Stable channel update frequency

Can you please clarify the Stable channel update frequency.

It used to be generally twice a month which was quite acceptable but in July there were 5 updates and already 3 so far in August.

I really don’t have time to update my OS this frequently.

1 Like

Why are you on a semi-rolling release then? Try a versioned OS instead, there the updates come at a much slower pace.

3 Likes

Because a semi-rolling release with updates generally twice a month has suited me perfectly. Moving to 5 or more updates a month however is a problem.

I am asking if this a a policy change. If so, I can re-evaluate if this continues to work for me.

There never was a policy. Updates to stable branch happens when the team feels that testing branch is ready for production. So if that’s only 1-2 times a month for a while, then that’s what happens. If it’s more often (my preferred one), then that also happens.

4 Likes

Ok, I’ll rephrase the question.

Stable channel updates have come through roughly twice a month over the last 3 years I have been using Manjaro. Is the current increase just a temporary blip or is this trend to more frequent updates likely to continue?

This is a genuine question as I am struggling to find time to allocate to this as I need to schedule sufficient time in case of problems.

If this trend is likely to continue, as you say, it might be worthwhile me switching to a distro that updates less frequently.

if you are ok with voluntarily running outdated software, manjaro has no issue of you updating whenever you feel like it. however there is a distant chance that you run into issues if you skip updating for really long

2 Likes

Nothing is forcing you to update the same day the updates come. Update twice a month like you used to. Update only first Sunday in a month if that suits you. It doesn’t matter.

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Thanks guys for the help. I was concerned about missing updates causing problems but if you think continuing with twice monthly updating will be Ok that will suit me perfectly.

I don’t think it’s not that critical to skip an update or do it once a month! I run Manjaro on several computers at home and work, and that’s what I do most of time, and I’ve never run into any issues! I use pamac update which has worked flawlessly!

2 Likes

From my experience, once or twice / month should be more than ok, generally speaking (depends on what you do). I have a few machines running Manjaro, I don’t do any partial updates, I keep things at a stable configuration until I find time (or until I have to for some reason, usually one app is out of date), I check forum (if things are stable, any major issues), always update mirrors, do -Syyu (I also check kernels EOL handling etc., I keep one stable kernel + 1 or 2 latest kernels), and that works fairly well and isn’t time consuming. I do one machine at the time, not together, I make sure I can restart afterwards (but not always). All in all I’m pretty relaxed about it.

3 Likes

Thanks to all who replied. I feel quite comfortable now just doing a full update twice a month.

What differerence between rolling and semi-rolling exactly ?

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I don’t think there is a clear definition, it’s more that we are kind of a rolling distro but we also do a lot more testing and don’t just keep rolling out the packages based on a strict timeline. We also want them to pass our tests as well. In short, we try to be as close to a rolling distro as we can without breaking too much stuff.

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Manjaro is known as a semi-rolling distro to most folks out there. If you use pure Arch you may get daily updates. However I also hear that some Ubuntu users claim the same. Having such a distro might need a lot of internet bandwidth and speed.

Since upstream is addressing kernel issues, mostly Intel, we had couple of faster update cycles on stable branch too. Additionally Linux Gaming was affected by the EAC issue.

So ya, we had more or less 1 to 2 monthly updates to stable branch, which is the usual speed. testing is more like weekly and unstable can be daily updates, which we won’t announce all.

If I look at my current workmachine I’ve 158 updates still waiting for me to been updated, even I’m at unstable branch. If you don’t have to install new software you can use the installed stack as long as you want.

Pacman you can install partial updates if you don’t do a full system upgrade but just try to install new software as needed. with Pamac on the other hand we automatically upgrade your system, even if you just want to install some like VLC video player only. This is to make sure other packages get also updated and not only VLC which might have been rebuild against some new libraries or other dependencies you didn’t update yet via pacman, hence the app won’t start.

So I recommend to keep the Stable Update Announcements in mind and use our new tool to see the voting status of those, so you don’t have to read up the whole forum posts, but get a feeling if your system might break or not when you would do a full system update. The higher the post rate, the higher there is some to be discussed.

9 Likes

Is it because of an issuue of bandwidth? Personal time spent to troubleshoot if issues happen?

I’m genuinely curious about your use case.

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@philm Thank you for taking the time to give this explanation and guidance - it is much appreciated

@chickengod My question was not due to bandwidth issues - I have gigabit fibre so most updates take less than half a minute to download. My concern was prompted by the personal time needed if problems needed fixing. With the excellent testing the team do, I only experience rare problems but because of the possibility that problems may occur, I don’t do updates if I just have a spare 10 minutes, I do them when I have some flexible time ahead just in case lengthy troubleshooting is required.

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Totally understand. What I do is check the stable announcement threads to anticipate problems and see if their are quick fixes.

Some have gone as far as run Timeshift before updating which I should be doing in practice.

My biggest issue was using optimus-manager before they moved it to AUR. It wasn’t a big problem but reinstalled the whole thing out of convenience than necessity.

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This is the 5th-10th discussion about update timeline (but mostly the other way) and maintenance.
Arch linux is a rolling tinkerer distribution, and so is manjaro (in a curated form).
Why the hell you use arch/manjaro if you have neither time nor desire to maintain it ?
You complain about a to fast update, while hundreds of other users wait for new/bugfree glibc .
Why don’t you inquire about what you are actually using instead of whining and complaining ?

