Normally I always forget why I still keep thinking about switching back to Windows. Today was a great reminder. Linux can be frustrating. This post is somewhat about awareness and partly about me learning about other peoples experiences. I updated my CachyOS as usual. There were some system packages upgraded and I got the notification to reboot. Figuring I’d do it later I left after some time and the PC went to sleep. Upon returning the screen stayed black. Even upon forced reboot. Remembering I was using Limine with BTRFS snapshots I tried multiple previous snapshots but to no avail. I remember this happened before. So now I face another reinstall… This and having to dive into the deep end of terminal commands to get drivers, programs or games working can be quite frustrating. I understand why people are turned off and go back to Windows…
Onto NixOS for me. A big dive but it seems very stable which might be just what i need. I feel like the philosophy of NixOS combined with a graphical store to install programs and what not seems like a great solution.
What would your ultimate distro be like?
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I have found bazzite to be very stable for my needs. My use case is mainly gaming with some light productivity. I have had very few problems.
I see people recommending Debian but you also said you enjoy tinkering, so I’d recommend SpiralLinux. It’s basically Debian but it uses BTRFS so you can roll back to a previous snapshot if you break something. I don’t think Spiral has updated to Trixie yet so you’d need to manually upgrade but that’s not too big a hassle if you do it immediately.
This is exactly what I think every time someone recommends CachyOS or Manjaro to new users. Arch is great, but it expects the user to know how to deal with things, it expects user to read the news and it pulls the rug periodically because it expects you to be able to figure things out.
In your case in particular I don’t think it was Cachy on its own, otherwise we would have seen other users affected, but still, it’s likely that the Arch philosophy got you because of something you changed without even remembering and now with the update your config is no longer backwards compatible.
NixOS is great, but it’s a very different paradigm, you will not be able to install things from the graphical interface as you’re expected to declare your system. And it can never be compatible with a graphical installation as that would beat the whole purpose of reproductible builds.
I think what you’re looking for might be something like Bazzite, where the core system is immutable but you get user space freedom. But personally, if 0 downtime is your goal NixOS is better, as you can rollback to previous generations of your system if something goes wrong, but to get that you have to pay the price of declaring your whole system which might be too steep to pay for some.
NixOS paired with an LLM gives you a customized PC that won’t change. There isn’t a better option for longevity + hands off user experience than NixOS. The only downside is the big initial time investment.
Ubuntu was the first Linux distro I tried, and I’ve never tried anything else, across three laptops. I’ve never experienced problems like the ones you describe.
I think NixOS is a superb choice if you have the time and energy to invest in it. I’m currently using Guix System (a GNU fork of Nix) and I’m very very happy with it. Previously I’ve been on openSUSE Tumbleweed because I thought the most important thing for me was btrfs with an easy snapshot system. But then, one day, when I was writing ansible playbooks to configure my OS I realized that what I care most about is declarative configurations. Now I’ve completely stopped using ansible for my laptop/desktop, and just rely upon native Guix configuration. I love it.
I do still run MicroOS on all of my servers because it “just works” and I think transactional systems are great for servers. Recently, however, I’ve been thinking about trying out NixOS/Guix System as my server OS of choice, but we’ll see how that goes.
If you’re willing to put in the time, I think you’ll love NixOS.
Edit: Nix/Guix are also transactional.
I know its frustrating when this happens. But there is something called arch-chroot, its a program to fix your messesd up os. New users don’t know about this, but as you keep using Linux, you get familiar to these programs. It takes few mins to fix broken system using arch-chroot. I hopw your system won’t break anymore.
cachyos is not a system for newbies, or absolute stability. nix isn’t it either.
try fedora, debian,
ubuntu, mint or something newbie friendly if you want a newbie friendly experience.I use fedora, debian and mint because I have several computers for different usecases. I wouldn’t recommend Fedora for this, all the others are gold in my experience, but newbies really should go through Mint first.
i find that bazzite can be a great beginner distro, as it has some sane quality of life defaults baked in over fedora, but fedora is not bad if you can get used to default dockless gnome for example.
I’d argue that CachyOS is more noon friendly than arch. As would EndeavourOS be. People fail to see my point that sometimes Linux breaks very easily and I’m not blaming Cachy or Arch specifically but a simple update and sleep should not result in a black screen on any OS IMO. It’s just off putting… If this would happen on windows I’d definitely complain too. And there have been plenty of instances where microslop added OS breaking things…
you are arguing from a place of stubbornness. cachy arch and nix are not supposed to be newbie friendly distros. linux doesn’t break easily at all, but only if you accept you need the right tool for that job.
it’s like that youtuber that keeps insisting on using pop os with a beta desktop when he knows its not windows and breaks, and then complains it’s not windows and breaks.
i work with linux and i’ve been updating hundreds of debian, ubuntu and assorted turnkey distros over decades without issue, and you could too.
