date if it's not ready? os upgrades do fail, and you better backup before you upgrade, but if it's released, than it means it's ready

[ben_w]

Conversely, I’ve been looking at release notes and — with the exception of security patches and needing the latest version of Xcode for my job — I’ve not actually seen any positive benefit to upgrading since the versions were named after cats rather than places.

On the plus side, at least the most recent security update no longer had me listening to auto-playing YouTube videos in the front tab of Chrome before I even saw the login prompt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVvu94g3iq0

On the down side, the latest security update decided to spontaneously start playing the YouTube video in the front tab of Chrome about 15 minutes ago when my laptop went into screensaver…

[concinds]

> On the plus side, at least the most recent security update no longer had me listening to auto-playing YouTube videos in the front tab of Chrome before I even saw the login prompt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVvu94g3iq0

I had a similar problem, but with resuming from hibernation after the battery goes to 0. When you have FileVault on, that brings you back to the login screen; but Chrome videos started playing instantly. A horrific bug since you can't pause or mute it for a good 10 seconds until you get back to your desktop. Many people have probably been harmed by this bug, depending on what video they were watching last.

[concinds]

Could you share if FileVault was active when this happened to you? I believe the disk is supposed to remain encrypted before you log in, so I can't see how this would have happened on a reboot (or update install) without FileVault being off.

[ben_w]

FileVault was inactive at the time I recorded that, though I still don’t expect this behaviour regardless of file system encryption.

[beagle3]

From my perspective, it means it has been deemed ready for fresh installs — which aren’t uncommon. They have, especially with Apple, fewer configurations to test.

But the probability that they got a good enough sample for system upgrade is very small. Systems that have been in use— especially for a few years — tend to diverge widely.

The users who upgrade should wait unless they are willing to risk the small but not negligible probability that the upgrade will Bork their system.

[hnarn]

> From my perspective, it means it has been deemed ready for fresh installs

I don't think you'll find many "normal" people (i.e. non-developers) that agree with you on that definition.

[beagle3]

Indeed. And those people used to come to me for help when they upgraded their windows prematurely.

[joshspankit]

That used to be the case before everything was connected to the internet: devs would agonize about making sure there were no bugs, because once it was out it was out of their hands.

Games were especially nerve-wracking because a single show-stopping bug could bankrupt the entire company, but I digress.

Now, it’s “Get enough working code out the door so that we can sell copies! We can patch it if we need to!”

[megous]

Software is never ready. It just has some local minimum of known issues.

[egypturnash]

I've been using Macs since about 2000 and that was my reaction too; I remember being very glad I waited a bit after one release that deleted some user's entire iTunes libraries.

[nuker]

> … presumably tested and released operating system for the most premium personal computing hardware in the world.

New tabs in Safari 15 are premium too. Look nice but totally unusable.

[planb]

Those are opt-in in the final (12.0.1) release and the sane tabs are back..

[joshspankit]

You’ve gotten a lot of pushback on this.

Rightly so, I’d say.

As someone who has used and managed all types of Apple products all the way back to Mac OS 7, it is not just my direct experience here but also countless discussions with peers: Every major update has teething pains.

It feels like Apple engineers test only on fresh machines from the factory. The first week is the “release client” test. New OS’, new products, new components (eg: butterfly keyboard), etc. Nothing is immune.

Yes, the marketing says that every detail of every Apple product is flawless however the core DNA of Apple drives them to innovate and you cannot innovate without breaking things. Their white glove motto is “bring it in, we’ll replace it”.

[endymi0n]

Personally, I really didn't regret waiting for 11.1 back then... unfortunately this wasn't the first bugged major release.

While Apple's hardware and product interop is still top notch, I feel way less safe about their grip on low-level and OS technology. For me, the (lack of) handling of their bug bounty program speaks volumes towards their priorities and I'm actively looking for the next platform that I can trust my data to that works out of the box and I don't have to babysit or debug.

[richeyryan]

You don't update OSX before March in my experience. There are always teething issues.

[dsego]

At least on linux you can have /home as a separate partition, which should reduce the risk of losing user data. Unless I'm completely wrong and this doesn't really matter that much during updates.

[jbirer]

bleeding-edge Arch Linux is more reliable than new macOS releases, lesson.

[hnarn]

That's beside the point. Arch Linux makes no effort to appear more reliable than new macOS releases, and there's no reasonable expectation that it should be, even if it is.