Stable vs Rolling, another look

[MurphCID]

Stable or Rolling for DESKTOP (!) use? DT has a very good point here, and I think it deserves some consideration. Linux on the desktop suffers from the server mentality to some small degree. If we want new users to get into Linux, perhaps we need to re-think our paradigm and take another look at Rolling releases. The advantage is in drivers, games, and such not. For server/workstation usage Stable is the way to go all day long, but for Desktop use, would it not be more advantageous for us as a community to re-look at the Rolling release model? Just food for thought, no flames please, I know this has been beaten to death, but I think it bears a re-look. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOjv90-mUAQ

[Portreve]

Stable or Rolling for DESKTOP (!) use? DT has a very good point here, and I think it deserves some consideration. Linux on the desktop suffers from the server mentality to some small degree. If we want new users to get into Linux, perhaps we need to re-think our paradigm and take another look at Rolling releases. The advantage is in drivers, games, and such not. For server/workstation usage Stable is the way to go all day long, but for Desktop use, would it not be more advantageous for us as a community to re-look at the Rolling release model? Just food for thought, no flames please, I know this has been beaten to death, but I think it bears a re-look. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOjv90-mUAQ

It's debatable.

If an OS isn't stable (in the "does it crash or not crash" sense of that word) then it will never gain traction with the general public. OTOH, without good hardware support, it also won't gain traction. And that's just the most basic level of whether a platform gets adopted.

Honestly, I don't think that's the biggest challenge we have to face. There's two other ones which are far more significant: availability of software (whether real or perceived) and public perception and awareness of Linux.

Linus Torvalds has said that the biggest show-stopper we're up against is lack of bundling Linux on computers for sale, and he's right. However, that position makes some assumptions, amongst which the biggest is public demand for an OS. Both Apple and Google, in different ways, really did a great job with this, which is why all mainstream smartphones and tablets run either Android OS or iOS. Vis a vis computer operating systems, I think Apple may be, if not a "role model" per se, a source of ideas about how one might take a platform and transform it into something a lot of people want to use, and therefore one for which a lot of developers want to develop.

However, how do we reconcile getting developers to want to develop for Linux with also saying that closed source software is bad (for many reasons) and discouraging it in favor of strictly open source development? I don't have an answer to that question, because I think it's perhaps the wrong way of looking at the situation.

[MurphCID]

And you have some really valid points here. I have been thinking that what we need is a line of reasonably priced Linux machines sold at Best Buy... But once more, do we need to have more, for lack of a better word, bleeding edge software.

[Hoser Rob]

Mint is meant to be friendly for beginners, for whom rolling releases are just completely unsuitable. The OS will break (not if, when) following updatesand beginners lack the CLI recovery chops to fix it.

A lot of professionals who can handle rolling releases use LTS distros like Ubuntu or Mint because they can spend more time doing the things they want or need to do with their system and less time fixing problems caused by updates in rolling releases.

[MurphCID]

Mint is meant to be friendly for beginners, for whom rolling releases are just completely unsuitable. The OS will break (not if, when) following updatesand beginners lack the CLI recovery chops to fix it.

A lot of professionals who can handle rolling releases use LTS distros like Ubuntu or Mint because they can spend more time doing the things they want or need to do with their system and less time fixing problems caused by updates in rolling releases.

I understand that, but do rolling releases like Manjaro have to be unfriendly and unstable? Could it be possible to get the best of both worlds where newbies who want to use the latest hardware/games/etc can use a system that is more up to date, especially with the Kernel choices?

[Hoser Rob]

Mint is meant to be friendly for beginners, for whom rolling releases are just completely unsuitable. The OS will break (not if, when) following updatesand beginners lack the CLI recovery chops to fix it.

A lot of professionals who can handle rolling releases use LTS distros like Ubuntu or Mint because they can spend more time doing the things they want or need to do with their system and less time fixing problems caused by updates in rolling releases.

I understand that, but do rolling releases like Manjaro have to be unfriendly and unstable? Could it be possible to get the best of both worlds where newbies who want to use the latest hardware/games/etc can use a system that is more up to date, especially with the Kernel choices?

No, obviously. You don't seem to relaize that there's very little backwards compatibility or API/ABI stabililty in Linux. If it were possible all the LTS distros would already be doing it.

[MurphCID]

Mint is meant to be friendly for beginners, for whom rolling releases are just completely unsuitable. The OS will break (not if, when) following updatesand beginners lack the CLI recovery chops to fix it.

A lot of professionals who can handle rolling releases use LTS distros like Ubuntu or Mint because they can spend more time doing the things they want or need to do with their system and less time fixing problems caused by updates in rolling releases.

