Using the Same Arch Linux Installation for a Decade

As of today, I’ve been using the same Arch Linux installation for ten years on my main computer. I don’t have much to say, but I’m writing this because my experience doesn’t match the common notion that Arch Linux is unstable.1

I installed Arch Linux in August 20122 on a ThinkPad X121e and never saw a need to reinstall. In 2018, I switched to a ThinkPad X220 by moving my SSD. A few months ago, I copied my complete installation to a ThinkPad X13 Gen 2 using rsync. The longest I went without a system upgrade is nine months, but typically I upgrade about once per month.

Now it isn’t the case that nothing ever broke. Most disruptively, X did twice and audio did once. But over ten years, this doesn’t compare too poorly to other operating systems. With Ubuntu, I would’ve had to upgrade to a new release at least three times during the same period to end up with a version that’s currently supported,3 and five times to end up with the latest LTS release.4 And these release upgrades don’t always go smoothly either.

I don’t know what you’re using, but I bet you’ve also spent some time fixing problems with it over the last ten years.

Notes

  1. I’m not trying to convince anyone to use Arch Linux. ↩

  2. slightly before systemd became the default init system ↩

  3. from 12.04 to 14.04 to 16.04 to 18.04 ↩

  4. from 12.04 to 14.04 to 16.04 to 18.04 to 20.04 to 22.04 ↩