I know the current policy about fasttracking through the branches - browsers and security related stuff, but i propose to the manjaro team to reconsider it (if it is not too much work).
Generally speaking, the whole idea of the branches is to “curate” the rolling release, so that bugs found in freshly released packages does not reach stable. There are however, some categories of packages, where this just does not make sense, because nothing will be changed or fixed between the branches anyway, the stable users will just skip a version and receive the new one late.
The first category is proprietary software, where the arch packages are unofficial and just wrappers/unpackers of a deb package with closed source. You cannot “curate” closed source. A very fresh example is Spotify-launcher. The compression in the original spotify .deb changed. A breaking change overnight - it just does not start anymore, because the arch unpacker does not unpack it anymore. The package maintainer and a volunteer reacted within 24 hours, fixing it. The new version is now on unstable. But the stable users will have to wait a month or two. Until then they will have to start with --skip-update which only works for a short time or use the web version.
The other category is a software, that is very rapidly developed. And introduces breaking changes overnight. Even if in theory it is open source, until something is fixed arch-side, the upstream will have a new version. So this too does not make sense to “curate”. A fresh example is Signal, which also does not allow you to install it anymore. Because our stable is on 7.21, and in a month the upstream/unstable is on 7.26.
I know, one can switch branch. But manjaro should not encourage unexperienced users to do that. If they wanted uncurated upstream, they would be on pure Arch, or EndeavourOS. The whole point of manjaro is that most of the users are supposed to be on stable.
And to tell the userbase “your favourite program stopped working…well, it is fixed but you will receive the fix in a month if you stay on stable” is also not very nice.
I predict that this point alone might generate mixed opinions. Though I can likely appreciate both the for and against stances on the topic, I have to agree.
As simple as the procedure is to switch branches, the possible ramifications are seldom ever communicated to (new) users; those same users who are often yet to grasp the concept of system maintenance or even using a terminal.
First of all, I appreciate your feedback and opinions. I encourage topics like this as discussion is healthy for a distro to adapt and grow based on what users want / need.
Having said that…
For context:
Notice the user switched to the testing branch and the topic is resolved.
Then what’s the point of having the testing and unstable branches at all, then?
Remember, the Manjaro unstable branch is very close to the Arch stable branch. I use both Arch stable and Manjaro unstable daily on bare metal. I rarely have issues. My main task for Manjaro is making sure the unstable branch is stable in preparation for snapping to the other branches so they are also in turn stable.
By the way, you never let me know about the issues you mentioned with Signal. Of course that’s a bit more important than some Spotify wrapper. Just because I may not accept every request doesn’t mean I don’t consider each and every one. I do.
I do not use signal, but the topic from the other user is linked. I guess they deprecate the old versions really quickly, within a month, which i find incredibly stupid but is somehow a trend lately (i think discord does this too).
My partner’s system on stable branch had a working (but out-of-date) version of spotifyAUR 1:1.2.42.290-1. Updated to 1:1.2.47.364-1
Spotify proprietary service is also accessible via a web browser
There may also be spotify clients available as appimage, flatpak or snap package
Those are the usual choices if users want to use repository packages
Signal user in other topic has switched to Testing branch
inexperienced users could switch back to stable branch once they have the updated package