Stable?! update

26% of the voters had issues! Am i the only one who thinks this is way too much?
I switched from Windows to Linux a year ago most of because the “update-anxiety” just to learn that it is the same here too. I’m afraid to update my PC because I don’t have the expertise to repair it if anything goes wrong. What should I do? Skip the update? Go back to Windows? I really like the freedom of Linux but I also want safety and reliability. Can’t I have both? :face_with_diagonal_mouth:

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Thats a sample from people coming to post in the forum. By its nature it will probably have a higher percentage of negative responses because that makes up some amount of the people coming to the forum for that purpose.
On the other hand Manjaro is not a ‘user-proof’ system. If anything it is more of a system that expects the users to be somewhat responsible for themselves. One example would be .pacnew’s and related - which require user intervention.
Not to mention that here you combine the ‘I could fix it myself’ and the ‘I am experiencing an issue’ numbers. If you dont include those that could fix it themselves … the error percentile shrinks to 12%.
Despite the alarm here manjaro doesnt often ship ‘breaking updates’. The system I write to you on was installed back in 2018. And in a world with backups … is there much reason for any user to live in fear?
Please do not skip updates or delay them longterm on this rolling-release distro.

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Yes, but looking at the three previous stable updates the percent with issues was 9%, 8%, and 10% versus the current 26%.

What I find interesting is how this compares to the issues reported on the testing threads leading up to this update - IIRC they were all 10% or below. I’m sure some will argue that it is simply due to less experienced users on stable branch (though again, look at the previous statistics), but I am curious whether the combination of updates being applied at once led to previously-unforseen issues.

Besides the bit on percentages being combined thats already noted above … its also worth noting that the current sample (voter) size is ~15% smaller than the previous 4 votes. With another 40+ voters they could end up equalizing.

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In my opinion an update shouldn’t cause any issues. If You think 12% is OK… i don’t know what to say.

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When people self-report its going to be some amount.
I wouldnt even discount 20% as being beyond user error.

I dont think 12% failure rate is good. But I’m talking real-world sampling which means I dont think the failure rate really is 12%.

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Yes, that extra 40 votes could make a difference, but it likely wouldn’t. Additionally, I submit the number of replies as evidence. Here is a screenshot of a bunch of previous testing updates - you can easily identify when something went wrong (specifically, that time when some kernel backports got mucked up).


The recent stable thread already has more replies than any stable update in the past 3 months, made in under 48 hours.

Historically, every update has on average 10% reported issues and it tends not to be a huge deal - most of the time fixes are very quick and easy.

You absolutely can. That said, Manjaro is meant to be reasonably stable while also remaining very up to date. It is not made with the goal of having perfect stability. I believe that this stable update is a fluke.

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And some people are reporting problems that arent really problems and that should have technically occurred multiple updates ago (example - no more of certain hardware acceleration on certain hardware due to mesa losing proprietary codecs in regular repos).

Point being - such is the reality of the way this data is collected.

But I think the ‘manjaro is not made with the (main?) goal of 100% stability’ is a reasonable statement.

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This is a good start:

Skipping will only cause more problems.

yes you can have both, read and learn.

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  1. Read the announcements.
  2. Make a Backup → Timeshift
  3. Do the Update
  4. Failures happen? Report it. If not, report it also.
  5. Rollback in minutes if you have misbehavior.
  6. Continue and be productive.
  7. Wait for a fix if necessary and start again with point 1.

With freedom, there comes responsibility: DO BACKUPS. Nothing is more safety than a backup.

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There absolutely is, but pointing fingers is not very productive. Regardless of who is “at fault”, there is undeniably something out of the ordinary with the most recent stable update and it is causing problems. We shouldn’t be trying to pretend that isn’t the case.

There seems to be a bit of a communication issue between how the team/advanced members see Manjaro (more hands-on, intermediate/advanced) versus how the internet sees, and more importantly, recommends it (beginner-friendly alternative to Arch). But that is a discussion for another day.

