Hi guys.
I am still enjoying Manjaro Stable. Amazing as usual.
To start, I care most about stability, stability, stability. But I see Manjaro Stable much better than those other “stable” distros.
But theoretically because it is a rolling release and has newer software, breakage or problems might occur.
So, to have theoretically better stability I was just thinking to make bash script to check for updates and check if like 7 days (or 2 or 3 or whatever days) have passed since the updates have been published then install it after this period have passed since publication.
Would this give better stability?
Any serious bugs or breakages would be not there if 7 days have passed since published?
You got my point?
I just want to delay updates a little bit as I am sure if there are serious bugs/breakages for sure developers would attend to it and fix it within this time period.
My final question and the core question, What would be the reasonable delay to be sure I won’t ever have a broken, non-functional, or unbootable system? Only 1, 2 ,3 or more days?
This way, I think I will have the most stable ever system while being the amazing rolling release Manjaro Stable as well.
Read the Stable Announcements threads carefully. After an update, there is typically a myriad of issues (serious or not) that arose from the update.
You could delay how long you want, there is no golden rule. Three days might seem like a good idea. However, certain security updates are more important, so as always: there’s a tradeoff.
(If you delay updates, it’s not a rolling release, but hey, semantics )
So, I just delay the update for just 3 days, this would be enough for the kind of breakages I want to avoid? Specifically unusable system or unbootable system.
Well, just for the sake of discussion with smart guys, for me I see “rolling” is the technology of never need to install the system not about how fast I get updates. That is, I don;t mind waiting for a year or even two then get an update/upgrade just as an update without installing! For me, I would call this “rolling”
there is no one policy that fits all requiring your requirements (mostly stability). if you are on well supported (mature) hardware. and you dont experiment, you should not be worried about breakages with regular updates (as in whenever it is available in the stable branch.
however some effort in preventive maintenance goes a long way in avoiding such. that includes reading the relevant announcement thread for the branch to see what other users are encountering on such updates, and if you have the time to spare seeing what other users in other branches have gone through before. needless to say merging configuration files whenever there are new setting is essential.
I was just thinking of a way to just update automagically.
I think I will make a bash script to check the publication date and install only if it is 3 days or more ago as @mithrial suggested.
Being on Stable makes me feel safe initially as developers are doing a great job. But I am a bit paranoid when it comes to stability.
I was on Debian stable fore a while but hate that many apps are not in their repos, on EndeavourOS, which I enjoyed, but preferred Manjaro as it seems much better for my taste and that it uas a stable release. So it has the best of both worlds.
I would love to make it even more stable and feel more safe by delaying updates.
Thank you guys for everything.
Great distro and a great community.
If unsure, Just wait 2-3 days after update bunch becomes available, then check the announcement topic, by then the known problems and solutions will be populated and you can read what to expect.
Thanks a lot @Teo
I just want to avoid reading the announcements.
I think just delaying for 3 days would be fine!
As I am on Stable, which is stable by definition, I am just adding an extra precaution by delaying the updates for 3 days.
I think this is enough for serious and critical bugs to be sorted out.
As my current installation I did some time ago on another laptop I am on default repos. I do not prefer or use AUR, community repos, even appimage, I don’t use any of this.
I don’t think a mere delay is sufficient. Often, when a problem is “sorted”, it means a solution has been found, which would require the user to DO SOMETHING, rather than new “corrected” packages being pushed to the repos. So if you want to have a script blindly run the upgrade command for you, you will eventually run into trouble.
Further, I guess that if you can’t even be bothered to read Upgrade announcements on the forum, you are not going to bother to maintain your system - another big issue.
I don’t think you can expect to never face an issue at all if that is how you wish to run Manjaro.
Let me clarify, the community repo was default. For over a year, the new default is not using it (it’s empty) but people have to manually merge the new pacman config.
This example should visualize that reading the announcements is important! Defaults could change and they don’t (generally) just override your old defaults.
A new user who is not willing to spend a few minutes each month properly maintaining their Manjaro system might be better off switching to a fixed-point-release distro:
This part of the above is very important:
3. Manjaro requires a commitment to monitoring the forum
For every bundled update, regardless whether it’s for the Stable branch, the Testing branch or the Unstable branch, and regardless whether it’s for the x86-64 architecture or for the aarch64 architecture, the Manjaro Team will always publish a dedicated announcement thread under the Announcements category.
The first post of this thread details the changes that the update brings.
The second post of this thread lists all of the potential problems, as well as how to solve them or work around them.
It is also important to remember that, occasionally, some of those potential problems need to remedied by the user before they do the system update.
I just want to confirm:
I am not that newbie
I am not that lazy
I am not that stupid
The point simply is I just want to add extra stability or security.
To be honest I mainly wanted to avoid me sometimes being a bit sleepy, not really focusing perfectly and I do an update that might break things.
But I read the announcements and the whole forum in general.
It is just a little bit of extra caution.
I am sure Manjaro Stable is stable enough, but it is worth it to add little more by delaying the update for 2 or 3 days just in case I myself do a mistake.
That’s fine - waiting a few days ensures that any issues not picked up by Unstable & Testing that make it through to Stable will probably have a new post in the updates thread.
It was your comment about wanting to avoid reading update announcements that caused concern.
And the comment that the OP wanted to have a script automagically upgrade their system for them. I don’t see how that adds to the stability OP desires, when he/she does not wish to read announcements.
For all of you guys.
I simply misexpressed myself.
I will reword it. I want to avoid “me” missing something when reading the announcements for being sleepy or not really focusing. I said this in a previous post.
It is all about me not being focused, sleepy, or mistakenly just updating without reading w mistake. Sorry a bit old man here.
You know what by the way, I have the link to the announcements bookmarked, first thing to the far left in my bookmarks.
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