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Realizing Arch isn't for me after updating broke VLC (lemmy.sdf.org)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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I realized my VLC was broke some point in the week after updating Arch. I spend time troubleshooting then find a forum post with replies from an Arch moderator saying they knew it would happen and it's my fault for not wanting to read through pages of changelogs. Another mod post says they won't announce that on the RSS feed either. I thought I was doing good by following the RSS but I guess that's not enough.

I've been happily using Arch for 5 years but after reading those posts I've decided to look for a different distro. Does anyone have recommendations for the closest I can get to Arch but with a different attitude around updating?

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[–] 29 points 1 year ago (3 children)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_astonishment

Someone should inform whoever made that change. If a package is split in a new release, the initial state should match the final as closely as possible, in this case by installing the new optional dependencies automatically. (Although I'm not sure why they'd want to split everything out like that anyway; no other VLC distribution does that, so splitting is itself a violation.)

Maybe Manjaro might be an alternative? I haven't personally used it. I don't like this kind of surprise, so I stick to boring distros like Debian. I used to use CentOS but it was too boring.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Manjaro is significantly worse with updates breaking.

    I used for a little while in 2018 and again in 2019, both times ended because it once became stuck in a boot loop after updates, and another time couldn’t boot after updates.

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  • [–] [S] 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    You just gave me words for something that was previously just vague internal grumbling and emotions.

    Manjaro knows how to aesthetically please me with their color choices and background art. I've got a negative impression from various podcasts and forum posts but I'm realizing I need to look into that more because I can't recall specifics besides something about a past issue with package distribution.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago*

    i would recommend against manjaro or endeavorOS and such similar arch based distributions. they’re neat and more stable but have similar issues sometimes, for example the manjaro maintainers are generally known as pretty egregiously irresponsible.

    arch is kind of a clusterfuck. the user experience is really poor for a modern linux distribution and the community has an insular attitude of calling everything a skill issue.

    i used and maintained a bunch of arch systems for a long time. if you do this you inevitably end up using AUR packages, as some utilities a normal person would use for home and server shit are only available through AUR. updating gets fucky and it’s way more annoying bc you end up needing to constantly read long ass changelogs bc some dude changed the formatting in one UI element and pushed to main at 3AM and it won’t just updated with -Syu or similar args.

    i was talking about this earlier on lemmy as an example of terrible UX and all the arch fanboys came to downvote me and write paragraphs in droves talking about how it’s actually just the user’s fault for using the AUR and that i don’t know how pacman works. one guy claimed it’s like Debian PPAs. uh no, the AUR is far less optional lmfao. and i do know how yay and pacman work, i had no trouble, i was just pointing out it was annoying to deal with constantly when using a system like a normal person.

    when an OS has no user in mind when designing it… it’s kind of a shit OS and apparently forms a shit culture around it too, in my experiences the past few years on the internet.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    the initial state should match the final as closely as possible, in this case by installing the new optional dependencies automatically

    Sometimes. Some of us out there have use cases where we really, really don't want our systems making choices for us and would rather read the notes every time. One could equally well argue that an OS whose entire purpose is letting the user make the choice suddenly doing something automatically without asking for input is the break in state that users would find astonishing.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I'd say you want Linux from Scratch then, but even then the Linux kernel maintainers are making choices for you.

    But Linus is very firm in that they never break userspace, so you should never see an issue like this when updating the kernel.

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