May I suggest that from now on, in every Post 1 of every Stable Release Update Announcement, you insert the following line at the top of post 1:
“ALWAYS READ POST 2 FOR POTENTIAL ISSUES AND THEIR SOLUTIONS”
While most people who actually read the announcement threads know about post 2, this caption will hopefully head off those who just give post 1 a cursory glance and then get into trouble when updating (eg those who have been making posts about how there are no instructions on how to do this upgrade to plasma 6).
Of course this isn’t going to help those who don’t even read post 1…
An all-caps comment in first post is likely to encourage users to post all-caps responses
With the benefit of hindisght:
First post could have had a warning for KDE users to update via TTY
Manjaro Team or forum regulars could have been quicker to get KDE solutions in post#2
But latest Stable Update announcement has 395 votes but only 118 clicks on the link to Mirror-check service so many users are probably not reading all of first post
I didn’t update my partner’s Xfce system on stable branch until this morning because it was massive as per Philm’s post (2.5GB >530 packages) but pamac found a really fast mirror. No issues except for merging mkinitcpio.conf.pacnew
But when the poll shows 60% vote ‘no issue’, it could be “squeaky-bum time” for any DE
and not easy to spot issues with other DEs with so much chatter from the KDE claque
People that do not read will not read, and any amount of warnings do not help. We see it everyday with aur.
That said, it was a big mistake to pause the updates on stable for 2 months. Not everything in the world is kde, there are many other things that needed updating, completely unrelated. Ok, maybe kde got it’s first patches…but the majority of people complaining have custom configs, and no amount of patching or waiting will help those, the widgets and themes are just incompatible.
However, that 2 months waiting to make a semi-point release has many other side effects. Like gathering many other changes in that time. So much so, that @philm forgot to copy some of the known issues from unstable and testing announcements (like kvantum-qt5). One of the most important changes besides kde was the init and the microcode hook, and the stable announcement said nothing about it. And now i cannot even ask for it, because in a 500 post topic about “my icons are off” nobody in his right mind can find anything.
I agree. There comes a point when you accumulate too many updates, and a person facing problems with an update may find identifying the actual offending package(s) difficult. Like finding a needle in a haystack.
Long ago when SolydX was still based on a “managed” Debian Testing (exactly like how Manjaro Stable updates are handled), they had the same problem. They would withhold updates for so long that there were always too long a list of potential issues due to the huge number of packages being updated.
I understand that sentiment, but in my view, it is always better to close all loops, tie all loose strings. What’s the harm in making it expressly clear in post 1 that there are (hopefully) the potential problems and their solutions in post 2?
Some users might actually heed the warning and benefit from it. While those who see the reminder but ignore it, have one less thing they can complain about.
I also created the original known issue post in Testing update 2024-03-16 based on comments from pheiduck and yourself:
IMO there should have been a notice in post #1 for KDE users:
KDE users are recommended to log out of desktop and update via TTY
Any other issues could be dealt with in post #2 faster if there wasn’t a KDE dogpile
A long delay in stable updates is always likely to happen when a new ISO is due for release
But a delay also allows more time to draft update announcement and copy Known Issues from Testing Branch
I believe Manjaro’s forum should open with http://forum.manjaro.org/latest
There are all your current issues, update announcements as well as the problems people having with them and their solutions.
Bookmark that, hit it when there are updates and you know what’s cooking. Would be nice if people could open that link with a click on the ‘update notifier’ icon in the task bar.
It seems to me it’s as good a suggestion as any; even if it’s only effective for those users who would read if they saw it. For others less inclined, I agree with the (as yet undisclosed) opinion reasoning from @Mirdarthos .
Then maybe im in the opposite camp, im thankfull for the long delay and the update went total fine on both of my Manjaro/KDE system’s, which had all kinds of customisations (that im not reverted) and the home user’s didn’t reseted cache or configs at all for 4 long year’s.
The main problem was the people who didn’t read “Known issues and solutions” and the delayed wiki entry was the other big problem.
I joint Manjaro 2020 and i slightly remember there was a nvidia package rename that lead everyone to the TTY after the stable release update.
This was my second Manjaro update and forced me the first time to deal with TTY to delete and reinstall the nvidia driver
If i remember right, there was a POPUP Bar (it was almost looking like a Cookie-Banner) at the TOP/Head of the Forumpage showed up that pointed straight to the problem and what to do. This was 3,5 year’s ago if my brain is still working correctly.
I think this POP UP Info is missing right now… i never saw this Forum Feature again.
But that will not help with the underlying problem identified by new and inexperienced users:
lack of helpful and timely information in Known issues and Solutions
Anyway, too late, got my bookmarks set to ‘latest’ since I found the regular portal too convoluted; e.g. for ‘Support’ it’s ‘Hello! >> pick one of 11 >> then pick one of 15’, which would kill me.
This is funny - as I generally just run an update if there isn’t a low percentage of issues (e.g. once 6 folks upgraded and only 1-2 had issues, and they’re NVidia users - then juz go for it…).
Then it’s a VERY good idea to check the thread before posting, because that’s when you’re gonna show yourself up.
A bit like the endless stream of people complaining about the update to Plasma 6, which is actually much better than many of the Plasma 5 updates etched into our memories… simply because they didn’t clean up.
From my point of view there was one downside to everything being rolled up into a huge update. The fact that with the major Python update arriving in the same update as a major KDE update meant I had two things that needed a lot of manual intervention at the same time. Life would have been a bit easier without that, though it’s certainly not the biggest problem I’ve ever encountered on my computer.
Links to categories and sub-categories do not need the category index number: Support - https://forum.manjaro.org/c/support Software & Applications - https://forum.manjaro.org/c/support/applications Third-party Applications - https://forum.manjaro.org/c/support/third-party-applications
This topic appears to have the same problem as other recent topics. Some users are not responding to OP question but are responding to the usual type of question that has been asked before (straw man fallacy)
All I wanted to do in the original post was to suggest to @philm that Post 1 should always make reference to Post 2.
To me, statements like “people who don’t want to read, won’t bother anyway” don’t make sense. The suggestion is not targeted at those people, because you can’t help those people regardless. Instead, it’s targeted at those who didn’t even know about post 2 and might have been reading it if they had known.
Just because something cannot help 100% of all users, doesn’t mean it is not helpful at all.
After all, it will take very little effort just to add in those few words in post 1.
KDE users are recommended to log out of desktop and update via TTY
Or just click the avatar at the top right and choose Prefs-Interface