Yeah, no thanks. I don't want all my packages to break when something fundamental like libpng updates. Again. Or for an update to break just because I didn't update for a month, and then I have to read multiple forum threads to figure out how to unfuck things.
It's not nearly as bad as you're making it out to be. I only vaguely remember a big libpng breakage thing from ~10 years ago--is that what you're referring to?
Also, I often go 6+ months without updating this machine. The only friction I've gotten in years is pacman-keyring updates sometimes need to be done first, before updating the rest of the system because of key expiration from going so long between updates. Recently, they merged the community repo into the extra repo and left community empty for the time being, so the only maintenance I did was to remove [community] from my pacman.conf after running a system update a few weeks ago (again, after months of not updating)--and even that I didn't technically need to do yet, since the community repo still exists for now.
Everyone's use case is different, and I surely don't have the same configuration or packages as you or anyone else, but this kind of comment sounds like bullshit to me.
EDIT: Not that I'm agreeing with the recommendation to use Arch if you used to use Ubuntu's minimal install. Arch is a drastic change compared to just doing a full Ubuntu install and removing a bunch of crap...
>for an update to break just because I didn't update for a month,
I don't understand why people thing infrequent updates will break things. This idea seems to have started spreading a few years ago, but nobody I ask can tell me why Arch would break if you didn't update frequently enough.
Debian mini.iso, with the option to not install additional packages is also pretty minimal, and text-only. You can install your desktop later via apt.
Ubuntu used to have a mini.iso too, and it was almost indistinguishable from its Debian counterpart. Both distros relied on apt, and since these minimal installs essentially just contained whatever was needed to have a working system running apt, they were essentially the same, with slightly different default settings. The biggest difference was the release cycle and the attitude towards proprietary software.
From my experience, Arch is great for messing around with, but not as a daily driver. It is also not the most beginner friendly distro for people looking for one.
Arch's package management tooling is a bit of an unconsolidated inconsistent mess.
As someone who used Debian for decades before experimenting with Arch on my laptop for a few years now, Debian is far more polished and ergonomic in the package tooling.
skrause|2 years ago
debfoster (https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/debfoster) is my favorite tool to keep my Debian installations as small as possible.
jmclnx|2 years ago
I would like to toss out OpenBSD and NetBSD to the minimal list. I doubt nothing is a minimal as these :)
smeagull|2 years ago
ragnese|2 years ago
Also, I often go 6+ months without updating this machine. The only friction I've gotten in years is pacman-keyring updates sometimes need to be done first, before updating the rest of the system because of key expiration from going so long between updates. Recently, they merged the community repo into the extra repo and left community empty for the time being, so the only maintenance I did was to remove [community] from my pacman.conf after running a system update a few weeks ago (again, after months of not updating)--and even that I didn't technically need to do yet, since the community repo still exists for now.
Everyone's use case is different, and I surely don't have the same configuration or packages as you or anyone else, but this kind of comment sounds like bullshit to me.
EDIT: Not that I'm agreeing with the recommendation to use Arch if you used to use Ubuntu's minimal install. Arch is a drastic change compared to just doing a full Ubuntu install and removing a bunch of crap...
boomboomsubban|2 years ago
I don't understand why people thing infrequent updates will break things. This idea seems to have started spreading a few years ago, but nobody I ask can tell me why Arch would break if you didn't update frequently enough.
GuB-42|2 years ago
Ubuntu used to have a mini.iso too, and it was almost indistinguishable from its Debian counterpart. Both distros relied on apt, and since these minimal installs essentially just contained whatever was needed to have a working system running apt, they were essentially the same, with slightly different default settings. The biggest difference was the release cycle and the attitude towards proprietary software.
robotnikman|2 years ago
weberer|2 years ago
BillyTheMage|2 years ago
pengaru|2 years ago
As someone who used Debian for decades before experimenting with Arch on my laptop for a few years now, Debian is far more polished and ergonomic in the package tooling.
activiation|2 years ago
stevebro|2 years ago