I’d argue that CachyOS is more noon friendly than arch.
I’d say no, Arch forces you to learn to use a terminal, chroot and other things so you can fix your system if it breaks. CachyOS expects you to know this but doesn’t force you to. It’s like saying jumping off an airplane is more noob friendly because of the static line.
People fail to see my point that sometimes Linux breaks very easily and I’m not blaming Cachy or Arch specifically but a simple update and sleep should not result in a black screen on any OS IMO.
Yes, that’s correct, I have never ever in my 20 years of running Linux and administering Linux laboratories seen a system break because of a sleep during an update. It’s very likely that that was just a coincidence and the system would have broken regardless of the sleep. I don’t have all of the info but my guess would be either Nvidia driver related (as I see recent news mention it on both Arch and Cachy) or (more likely) you changed a system config and the update kept your version which is now not compatible (it happens, it’s part of the reason why Arch is called unstable, on stable distros that can only happen during version updates, and you get promoted about each of them, but Arch expects you to check pacnew/pacsave files after an update)
It’s you who’s missing the point that the other person made, your experience is not something that matches other Linux users. CachyOS is not noob friendly, these sort of thing should never happen in Mint or other more noob friendly, but Cachy expects you to be aware of certain things because it is a bleeding edge rolling release distro. People think Arch is difficult because of the installation process, but that’s not it, that’s very straightforward, maintain the system is what’s difficult.
As a newbie it is easier to set up Cachy. When shit hits the fan either fixing it on Arch or Cachy would give a similar experience to a noob I think.
I understand it might be a fluke or that I am at least a minority in this issue. But that makes troubleshooting harder. I’m even on all AMD hardware.
It’s interesting that the whole idea about stability (the system not breaking) shifts from the developer to the user.
As a newbie it is easier to set up Cachy. When shit hits the fan either fixing it on Arch or Cachy would give a similar experience to a noob I think.
Yes, but Arch prepared you for it. Arch philosophy is one of teaching you why you need to do something, and then how to do it, so if something breaks you have some vague idea of what was and how to fix it. CachyOS is Arch, it has the same expectations of you knowing things, and having read the wiki, but you skipped the tutorial. This is why me and many others despite the idea of recommending an “easy” Arch to newbies, it’s not easy and only causes trouble.
Arch is very unstable (in the sense that anything can change) and that means it’s easier to break things if you’re not careful with things you don’t know to be careful about. For example, not saying that this is your case, but I’ve seen people install drivers and programs through binaries downloaded form a webpage like they would on Windows, that is a TERRIBLE idea as it will likely break on the next update, and if it’s something important like a GPU driver you will be dropped to a terminal.
I understand it might be a fluke or that I am at least a minority in this issue. But that makes troubleshooting harder.
It’s not about being a minority, it’s about we don’t have all of the info so can’t help you. From the info you gave us I can tell you it’s not something known, as I haven’t seen it being reported by others, which means it’s something specific that you did to your system. Every thread I find for CachyOS update breaking things is a unique case where the person did something.
And I know your knee jerk reaction will be “I did nothing, I only updated”, but that’s probably not true, otherwise we would see other people reporting the issue. If simply updating now was enough to break the system we would be hearing from hundreds of people whose system broke. But we haven’t, the only report we have is yours, which very likely means you did something different from everyone else. And I get that you don’t know what it is, when I first started using Linux I used to break my system every couple of months, and I always thought it was the system fault, but guess what? It wasn’t. Eventually I learnt to use Linux and my system never broke again, I can’t tell you for sure what I was doing before, but clearly I was doing something.
It’s interesting that the whole idea about stability (the system not breaking) shifts from the developer to the user.
Well, that’s bound to happen if you own the system. Same reason most companies have a warranty void if you fiddle with the internals, once you do that it’s impossible to say if the issue was caused by you or them, and the same thing is true for a Linux system. My guess here is that you changed a config, or installed an unofficial package or something or the sort, it might have been months ago, but now the update changed one of the underlying things and it broke. I would probably lean to the config side of things, since I don’t expect you installed anything critical from outside the repos. Or another possibility is that you went a long time without updating, that can have consequences on Arch systems.
