this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2026
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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If you update once or twice a week, chances are there are literally hundreds of packages to upgrade every time. There's no chance someone will look into every single one of these packages to verify what could potentially 'break' their system or not. They just upgrade the whole thing and THEN, if something breaks, they work around it.
As someone who uses CachyOS daily as my main distro, I wouldn't install it on a device for someone that doesn't want to do some maintenance from time to time. Maybe I wouldn't go as far to say that it is UNSTABLE, but point release distros such as Mint or Debian are definitely more stable and require much less maintenance. Rolling release distros are, naturally, much riskier.
That's the thing though, what breaks? I haven't had anything break in 10+ years. Guess I'm lucky? Or other people are really unlucky/careless? Where is the discrepancy coming from, between this notion of Arch breaking for everyone all the time and it not happening for me? Or is it just simply a legend of a bygone era? I hear it was worse like maybe 15 years ago. Maybe Arch hasn't shaken that image, still.
I mean, Steam Deck is based on Arch ffs. You can have it "stable" if you like. Why choose that distro if there's so much "inherent risk" with it. It's a solid distro if you know how to control yourself and your actions IMO.
SteamOS uses an immutable filesystem, and Valve curates the snapshots of the packages before pushing them to the end user. That pretty much removes the entire issue we're talking about, and is completely different than running rolling release distros.
It's the same thing as postponing updates though, isn't that right? I mean, essentially, it is. Right? You pick when you update the system. Minus the curation aspect, of course. But they don't push updates very often, do they.
It wasn't the best example though, of course. 👍