I understand that, but do rolling releases like Manjaro have to be unfriendly and unstable? Could it be possible to get the best of both worlds where newbies who want to use the latest hardware/games/etc can use a system that is more up to date, especially with the Kernel choices?

No, obviously. You don't seem to relaize that there's very little backwards compatibility or API/ABI stabililty in Linux. If it were possible all the LTS distros would already be doing it.

Thank you for that clarification, I certainly did not realize that at all. That is a problem then,

[Hoser Rob]

... That is a problem then,

Yes it is. All OSes have problems. I've adopted the old Unix mantra: "all the others are worse".

[Portreve]

Well, two further thoughts on this discussion.

openSUSE is a very solid OS, both in its Leap (stable) and Tumbleweed (rolling) releases. In fact, Tumbleweed is good enough that you can deliberately not update it for months on end, then let it get updated in one fell swoop, and the system will keep working without issue.

The other item is Bedrock Linux which provides a means of running multiple disparate Linux distros' components simultaneously.

[MurphCID]

Well, two further thoughts on this discussion.

openSUSE is a very solid OS, both in its Leap (stable) and Tumbleweed (rolling) releases. In fact, Tumbleweed is good enough that you can deliberately not update it for months on end, then let it get updated in one fell swoop, and the system will keep working without issue.

The other item is Bedrock Linux which provides a means of running multiple disparate Linux distros' components simultaneously.

Ok, good point, I have not looked at SUSE for years. I remember it used to be pretty friendly for newbs back in the "bad old days".

[mshmm]

I've been running the Cinnamon DE on EndeavourOS (Arch Linux plus it's own repo with a few extra apps) for a couple of weeks now, and it's proving to be a very pleasant rolling experience FWIW.

[chavic]

I have arch linux + openbox, a lot of time configuring openbox I have this love/hate feling about it, but works just fine, it is true that at some point you're gonna deal with some problems but that is common in every distro i think, is not specific of a rolling distro. The arch has like 4 or 5 years old in the celeron PC and works like the first day. Just dnscrypt failed me in that Arch I didn't know why.

[Flemur]

I have arch linux + openbox, a lot of time configuring openbox

I use Arch+fluxbox, no problems. Although it initially required a fair amount of fiddling around, after that initial setup FB is 90+% configured on a new installation by just copying the ~/.fluxbox directory. I use a mix of components from other DEs, mostly lxde and xfce and don't really see the point of the amalgamated "desktop environments", but I guess they make things easy for beginners. pacman and aur are easier to use than apt and dpkg, and there's no wretched /etc/alternatives or silly version names.

[MurphCID]

I am using Manjaro Cinnamon on the Darter Pro, I have 21.12 (cool number, greatest Rush album ever!) installed and it seems to work just fine. The software is current, and I am not sure if there will be any issues down the road. I will use the Darter Pro as the test machine for Manjaro rolling release. I am split between stable vs rolling. I can see the points on both sides, but I really like having the latest 7.2 Libre Office since it includes bug fixes and more compatability fixes with Office. I am still lost in installing software since I am used to "apt" vs "pacman" commands.

[Goz]

I tried Manjaro and got two crashes in less than a year. I personally will never use any roiling release ever again.

[MurphCID]

I tried Manjaro and got two crashes in less than a year. I personally will never use any roiling release ever again.

I am waiting, so far so good. It will never replace mint on my main laptops. My new one arrives Tuesday.

[Beerislife]

I looked at Manjaro but even their minimal install installs more than I want to start with. I like KDE Neon because it only has Firefox and VLC.

I'm waiting for some backups to finish on my ThinkPad and then I might give Endeavour a try on it.

[MurphCID]

I looked at Manjaro but even their minimal install installs more than I want to start with. I like KDE Neon because it only has Firefox and VLC.

I'm waiting for some backups to finish on my ThinkPad and then I might give Endeavour a try on it.

See that is not an issue for me, and so I have never given that any thought. I am glad you brought it up, I always thought that I got everything I needed to use the system was great. One thing I really love is the ability to chose and add newer kernels to the o/s.

[Beerislife]

I got my 11? year old ThinkPad running Kubuntu 20.04 LTS backed up and made a live thumb drive of Endeavour and booted it up. Nice, I thought, but I'm not a fan of Xfce and seeing as I had nothing else to do, I installed the KDE version.

Sigh...

That machine may be old and only have a dual core i5 CPU (With 8Gb RAM and a Crucial MX500 SSD) but any other OS runs as smooth as silk on it! Endeavour? You could see Neofetch writing each line in Konsole! Moving windows around was slow too!

I wasn't in the mood to troubleshoot it or try a different DE so I found a Neon ISO I had and installed that. That's it, no more distro hopping for me!

[JerryF]

I think that instead of rolling releases easy, in-place upgrades of major versions (19.3 -> 20) would be a very attractive feature.