This is not a rant about elitest arch-using neckbeards (I am one!) being mean on the internet. No, the Arch Linux Subreddit is horrifying because it was a little too hot at times.

I’ve been using Arch for the better part of 10 years. It’s been rock-solid the entire time. But I don’t think so. Well, now I understand why. This is a lesson in why no matter how good your software is PEBCAK nullifies all.

As a perfect example consider this thread: How Often Do You Run sudo pacman syu?

This is subtle, but potentially the most offending post in the entire thread. This user is constantly changing. partial upgrade . Esentially they are installing software that might depend on updated libraries that are not present on the system because they are not doing full upgrades. Very bad, and the arch wiki warns explicitly against doing this this exact thing. If I had to try to cause my system to become unstable, I couldn’t think of a better way than this.

It gets better:

This is the way places where I stayed another night with plans to meet the person, but they are installing software that deals with lots of source files easier. Not only of the machine but of Arch’s mirrors. There is so much redundancy in here it hurts. Absolutely unnecessary.

Also in this thread a lot of people saying “never” “every 3 months” or “when something breaks”. I’m not saying you need up update impulsively, but a rolling release distro works best when it’s actually kept rolling. Massive updates only a few times a year can be problematic.

It’s not entirely sure what to do much of anyhting out here, except to work, so its tongue is permanently hanging out, right? But when you hear someone complain that Arch is unstable, keep in mind the myriad of ways it might not be the distribution’s fault.