This is your annual reminder to do a snapshot (timeshift or whatever you prefer) before doing relatively minor changes to your system.

I was supposed to be in bed now, but instead I am stuck troubleshooting xorg refusing to start after an apt-get dist-upgrade.

And as far as friendly reminders go, I should’ve given myself an unfriendly reminder beforehand, as it’s not the first time…

UPDATE: Fuck nvidia 545. All my homies hate nvidia 545. 535 4 lyf!

  • ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org
    2·
    10 months ago

    I think it’s just dumb to not make a backup before large updates. There’s so many things happening, a lot can go wrong, especially if you have added 3rd party repos and have customized core parts of the system, not just through config files but let’s say you switched to latest kde plasma from the one your distro ships.

    And what happens if you have to restore the backup?
    You can look up what’s the solution to your problem in peace while everything is still working. If it was a server, all the services are still available, if it was your desktop you don’t have to use a live linux usb that’s without all your configs to find the solution

    • lemmyvore@feddit.nlEnglish
      13·
      10 months ago

      You make a good point. Ubuntu gives you so many ways to shoot yourself in the foot that it’s pretty much a given that it will get messed up eventually. So you have to use snapshots.

      On Arch based distros the updates just work. I’ve never had to snapshot anything. But having just one single community repo (AUR) contributes to that a great deal.

      • MiddledAgedGuy@beehaw.org
        3·
        10 months ago

        I don’t like Ubuntu, and I do like Arch’s philosophy. But I think Arch is the more prone to breakage of the two.

      • null@slrpnk.net
        2·
        10 months ago

        Except that time a year and a bit ago where an Arch update broke Grub for a huge number of users.

        No distro is immune to breakage.

        • lemmyvore@feddit.nlEnglish
          11·
          10 months ago

          And a filesystem snapshotting tool would help you restore bootloader how?..

            • lemmyvore@feddit.nlEnglish
              1·
              10 months ago

              Of course it can. And your PC can also fall off the desk. I’m saying a snapshot tool is a really poor solution for distro problems, it’s really a bandaid for a problem that shouldn’t exist.

              Use a decent distro, take proper backups, and use snapshots for what they were intended — recovering small mistakes with personal files, not for system maintenance.

              • null@slrpnk.net
                1·
                10 months ago

                Use a decent distro

                That’s the point – your claim about deb-based distros is just anecdotal.

                The example here is Nvidia updates borking the system. I’ve have that happen to me numerous times on Arch-based systems.

                I’ve run deb-based distros on some boxes over years of updates with no issues. On the other hand I’ve had updates cause breakages on Arch-based systems pretty much every time I’ve run them.

                Which is to say anecdotes are useless, updates can break systems, and being able to immediately roll back to a working system and deal with updating later is a simple, nice thing to have with no downsides.