I am kind of new to Linux. I started with nobara and got comfortable with the overall feel of Linux. Then a few weeks ago I switched over to cashyos, to try something new.
But what I wonder all the time: How often should I update my system? With Windows there were some updates happening in the background about every week and it was not necessary nor possible to manage them in detail.
But now on Linux I get update notification sometimes twice a day. I am also aware, that cashyos is doing roling updates. As I understand it, this means they are pushing them without much delay for testing. Is this a reason to wait a little before applying new updates so bugs can be fixed? But when I wait, arent there always new updates coming in? Also those Bugfixes would also be updates that I would then delay.
How are you handling it? And how are your experiences?
every 15 minutes (i use Arch btw)
O but do it manually, not because a script will eventually break your system with a partial update, but because the excitement of watching your AUR packages get a new release knowing it is a gamble for system stability.
i only use the aur
Everytime I randomly remember to run
sudo pacman -SyuI do it and that’s almost everyday.Same but
eos-update --yay
first thing I do is turn off all update notifications, can’t stand shit beeping at me. then, systemd timer that autoupdates all flatpaks daily; happens quietly in the background, no popups, no nothings.
system gets updated like once a month (and restarted). reason: hate reboots, leave my system in the evening, wake it in the morning with all my shit how I left it.
Rolling release doesn’t mean that no testing is done. All updated packages are tested by maintainers before being released into the official repository. A rolling release simply means that there are no individually marked OS versions and you always get the latest packages.
In contrast, take Debian for example. It uses a point release system with major named versions (e.g. Debian 13 “Trixie”), minor point releases (e.g. 13.1), and security and bugfix patches between those. New feature updates are released only between point releases, and breaking changes are only introduced between major versions. This allows the maintainers to practice a greater amount of care in testing that the packages work well together, but also means that new features are always held back to some extent. This does not happen in a rolling release system. All upstream changes are pulled, tested, and released, regardless of whether a breaking change is introduced.
By its nature, a rolling release distribution will require a greater amount of maintenance. If a package update requires manual intervention, it will be published on archlinux.org. For as long as I’ve been a Linux user, I’ve only seen one package update that made systems temporarily unbootable, and I was saved from that by being a Manjaro user at the time.
But, to answer the question, I usually update my home and work PCs (both Arch) about once every week or two, or as required by a new software or important security update.
With my arch experience, there has been a few big deal manual interventions but nothing that has bricked my install. At the worst, you boot to a terminal so you can fix it.
It usually goes like this for me:
update, oh bother… probably time to reboot
BAM
OMG WTF
open www.archlinux.org on my phone
oh geez, ok…
tinker tinker reboot
its back to normal! w0ot
I will say that I have had to learn that I need to pay attention when a new kernel is released, because I somehow get it before the video driver is also updated, it will be broken after reboot
Maybe try the DKMS version of your video drivers? It automatically rebuilds every time you install a new kernel. For Nvidia the package is
nvidia-dkms. I don’t use AMD (yet) but I guess the package name would be something similar.But yes, it is a good idea to babysit your installation and pay attention to errors/warnings during the update. It is also a good idea to periodically check Arch news for breaking changes.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Dynamic_Kernel_Module_Support
I update daily sometimes, other times I’ll go weeks. Nothing really fixed, just when I think of it. I used to set a cron entry to update nightly, but figured that was pretty pointless for my use.
How are you handling it?
I handle it by not using a rolling distro. I get security updates, but I’m not interrupted every time a new version of something becomes available. I do the periodic release upgrades on my own terms: when I have time.
And how are your experiences?
Wonderful. My system is very low maintenance, which means I have more time to get work done or play games.
With Arch based, like CaxhyOS or Manjaro? Whenever I install new things or at weekends or when something important is fixed. But god beware, not every day. There is no reason for that.
My understanding is that unless you’re explicitly configuring yourself with Testing repos, you’re getting already tested software in your updates and should be fairly stable even with a rolling release.
For my gaming PC (Fedora) I’m pretty much updating whenever there’s updates. Non-gaming Laptop? Debian stable, i don’t need or want bleeding edge.
Once a day or so
Normal day-to-day updates are applied daily. Even back when I used to use Arch. In my experience, there were very few breaking changes and if you checked the blog, you could take measures to prevent such measures.
With fulll distribution upgrades, I normally wait a week or so. Just in case.
Once a week on the systems I use the most. Whenever I turn the computers on for all other systems.
once a week is about how often I do it if I am not installing something
On arch? Usually every other day
What do you mean you don’t wait until five different manual interventions are required before you update?
🎶 I upgrade my system at least twice a day 🎶
🎶 I’m strictly plug-and-play, I ain’t afraid of Y2K 🎶
🎶 I’m down with Bill Gates, I call him Money for short 🎶
🎶 I phone him up at home and make him do my tech support 🎶
I’m unsure how much testing is done on Cachy. I’m on Tumbleweed, which is a rolling release with a focus on stability.
There isn’t much point in waiting to apply updates because new builds roll in fairly frequently. It’s not always the same packages of course, but most rolling release distros are on the bleeding edge, it’s kind of the point.
I update a couple of times a month. Around every 7-14 days. You want to avoid letting it go for too long, because as changes accumulate the risks of more complicated conflicts and breakages arising increase.
Have been running Tumbleweed on an old laptop for a couple of years that I update now and then, only time something broke was when plasma 6 was released and that was because of third party themes, reset to standard themes and everything worked again. Also have a gaming computer running Tumbleweed since October that i update almost daily, no issues yet on that one.
Aye. I’ve been on Tumbleweed on my main desktop for ~2 years at this point. It’s really stable. There’s been some smaller things I’ve troubleshooted myself. For example, at some point GDM changed their monitor settings, so in the login screen I’d have a terribly low refresh rate, and when logging in my screen would flash black. I had no idea what exactly was the culprit, but with some digging I found out how to fix that. This here gave me the fix.
Other than that, literally the only problems I’ve ever had has been because NVidia has gone and fucked something with their drivers. That’s happened a handful of times, but I wouldn’t put that blame on the distro.
Snapper is such a fantastic tool. Regardless of what distro one uses I’d highly recommend snapper. It comes baked into Tumbleweed, and I manually configured it on my Arch laptop.
