this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Never happened to me in 20+ years... I seriously wonder what some of y'all have been doing that this is a major concern.
I've done the horrible deed of updating Debian, for example.
Distros like Arch get a pass, but Debian screwed me over several times. For example a few years ago, some driver decided to make itself clinge onto old kernel versions. So the boot partition got full and left me in a weird start where I had to manually remove old kernels and track down the driver at fault.
Recoverable, but annoying, and on a system I use for work it would be really really expensive.
Fedora used to nuke itself sometimes if you upgraded an install from version n to n+1, n+2, .... Like a config not being migrated properly, a package conflict because of renamed packages and versions, yada yada yada.
If you didn't experience that, you either were very lucky, only used enterprise distros, or simply reinstalled often enough for it not to be an issue.
I've had bad tinkering break my system before, but never had an update break it irreversibly. The closest would actually be on Silverblue itself, when an update to the kernel was using different signing keys that cause the system not to boot. Fortunately it was simple, I selected the previous deployment and I was in (on a non versioned OS I would have selected the previous kernel which most are configured to retain the last few). A quick Google revealed Ublue had a whole kerfuffle and after verifying it was legit, I enrolled the new certs into my MOK.
Although one time on Arch I had installed an experimental version of Gnome from one of their repos, and was pleasantly surprised when that version finally released and I removed the experiment repo and did an update absolutely nothing at all broke. Nothing.
Not irreversibly, but it's annoying to be forced to spend an hour searching for an answer in forums then fixing to get networking or GUI back before you can do productive work.
I've had this happen more often than I'd like to admit.
There were quite a few instances where I just couldn't game in the evening after turning on my PC, mostly because of my power supply (outages while updating, unstable grid, damaged PSU and hard drive, etc.) and my ability to shoot myself in the foot in regards to my IT skills.
I imagined spending my friday evening differently than chrooting my install from another USB more often than I'd like to admit. At least Linux is repairable, good luck trying that with Windows...
Now, thankfully, I live in another house with a landlord that actually cares that I don't get electrocuted in my shower, and I don't have those problems anymore. I also don't tinker as much with my OS anymore, at least not much.
Still, Fedora Atomic feels way more robust and less buggy than regular Fedora, especially KDE. And the QoL tweaks from uBlue are great too!