<story><title>Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade</title><url>https://meribold.org/2022/08/16/same-arch-linux-installation-for-a-decade/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>meribold</author><text>I can provide some details regarding the times things did break that I mentioned in the article.&lt;p&gt;* In September 2014, X broke, and I created an `&amp;#x2F;etc&amp;#x2F;X11&amp;#x2F;Xwrapper.config` file with the lines `allowed_users = anybody` and `needs_root_rights = yes` to get it to work again. I don&amp;#x27;t remember and don&amp;#x27;t have notes on why that helped. It sure does sound like a pretty terrible hack. I don&amp;#x27;t have that Xwrapper.config file anymore, and I also don&amp;#x27;t know when I deleted it.&lt;p&gt;* In June 2017, audio stopped working, but all I had to do was add my user to the `audio` group.&lt;p&gt;* In May 2018, X broke a second time. This time I downgraded the `xorg-server-common` and `xorg-server` packages. A few weeks later, I ran another system upgrade, and this one went fine.&lt;p&gt;These weren&amp;#x27;t the only problems, but they were the most disruptive. Generally, things like TrackPoint driver updates changing how the cursor responds or Firefox changing its UI have been far more annoying than Arch Linux issues :)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>agumonkey</author><text>I had a similar life with arch. A handful of boot blocking issues, let&amp;#x27;s say 5. 4 out of them were solved after joining #arch on now-dead freenode and realizing this was explained on arch main page. 1 of them was a deeper borkage that arch team didn&amp;#x27;t catch early and required a bit of surgery. The problem was gone in 5 minutes.</text></comment>
<story><title>Using the same Arch Linux installation for a decade</title><url>https://meribold.org/2022/08/16/same-arch-linux-installation-for-a-decade/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>meribold</author><text>I can provide some details regarding the times things did break that I mentioned in the article.&lt;p&gt;* In September 2014, X broke, and I created an `&amp;#x2F;etc&amp;#x2F;X11&amp;#x2F;Xwrapper.config` file with the lines `allowed_users = anybody` and `needs_root_rights = yes` to get it to work again. I don&amp;#x27;t remember and don&amp;#x27;t have notes on why that helped. It sure does sound like a pretty terrible hack. I don&amp;#x27;t have that Xwrapper.config file anymore, and I also don&amp;#x27;t know when I deleted it.&lt;p&gt;* In June 2017, audio stopped working, but all I had to do was add my user to the `audio` group.&lt;p&gt;* In May 2018, X broke a second time. This time I downgraded the `xorg-server-common` and `xorg-server` packages. A few weeks later, I ran another system upgrade, and this one went fine.&lt;p&gt;These weren&amp;#x27;t the only problems, but they were the most disruptive. Generally, things like TrackPoint driver updates changing how the cursor responds or Firefox changing its UI have been far more annoying than Arch Linux issues :)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>andrewstuart2</author><text>I definitely had some rough edges with the pulseaudio, and then pipewire, upgrades, and a few cases where almost everything broke because in my infinite genius I had compiled my own (insert dependency) for a bleeding edge feature, forgot to revert when it made it to mainline, and then later down the road a major version bump meant some `.so` was missing, and I had to USB liveboot to fix it.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve also been on Arch for over a decade, and it&amp;#x27;s almost never been broken, even when I was playing with some seriously bleeding edge components. Almost always, it&amp;#x27;s been surprisingly straightforward to un-screw the few screw-ups I&amp;#x27;ve made.</text></comment>