PS: I get it, I know this seems harsh, I know you’re probably thinking “I did nothing, this Linux is unstable and finicky”, I know that because I was in your shoes 20 years ago. Arch is not for everyone, even some extremely knowledgeable people dislike the high maintenance it sometimes imposes, for new people without experience it can be like walking on a landmine field. Which is why I always recommended more newbie friendly distros like Mint, because they try to be more stable in all senses of the word (you can still break them though, as you are in control of the system, but it’s more difficult).
simple update and sleep should not result in a black screen on any OS IMO
That’s the thing. Different distros handle it in different ways. Some have the option to do offline updates so it will not actually install the update until after reboot so there is minimal risk of something interfering. That’s why often the recommendation is to try and find one that is more stable if that is what you value more.
I can totally get behind that. But then I’m left wondering: if that approach minimises the risk of interference, then why don’t all distros work that way?
Use something stable and boring like LinuxMint. No issues in 7 years.
This will sound like heresy to some, but get away from the bleeding edge. You probably don’t need the absolute latest version of every little thing. It can feel cool knowing you know how to fix a borked install but actually having to do so sucks. Dump the hype and get to something stable for your daily driver. If you want to experiment, do it on another drive/machine. Building a custom rocketship is cool, but you should probably build it without breaking the truck you use to go get parts.
I’m going to call this another vote for Debian
I was gonna say the same thing.
For most beginners who just want their PC to work, the obvious choice should be Mint for older hardware, and Universal Blue’s Fedora-based images (Bluefin or Aurora depending on the preferred desktop).
Of course, since OP mentioned NixOS that is an option as well. But it should be the stable version, and it is not beginner friendly like the other two.
This is a good point. Some distros are on the other end of the spectrum of being too slow (it seems) to update but you might be onto something.
I use Garuda, and it hasn’t borked for me in years. I update it about once a week.
Been on Garuda since September and it’s fantastic. Surprised it doesnt get more love around here.
The one criticism that I felt had some truth to it is that it looks like it was designed by a 14-year-old boy. I think it appeals to my inner 14-year-old who wants neon icons and DRAGONS. But if Dr460nized is too garish for you and you want something more sophisticated, now there’s Mokka.
Agreed! And if you don’t like either setup, it’s trivial to customize it.
So I made the jump to Linux a few weeks ago - I used to use it a lot in the 90s but I’ve forgotten pretty much everything so I listened to the general advice and went with mint. I’d recommended it. So far it’s been great, had anticipated issues with my drivers but nothing I couldn’t sort out in the GUI. There are distro options out there that will give you fewer issues - but if you like problem solving and wanted to challenge yourself, enjoy!
Pardon me for asking so … but if you yearn for the “stability” (“simplicity”?) of Windows why not use a Linux distro with an approach more similar to that?
So something not Arch based, … and even tho NixOS almost kinda is the correct direction (for an arch-ish thing), I got the feeling you don’t really want to configure your system & potentially upkeep that config?
Also to note that the actual issue wasn’t fully diagnosed. Reinstalling the full os to fix an update is fairly extreme for your mainstream Linux these days.
But to be at least a bit on topic - bcs I need “simplicity” & “stability” at times when I can’t even (for months on end) I use Tumbleweed (rolling distro).
Fully agree!
As a Linux user for more than 10 years now, I can not really understand why so many people switch from Windows to CachyOS.
Yes, CachyOS is great. In general I see the advantage of Arch based distros, but only if one knows what they are doing. It’s great on fresh installs, but over time users need to fix issues and make decisions and this only works if they know what they are doing.
Similar wis NixOS. Great distro, but not for low maintanance and beginners. If you just want something that runs super stable and you don’t need to fix anything, go for Debian. And there are a lot of options between Debian and CachyOS.
cachy is the current ‘flavour of the day’, apparently.
+1
I run CachyOs and EndeavourOS on my main desktop, and I really don’t mind tinkering to fix things if needed.
I also share a laptop with my wife, and that’s where I want something Windows like (both in stability and familiarity). Zorin has been really good for that imo.
I definitely don’t mind the tinkering but I do mind things breaking just as I want to fire up a game with my friend. I wanna choose the moment I tinker not the other way around. It’s also about the interval in which the tinkering is needed. If I spend more time browsing arch wiki than using my PC it’s a bit skewed…
Yeah, that’s what you’ll get away from by switching to something like Debian. The number of packages that gets updated every week can usually be counted on two hands, if that. That means less chance for something to change drastically under the hood that might bring the whole system down.
I’ve been loving Mint; the one thing I missed was WoW Classic but I finally found out how to get it to run under Steam and it’s been relatively great! <3
What would your ultimate distro be like?
… Debian.
You read my mind. So straightforward.
What would your ultimate distro be like?
The one that fits one’s needs the best. Given your frustration with unstable systems, I’d say the best ones would be those that take longer to make major updates, like Debian, Mint and Slackware, as then issues aren’t introduced as frequently, and older ones are better known and easier to fix or even preemptively circumvent.
