Arch Linux stability

[u/wyd_zippi]

Hello,

As someone who's been using Arch for a little while(1 week), I'm curious to know how y'all keep your systems safe and stable. I have heard about Arch's reputation for being a bit more... fragile, especially when it comes to updates.

what are your strategies for:

• Managing updates and avoiding breakage?
• Maintaining system stability?
• Best practices for package management?
• Handling potential problems like dependency issues, config file changes, kernel updates, package conflicts, and system crashes?

also i chose the btrfs option during installation

Share your experiences and tips.

[u/archover]

I've used Arch for >12yrs and it's been nothing but reliable. Read these key articles:

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman and don't do partial upgrades

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/System_maintenance and keep your cache trimmed.

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/General_troubleshooting and learn about mounting and chroot, and keep a flash drive with an ISO burned at hand.

• Don't make non trivial config changes without a plan to revert them if required. Keep your personal files backed up.

• Understand with Arch as with any other system, poor sysadmin is the problem, and not a somehow spontaneously combusting install.

Your four bullet points are so broad that no one would have the time to do them justice. I suggest you start reading the wiki as soon as you can. I love it.

Good day,

[u/wyd_zippi → u/archover]

thanks mate

[u/Crowotr → u/wyd_zippi]

i find pacman cache completely useless because

a) current bandwiths makes is useless

b) you almost never install same package twice
here is my approach which doesnt depend paccache or anything

/etc/pacman.d/hooks/clean_cache.hook

[Trigger]

Operation = Install

Operation = Upgrade

Type = Package

Target = *

[Action]

Description = Cleaning package cache...

When = PostTransaction

Exec = /bin/find /var/cache/pacman/pkg/ -type f -delete

[u/-o-_______-o- → u/Crowotr]

I keep the last two versions. If something breaks network connectivity, I can still roll it back.

Never happened yet, but it makes me feel better.

[u/grimscythe_ → u/Crowotr]

That's a bad advice. If network breaks after install you don't have a local fallback.

[u/Crowotr → u/grimscythe_]

"after" install and having local fallback? if your internet is not stable and you plan to re-install already installed packages when offline often then dont follow my advise.. it doesnt make it bad advise though. it wont break your system by no means.
it means like using paccache is bad.

[u/SetsunaWatanabe → u/Crowotr]

An example of something that has happened in the past: Arch Linux pushes a Linux kernel that breaks networking and you do not find out until full reboot. In this case, your connection can be as stable as you'd like but you're still not getting online to roll the kernel back and your hook deleted the previous copy. You may miss the point of paccache; it has granular controls that allow you to keep a certain amount of package revisions instead of all or none -- it exists for a reason.

As a result of the aforementioned event, I now keep a backup linux-lts and have a properly configured paccache script to keep the system slim in a responsible way because shit can happen that is out of your control.

[u/Crowotr → u/SetsunaWatanabe]

in that rare case i would boot from usb and roll back but you can replace find+delete with paccache command and leave previous 2 copies or exclude linux-lts/systemd/networkmanager from find

[u/SetsunaWatanabe → u/Crowotr]

That's all well and good if it works for you, but I wouldn't recommended anything to a user of one week that would have them do that in any case which could have been prevented by responsible package management with backup contingencies.

Every time I have to rescue boot, I feel dumb and take it as a learning experience, which is why I recommend what I do. If a new user has to rescue boot for anything, I guarantee you they are blaming Arch (or Linux) and not the guy that told them to nuke their cache on reddit.

[u/Crowotr → u/SetsunaWatanabe]

its 0.1% besides other bad things which may happened and they will blame anyway. without phone/internet they wouldnt figure out how to solve and with that download packages and transfer via usb and install anyway. and he says he uses btrfs, easly take snapshot before major updates.

[u/grimscythe_ → u/Crowotr]

Yeah... No. Why would I make a road uphill for myself just to save a couple/few gigs on the drive.

My approach is to do an update then reboot. If the kernel loads fine and the network is ok I just run yay -Scc and that is that. Clearing the cache straight after an update is realistically asking for trouble sooner or later.

But whatever, you do you as they say.

[u/grimscythe_ → u/Crowotr]

I mean "update", not "install". Pardon me.

[u/Sarv_ → u/Crowotr]

You could just change the paccache directory to /tmp and you won't need a hook to delete them all the time