Do you update your Arch often (daily) or not?
Which would be better?

I figure, if I update every day, I’ll likely not expect any issues, so I’d be less careful. And if something goes wrong (cause I didn’t read the news or the PKGBUILDs), I probably won’t have time to fix it right now.
Whereas if I update monthly, it’s something I’m taking my time to do, read the news beforehand, pay more attention and will have scheduled some time for it.

What’s your take?

  • Ocelot@lemmies.worldEnglish
    23·
    1 year ago

    pacman -Syu; reboot on a root cron every day during work hours for the true windows-like experience.

  • Molecular0079@lemmy.worldEnglish
    13·
    1 year ago

    I don’t think it really matters as long as you pay attention to both Arch news and the pacman logs. Don’t delay on resolving those issues and you’ll be fine.

    Personally, I update every day because I think its fun to see new software. I also have snapper trigger a automatic snapshot every time there’s a pacman change. Haven’t run into any issues so far.

  • InFerNo@lemmy.ml
    7·
    1 year ago

    I do it once per month, unless I need it for some reason, like installing a new package.

  • EddyBot@feddit.de
    5·
    1 year ago

    if you fear issues then setup automatically snapshots of your system

    anyway I’m running monthly updates on my Arch Server for years
    just don’t forget to reload your kernel modules upon a kernel update (or just simply reboot)

  • nieceandtows@programming.dev
    51·
    1 year ago

    Anything after a week or two is playing russian roulette in my opinion. Arch has so many fast moving packages, the longer you take the more likely it would break. That might not be the case anymore, but that is my opinion.

    • Molecular0079@lemmy.worldEnglish
      51·
      1 year ago

      I think as long as you’re paying attention to the pacman logs and resolving your .pacnew’s, you’ll be okay. I’ve had HTPC systems that I haven’t upgraded in over a year be absolutely fine. Sure it required some minor manual fixes, but none of them surprised me because pacman told me about them or Arch news had a bulletin about it.

      I actually have a small Intel NUC paired with a touchscreen monitor that I basically use as a extremely large tablet for my disabled sister to use and I only update that every time I come home (every 3 months or so). It has been upgrading flawlessly for over 2 years.

      • SayCyberOnceMore@feddit.ukEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        You’ve given me hope for my MythTV box.

        It hasn’t been upgraded for over a year, so with ~700 updates totalling ~1GB, I was toying whether a total rebuild would be necessary… obviously a backup beforehand, but maybe doable then…

        My laptop is updated almost daily, but some other devices maybe monthly…

  • jaykstah@waveform.socialEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    I pretty much run a pacman -Syu every time i sit down at my computer for the first time in a day haha. On my laptop it might be a while before I turn it on and run an update, so in those cases I’ll check the website to see if any kinda manual intervention is required.

  • Minty95@lemm.ee
    3·
    1 year ago

    I do a Syu almost every day, I also do a Timeshift snapshot every day. So if ever something is broken I can just boot into TS and reinstall yesterday’s working system. Then I read the forums. That way I can see what breaks the system Only ever needed to that twice because of Nvidia updates (I’m running a very old card)

  • lemmonade@lemmy.world
    3·
    1 year ago

    I update every weekend because that’s when I have time to fix the issues that (rarely) come up because of updates. I also update and restart if there’s a problem I don’t understand as a way to try to solve that.

  • RockyBass@lemmy.world
    2·
    1 year ago

    General rule for me is at least once at week ( though I’ve had a laptop go almost six months last year and was fine post update ).

    I would also recommend updating prior to installing any new software.

  • The Doctor@beehaw.orgEnglish
    31·
    1 year ago

    sudo pacman -Sy every couple of days.

    sudo pacman -Syu every two or three months (or as needed to install a new application).

      • The Doctor@beehaw.orgEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        I like to have a known point-in-time copy of the repo database locally just in case.

        I don’t feel a need to update my entire system every week. Every two or three months is fine for my use case. More often if I need to (like an 0-day or a new application really demands it) but other than that, I just don’t need to. I use my systems, they’re not just there running for me to do maintenance on.