129
Finally got my mini Mint sorted. (thelemmy.club)
submitted 3 weeks ago by to c/linux@lemmy.world
50 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Tried for half the weekend to get elementary to work, it just refused to install for reasons unknown.

Gone with Mint for now.

I like the hardware (an old Intel MacBook Air) and didn’t want it to go to waste.

I’ll see how I get on with this desktop. Went feet first straight to bare metal because I couldn’t be bothered with dual boot. It was too much faff. Would value any insight from others who’ve found a lovely distro/DE combo with these tiny machines.

Making my first moves away from proprietary software. Thanks largely to being inspired by you delightful folk.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

you're somewhat expected to at least perform daily updates.

As an Arch user of a decade by now, I tell you all, you most certainly do not need to update every day, I repeat, you do not need to update every day. That is absolutely not necessary, and will cause much undue stress. I would not recommend that at all. I update maybe once a week. And I find that to be quite consuming as it is.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    Thanks for the elaboration!

    The reply was already becoming quite long, so I deliberately chose to cut some corners here and there. I was hoping that the "somewhat" qualifier would do the heavy-lifting 😜.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    😁 no worries, yeah. If I see an Arch user recommend updating daily, I would definitely question their experience. 😅

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    If I see an Arch user recommend updating daily, I would definitely question their experience. 😅

    Interesting.

    So, as I kinda alluded to elsewhere, I don't daily Arch nor have I ever done so in the past. I did have it as a dual boot earlier in my Linux journey. However, after breaking it for the second time, I just called it quits 😅.

    Anyhow, with that out of the way, I am interested in your perspective w.r.t update frequency on Arch.

    It has basically been my head canon that updating daily is (at least) reasonable on Arch. And while its excellent wiki doesn't dictate any number, I'm inclined to believe that -by updating once a week- one is acting by the lower bound in terms of frequency; I'd argue the default settings of paccache suggest as such.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    I think the frequency with which you update your computer is highly subjective. I have gone everywhere from weekly, to daily, to hourly, to yearly. All equally fine for the machine in question, and updates carried out without a hitch.

    If it isn't broken and does what you need, why update, you know what I mean? Especially if it isn't connected to the internet in some cases. 😁

    Regarding what you linked to paccache, which setting(s) were you referring to specifically? I don't think I was able to understand that it is directly suggesting or indirectly insinuating any type of update frequency. But I probably am just too tired to process. 😅

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago

    If it isn’t broken and does what you need, why update, you know what I mean? Especially if it isn’t connected to the internet in some cases. 😁

    I agree with that assessment whenever it's not connected to the internet. But, if it is, I actually find it hard to justify for myself to not (at least) receive the security updates. Which, in the case of non-frozen packages, suggests applying regular updates.

    But yeah, more than anything, I think this touches on threat models. Which are very subjective by themselves and thus probably not very interesting to discuss 😜.

    Regarding what you linked to paccache, which setting(s) were you referring to specifically? I don’t think I was able to understand that it is directly suggesting or indirectly insinuating any type of update frequency. But I probably am just too tired to process. 😅

    My apologies, perhaps I should have been more elaborate. So, paccache's man page mentions a systemd timer it refers to as paccache.timer. With it, package cache can be cleaned periodically. And, by default, it does so weekly.

    As to why this suggests weekly updates as a lower bound, paccache removes old packages. Thus, from my understanding, paccache goes hand in hand with updates; updates yield the old packages which will be deleted by paccache. As such, for two consecutive paccaches to do anything, an update has to have occurred in between. Thus, if paccache.timer defaults to weekly cleanups, then it has to be accompanied with at least a weekly update.

    Of course, paccache will handle higher update frequencies without any problem. Thus, updating only once a week becomes a lower bound for paccache.timer's default functionality.

    To be clear, I only said "suggest" :P . I can't do any stronger claims 😅.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent