> I've tried both, Arch Linux will routinely hose your entire install if you don't carefully read the update notes every time (even if most of the time there is no call to action for you). Unless it has changed, this is still the expectation of users.

I'm honestly not quite sure what you're talking about. I've been using Arch as my daily driver for maybe 5 or 6 years, and I don't recall ever having my installation messed up from an update. Arch is fair bit along the spectrum of being a "build your own system from the ground up" type of deal though (although not quite as far along as something like Gentoo), so I don't doubt your experience, given how much two Arch installations can differ.

I've had Arch on 3 servers for 5-6 years also and only had a couple of incidents where Arch updates messed things up.

But one of those was a big compatibility breaking one that I hadn't done the prep for (because I'd missed the whole lead up for various reasons and was months late on the update anyway) and I still can't really explain the other.

Compared to Debian which I managed to break many times in the same time frame...

> Compared to Debian which I managed to break many times in the same time frame...

How did you exactly break Debian multiple times?

I've read about people doing crazy stuff, like replacing the default compiler entirely (rather than setting an alternative one) or forcing apt to install incompatible packages... and then complaining that the distribution is not stable.

Non-rolling distros are very very conservative with package upgrades, and they don't "just break", as little changes over a given version.

Generally Debian breaks come from a mission critical software that isn't really available and requires package updates beyond what your version does or from trying to force an update. Also twice dpkg just shat the bed for no reason, but that was 7 and 8 years ago.

> How did you exactly break Debian multiple times?

Alas, I can't remember exactly what happened but it was the late 1990s/early 2000s - no crazy stuff involved, just things getting confused / crashing whilst doing updates and leaving things half-arsed and broken.

Back in those days it wasn’t unheard of. Good ol’ dselect!

You started using arch after it became stable. I've been using arch for a decade and Voxl's description of a `pacman -Syu` just completely hosing your system used to happen a lot more back then, but I haven't had an issue like that at all in the past 5-6 years.

> NixOS promises stability, you just walk back to a previous version! Alas, i've had NixOS hose _all_ of my previous versions because of X server issues.

I'd love to hear more detail about this, because `nixos-rebuild switch` is not capable of causing such a problem in a permanent way.

(It can arise temporarily, though, if you switch to a new configuration without rebooting, and that configuration requires a different kernel than you are currently running. Rebooting and choosing your old configuration at the bootloader menu fixes this.)

You spend upwards of 33 hours per week maintaining your Arch/NixOS system?

I've run Arch for years and this in no way resembles my experience.

Yes, Arch requires you manage and maintain your system, it's not a "just works" thing, but that's a few minutes of work here and there, it mostly just chugs along.

As to hosing your install, I've never had even the threat of that. Yes, you should check the news before doing upgrades to make sure there isn't something that requires your attention, but it's not exactly a big deal to check an RSS feed before you run an update command.

> I highly recommend staying away from Arch and NixOS if you're not ready to commit upwards of 30% of your work and free time fixing and tweaking your box.

I started using Arch back in 2011 and Manjaro (Arch-based) in 2018. Besides a day or two of initial setup, getting things how I like, I spend ZERO time tweaking or fixing my installation. Your warning simply does not match up with my experience.

Also an Arch user, I've saved countless hours running it. I tried Ubuntu, Fedora, and Suse. Arch has given me the least amount of problems.

I have my home server/router running Arch, update maybe 5 times per year, only one time a non-critical service(redis) failed to start due to a default config option change. I originally meant to run Debian on that, but when I bought the hardware, it's pretty exotic for Debian's old kernel, and Arch ran great.

I also have a Pi2 running Arch ARM at my mom's house, doing one or two updates per year when I visit her, also failed only once, and that's because of a corrupted SD card.

I'd admit I'm usually a bit nervous typing pacman -Syu on those two, but it's doing surprisingly great.

You’d probably have less overall risk on upgrades if you actually did it more often. A couple of times a year can result in quite a jump when using a rolling distro

I meant I didn't have any trouble DESPITE the fact that I upgrade it only a couple times per year.

I never read the update notes and the only time I've ever bricked my Arch system was by pulling the power chord during an update. I probably could have recovered from live cd, but it didn't seem worth it.

I bricked my system once due to not reading release notes (but that was closer to 2010 than 2020). Release notes were kind enough to outline solution for systems broken due to not reading the release notes.

However, I stopped using arch mainly because I was working with ROS at the time, where every boost upgrade triggered half-a-day recompilation of ROS and it's various plugins.