Rolling Release Linux Distro Probably Isn't For You

Key Takeaways

I like Arch Linux I love the Aur but I especially love the concept of a rolling release Linux distro I really can't see myself actively daily driving anything else with that being said a rolling release is not and shouldn't be for every single Linux user just as a basic definition a point release a static release a stable release whatever you want to call it like Ubuntu like Fedora these are distros where updates will come in but every six months every 12 months whatever release cycle it's going to be using you download a whole new version of the distro with a lot of updates being applied as opposed to a rolling release where you can download newer versions of the iso but there is no 21.04 Arch Linux there is no 20 e1.10 you just get updates as updates are released and you can do this until the end of time so before grabbing your first rolling release there are some very important considerations to be had don't worry though they're not really anything that serious least seriously but great for your sanity is do you have a good download speed do you have a connection where you can reasonably download frequent updates do you have five megabit or 50 megabit do you have a one megabit or a hundred megabit you don't need to have a gigabit connection to use a rolling release reasonably I've been using one since I had about 20 down and that worked perfectly fine basically every day there are going to be new updates to install how often you should install them is kind of Up For Debate some people will say every single day some people will say every two days once a week once every two weeks you don't really hear that much more than once every two weeks once a month you start getting into that range where problems can start to occur they may not but I would avoid I would generally say at least update once a week and unless you're planning to do it overnight with a really slow connection I would just avoid rolling releases in general if you can't update in a reasonable time but if you choose a rolling release like Gen 2 now you have another problem not only do you need to download things you also need to compile the source code so if you don't have a good CPU I would not recommend using Gen 2 now some people do use Gen 2 on a PS2 it can be done but unless you have nothing to do with your life is not the best option one of the main reasons you might want a rolling release is you like to run really new hardware whether it's a new GPU new CPU new printer really anything out there where drivers might be an issue not only Hardware that is new for you Hardware that is new to the market generally more often than not this Hardware is completely non-functional on many point releases out there usually you can get away with stuff on Ubuntu because Ubuntu is Ubuntu and when there are instructions you know it's going to be written for Ubuntu but in most cases that will require a lot of user intervention driver compilation kernel compilation and patching all of this stuff that is not really that fun to do whereas over on a rolling release in many cases the first day the hardware comes out the patches and everything you need to do are already gonna be available on a rolling release you just plug the hardware in and you're good to go now I don't want to make it seem like it's always like that in many cases see the 7900 XT and XTX on launch those were kind of a mess everywhere on the flip side let's say that you rely on software that is constantly being updated constantly getting new features added that for whatever reason you want to get access to sure you could go and compile it yourself but why would you do that when the software is just in the repos on a rolling release with all that being said not every update you get is going to be a good update don't forget on Linux we are not generally dealing with these big corporate projects have these big QA teams that can make sure everything is good on launch even then a lot of the time stuff is still broken but it's at least the thought that counts on Linux we are generally dealing with volunteers running fast projects in many cases it's like one or two people that are making a project and then your distro it might have like a team of people but they don't have enough people to cue everything usually it's one guy making a package and sometimes something will be missed so if you are going to use a rolling release you have to accept the fact that you are basically a beta tester for the rest of Linux sometimes it'll be a minor UI bug sometimes it'll be fundamentally broken occasionally it might break your entire system you know let's just hope that one doesn't happen but you were pretty much here to make sure things are functional so it's highly recommended that when you run across bugs you do report them but a lot of the time the bugs you find are already going to be reported especially if you're a bit late on doing your updates sometimes in some cases of semi-frequent basis you will be the first person to come across a problem and when you are good luck finding a solution sometimes there'll be a solution that is related to an older problem but a lot of the time you pretty much just have to sit there being like well I guess I can downgrade a package but I don't really know what else to do if this is your daily Drive machine this can cause some pretty serious problems but there are some mitigations you can put in place say for example the OBS package is malfunctioning I can try a different version of it if is malfunctioning I can try a different version of it if there is a kernel issue in the main kernel I can swap to the LTS kernel don't rely on a single thing that you have to be using give yourself some ability to move around if you need to for whatever reason there are many cases where it will catch you off guard and there's not much that can really be done about that besides just trying a roll back we cannot forget the admittedly rare but the most fun you have in any day of your life a system breakage or manual intervention there will be situation where you update your system and it isn't as simple as just running Pac-Man Dash syu or whatever the command is on gender or anything else out there there will be cases where you run the command and something goes wrong either it throws some errors telling you that you can't form the update you perform the update and it breaks something fundamental on your system and you're just sitting there being like I don't know what's going on now for major issues most sensible distros will document the issue for example back when grub was breaking everyone's system that was being documented not on Arch Linux but on uh the distros based on Arch Linux or when there is an issue legitimately stopping a package from being updated usually there'll be information on that but for many other things you will be left completely in the dark wondering why the update won't work or why things are broken luckily you have the internet and there is a lot of people in places like r slash Arch Linux r slash void Linux the various forums for the distros and usually someone there is going to be like hey I have a very similar problem to what you have what's the deal here and a lot of the time there will be some that explains it but as I mentioned with the earlier thing occasionally you'll be the first person to spot it and you'll be the person making the post over the couple of years I've been using Arch Linux there have been Maybe two or three major things that haven't just been explained by the distro these admittedly were pretty major things and I did hold their feet to the fire but it's not like this is something you're gonna run into like every day every week every month it's gonna be like a once every year or two kind of thing if these things don't apply to you or the issues seem like really major issues they'll completely stop you in your tracks do not use a rolling release go and use a semi-rolling release like pop OS go and use a Point release like Fedora or Ubuntu but don't use a rolling release it is not going to be worth the hassle however if they do apply it to you and maybe the issues seem like a bit of a challenge and seem kind of fun to you maybe then it's worth your time in my case I like my main system running Arch Linux in the end it's basically content when something breaks I can talk about it I wouldn't really get that if I was using something like Fedora silver blue but if I had a machine that had to be a work machine that had to be fully operational running like a web server I wouldn't be using Arch Linux unless it's for a joke or when I eventually get around to setting up a capture PC I'm probably not going to use Arch on that I'd probably just throw Ubuntu or something on there like that I would just be installing the OBS flat pack anyway it doesn't really matter what the bass is but as always it's your PC I don't really care what to do with it but you have been warned so let me know your thoughts in the comment section down below uh do you use a rolling release do you use a Point release what do you use do you even news links do you have any idea how you got here maybe you're like a Windows 11 or Mac OS user I would love to know so that's gonna be it for me if you like the video go and like the video and if you really like the video and you want to become one of these amazing people over here go check out my patreon scrub selling therapy Linked In the description down below that's gonna be it for me and I'm out [Music]