[arch-general] Arch Linux on servers?

[Gaetan Bisson]

Obviously, I am biased, but...

[2013-07-09 11:13:08 +0100] M Saunders:
> After installation you just want security and critical bug
> fix updates for software, and not major version bumps, right?

If you are prepared to stick to a given feature set, maybe. Then, you
might be able to achieve near-absolute stability with a Debian-stable-
like system. Now, in my experience, that makes any upgrade extremely
painful, so I would definitely not recommend this approach to anyone
with an interest in recent software.

On the other hand, Arch's continuous flow of upgrades proves to be quite
reliable, so long as the system is updated with a minimum degree of
attention. Besides, it avoids duplicating upstream work at the distro
level (such as backporting security fixes): such work can never be
perfect, and has indeed been the cause of major problems in the past
(Debian's openssl entropy issue likely being the most famous).

I run two small-scale servers with Arch, which I only upgrade with care
and when I have available time to fix potential problems. My upgrading
frequency goes from a couple of times a week to once a month. About once
a year, I hit an upgrade that is not straightforward, and it takes me an
hour or two to fix arising issue and perform it; that is about it.

-- 
Gaetan