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Actually if I’m not wrong, most of that issues are small and don’t actually affect typical users. For eg. I reported an issue with OpenVPN 3 which I had, and typical users don’t even use OpenVPN 3. So I don’t think that’s really a problem and you shouldn’t worry too much.
Also, if you have a problem, in this forum you will find a lot of help which you won’t find very easily on Windows I think.
Regards,
Damian

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There is always the option of an LTS distro that’s non-rolling, of course, but sometimes they, too, have their own problems…

I, myself, always ask how this one will go with each update. Inspite of my slight trepidation(adrenaline rush?), things go generally well, I must admit. It was the case with this one - not a single problem as far as I’m concerned!

And, as has been stated elsewhere on this thread, you can limit the risks with a minimum of precautions to be taken before hitting that proverbial “red button”.

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Do it like me.
When there is an update, i read the forum and see how much issues are there.
When it is settled after a few days, the problems are mostly fixed and its save to update.
Like at that one, where i surely will wait a week more.

Timeshift backup is also a good idea for the system files, if you got some space somewhere.

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26% and I didn’t get to vote :stuck_out_tongue:

But yeah, I share the same situation as OP. This is the third time I get a ghost out of Manjaro and as a newbie to Linux is getting rough. I actually distro hopped a few times while Manjaro got stable again and this last update broke my system but not completely. Got stuck in boot and I just force shut my laptop and restarted. Behaved weird but it got back. So not everything is lost.

I completely agree with @megavolt. I knew Linux is an on-going effort always in development. I tried Linux way back in the Ubuntu hipster days and compiz times and couldn’t keep with it. Now is easier than ever!! …but there’s still some obscurity that could be easily addressed and would improve quality of life for everyone… like recommending to do a backup before updating. This is something I learned the hard way :smiling_face_with_tear: and distro hopping helped me. That and Garuda Linux pushing automatic backups out-of-the-box. Too bad Garuda KDE was a brick for my setup and Gnome wasn’t as well polished. That’s why I’m with Manjaro and staying despite the unstable updates. But having a mostly up-to-date system is worth for me.

Just like @megavolt says, use Timeshift. As a newb I thought backups was the app for that but hey, now I know Timeshift not only saves my bacon but can also be implemented in GRUB and even do auto backups at boot. So everything is possible and free, but requires a learning curve and I think the devs are trying their best to balance this out between power users and new ones like me.

My advice to OP is to check youtube and set Timeshift so you can prevent fires yourself. I also thought about skipping updates but with Timeshift you only need to worry to backup before updating (which could be easily automated if the devs wanted) so just do it yourself is one of the Linux principles I like. While hard, that’s the price of freedom.

Or don’t update. I mean if you think about it the LTS distros don’t update near as often as rolling up distros like Manjaro… so no biggie.

This is dangerous advice. LTS distros are designed to only update so often, and so each update is a smooth transition. Rolling distros are designed to update constantly (or in Manjaro’s case, on short release cycles). Holding back updates for lengthy periods of time and then updating all at once can and will cause your system to break.

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That’s quite true, actually. I wonder how many on this forum have niggles or real issues just because they open their laptops or boot into Manjaro on their PC after weeks, maybe months, without taking a look see? :thinking:

Now that I think of it, maybe that is what caused the issues with this stable update. It did take about 5.5 weeks to be released, which is abnormally long. And like I said, there have been many more issues during this stable update than in all of the testing updates leading up to it.

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Yay and nay IMO. During the 1st Covid lockdown it took yonks for The Team to push out a major update(point release) albeit security updates were coming through regularly if I remember correctly. My system was rock solid during, and after… It was only with Plasma 5.25.x that things took a turn for the worst. But that’s another story…!

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Just keep in mind that Manjaro is not stable by definition of their “Rolling release” nature…
If you want stability, try debian or any other that is known for it’s stability.

IMHO, No distro that has a rolling release nature should ever use the term “stable” in any of their branches, to prevent user mis-expectations…

That said, computer software that gets updates can hardly be labeled “Stable” because of it’s ever changing nature :wink:

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