Remember, you are not the center of the world !

These are the dates and number of days of Stable Updates since 2018.

It is interesting to read that even @philm has a different memory of what the update frequency has been. In fact, there was never a “regular” update frequency in Stable channel and a few days between updates has also happened in previous years.

|05.01.2018||
|---|---|
|07.01.2018|2|
|12.01.2018|5|
|19.01.2018|7|
|26.01.2018|7|
|29.01.2018|3|
|03.02.2018|5|
|17.02.2018|14|
|20.02.2018|3|
|25.02.2018|5|
|05.03.2018|8|
|07.03.2018|2|
|14.03.2018|7|
|18.03.2018|4|
|23.03.2018|5|
|27.03.2018|4|
|02.04.2018|6|
|14.04.2018|12|
|28.04.2018|14|
|07.05.2018|9|
|17.05.2018|10|
|26.05.2018|9|
|01.06.2018|6|
|07.06.2018|6|
|10.06.2018|3|
|01.07.2018|21|
|06.07.2018|5|
|13.07.2018|7|
|22.07.2018|9|
|24.07.2018|2|
|06.08.2018|13|
|18.08.2018|12|
|25.08.2018|7|
|31.08.2018|6|
|02.09.2018|2|
|09.09.2018|7|
|13.09.2018|4|
|18.09.2018|5|
|21.09.2018|3|
|08.10.2018|17|
|19.10.2018|11|
|21.10.2018|2|
|25.10.2018|4|
|28.10.2018|3|
|02.11.2018|5|
|07.11.2018|5|
|11.11.2018|4|
|13.11.2018|2|
|17.11.2018|4|
|20.11.2018|3|
|24.11.2018|4|
|25.11.2018|1|
|02.12.2018|7|
|04.12.2018|2|
|14.12.2018|10|
|23.12.2018|9|
|31.12.2018|8|
|05.01.2019|5|
|17.01.2019|12|
|19.01.2019|2|
|23.01.2019|4|
|09.02.2019|17|
|19.02.2019|10|
|23.02.2019|4|
|12.03.2019|17|
|21.03.2019|9|
|29.03.2019|8|
|03.04.2019|5|
|20.04.2019|17|
|28.04.2019|8|
|17.05.2019|19|
|26.05.2019|9|
|11.06.2019|16|
|03.07.2019|22|
|09.07.2019|6|
|17.07.2019|8|
|25.07.2019|8|
|01.08.2019|7|
|13.08.2019|12|
|05.09.2019|23|
|10.10.2019|35|
|14.10.2019|4|
|28.10.2019|14|
|05.11.2019|8|
|14.11.2019|9|
|23.11.2019|9|
|10.12.2019|17|
|29.12.2019|19|
|16.01.2020|18|
|20.01.2020|4|
|26.01.2020|6|
|30.01.2020|4|
|06.02.2020|7|
|10.02.2020|4|
|15.02.2020|5|
|16.02.2020|1|
|18.02.2020|2|
|28.02.2020|10|
|03.03.2020|4|
|11.03.2020|8|
|14.03.2020|3|
|24.03.2020|10|
|28.03.2020|4|
|01.04.2020|4|
|04.04.2020|3|
|08.04.2020|4|
|11.04.2020|3|
|18.04.2020|7|
|22.04.2020|4|
|26.04.2020|4|
|03.05.2020|7|
|08.05.2020|5|
|11.05.2020|3|
|19.05.2020|8|
|31.05.2020|12|
|06.06.2020|6|
|13.06.2020|7|
|19.07.2020|36|
|16.08.2020|28|
|22.08.2020|6|
|28.08.2020|6|
|08.09.2020|11|
|11.09.2020|3|
|01.10.2020|20|
|19.10.2020|18|
|04.11.2020|16|
|18.11.2020|14|
|22.11.2020|4|
|27.11.2020|5|
|03.12.2020|6|
|30.12.2020|27|
|19.01.2021|20|
|09.02.2021|21|
|19.02.2021|10|
|28.02.2021|9|
|08.03.2021|8|
|18.03.2021|10|
|09.04.2021|22|
|18.04.2021|9|
|28.04.2021|10|
|06.05.2021|8|
|19.05.2021|13|
|07.06.2021|19|
|14.06.2021|7|
|13.07.2021|29|
|23.07.2021|10|
|28.07.2021|5|
|09.08.2021|12|
|17.08.2021|8|
|27.08.2021|10|
|04.09.2021|8|
|16.09.2021|12|
|24.09.2021|8|
|08.10.2021|14|
|16.10.2021|8|
|19.11.2021|34|
|10.12.2021|21|
|16.12.2021|6|
|02.01.2022|17|
|23.01.2022|21|
|05.02.2022|13|
|14.02.2022|9|
|27.02.2022|13|
|14.03.2022|15|
|15.04.2022|32|
|13.05.2022|28|
|23.05.2022|10|
|12.06.2022|20|
|24.06.2022|12|
|04.07.2022|10|
|12.07.2022|8|
|18.07.2022|6|
|21.07.2022|3|
|29.07.2022|8|
|07.08.2022|9|
|13.08.2022|6|
|16.08.2022|3|
3 Likes

Thank you both very much for your responses @akin2silver and @philm, it’s more clear in my mind now
The semi-rollings method therefore suit me very well, preferring stability and security to the very latest version number which I don’t really care about as long as it’s fully functional and stable
Thanks