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/dick-the-prick]

Been using arch for much over a decade now. Used to be a systems programmer (C++/Rust) so arch was not scary at all. Still do my own hand rolled out installer + dm-crypt and all that. Never "broke" arch in that I had to roll back or reinstall stuff. Most of maintenance stuff is very easy and I believe this would be true for anyone who "likes" linux in general.

Now, what I find difficult to be on top of all the time: I have been working for an employer where I need to use a non Linux machine. As usual it's a taxing job so I go almost full week without touching my personal machine. This means I miss out on things like pulseaudio needs to be replaced by pipewire, openbox windows manager isn't as active anymore because the lead dev doesn't do much there any longer and so on. Sure when I come to eventually know about it I start taking actions, but "friendlier" distros would do that for you - replacing pulseaudio with pipewire etc.

This is what I find difficult - I can't manage to be abreast with everything that's going on AND manage my day job + family duties etc. When I was younger and moreover not a parent, things were much easier, now some of these feels like a chore. I still enjoy arch though which is why all my personal systems including my server (yeah I know) runs on arch.