>One good reason to not do so is that it's a tedious chore that in 99.9% of cases does not improve the user experience in any meaningful way, and can lead to catastrophic breakage, a risk I am no longer willing to run.

That's very much the case on distros not designed for it (Ubuntu, stock Debian, Fedora etc.). But it works perfectly well on those designed for it (Debian testing/unstable, Suse Tumbleweed, Arch, Gentoo) and in my experience results in a less buggy system.

Fedora and Ubuntu in particular are designed to be static until you format and upgrade to the next version. Which is like a pre-internet way of doing things.

Updated software, when *everything* is updated so you don't have to have your maintainers kludge between the version mismatches, has fewer bugs. New bugs are always introduced and regressions happen but far more are fixed with each update than introduced. You get a less buggy and more secure system.

If you want stability then that's a different matter. Stability meaning unchanging. That's a personal choice (on desktop) but unless you're on a distro that puts a *lot* of effort into making that work (Debian stable and Red Hat/Centos are basically the only ones), you're going to have a buggier system.

> The third thing sounds like a Pete thing.

I hadn't until then changed fonts in Arch, so I was surprised it wasn't a more widely encountered issue.

Here's someone else encountering a similar issue on 7th September - I can't remember when I had the issue but it was definitely longer ago than that - long enough that it either happened again or was left unfixed for a month or two. (Actually I think I vaguely remember seeing something like because a configuration change could solve it, the problem wasn't going to be fixed, but I can't be 100% certain my memory isn't conflating it with some other issue.)

I am writing this after seeing someone else post the *exact* same problem, though he got no good answer and I can't find his post anymore (thought it was in the last few days). Ever since a full system update (pacman -Syu) a while ago, many fonts in Firefox, Chrome, and other programs are totally unreadable. They show up as gibberish, like wingdings font. With such a disastrous problem I would have expected Google to provide quick answers, but no such luck.

> The second thing has happened like twice so fuck you.

Gee, I must have missed it the first time round. :P

> there's no reason not to keep your system up to date and lots of good reasons to do so.

What's the benefit from upgrading from Firefox 48.0.1 to 48.0.2 ?

> Updated software, when *everything* is updated so you don't have to have your maintainers kludge between the version mismatches, has fewer bugs.

You're ignoring the fact that lots of software developers regularly add new bugsfeatures and make unnecessary changes for the sake of it.

I don't care if there are less bugs if it means something has stopped working how I need it to work - my issue is less with the nature of Arch and more with the current attitude of developers, but that's a whole nother rant I don't have time for.

Yeah, if you want things to stay the same then Arch is definitely not for you and that's fine. It's designed as a cutting-edge distro. Debian Stable or Free BSD are for you (hug)

What I want is for cutting edge to mean sharper and better blades, instead of "oh, my longsword is now a katana, well I guess that's kinda cool, but that doesn't mean I don't need a whetstone and, oh wait, now it's a scimitar? Who the fuck thought that was a good idea?" etc.

Still, at least I don't have to put up with Windows 10.

My web server has been pestering me about updating Ubuntu for about 2 years so hm. Also I'm pretty sure it's been running continuously for that time. I'm scared to restart it.

I dunno, I've been using a slowass old MacBook Pro for the past 5 years at work and it's been fine apart from after I installed Xcode and then some open-source things wouldn't compile properly without a massive amount of dicking around with gcc. Fucking C compilation :@ I made a nice font browsing app though, that was nice. Even sold a couple of copies for 79p before my annual licence thing expired.

anyway er,

really I guess the only way this is relevant to me is if I were to get a laptop for dev work or something, but still, I am dangerously curious about Linux again :C having to run Node things on Windows 10 just reminded me how shit the Windows command prompt is, and how used to Bash I've become. At least I can install vim on Windows, although mostly I just play Guild Wars 2 on this computer.

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Updating servers is a pain in the arse. But obviously necessary. I know you get several years of support with stable versions of Debian/Ubuntu/etc. but at the end of that period you still have to do a full upgrade which never goes well. I currently lean towards just using Debian testing on servers which need to be stable but over which I have full control and responsibility (i.e. if it breaks it's *my* problem). Debian testing is still *reliable as fuck* but is relatively up to date and is effectively rolling. (When I'm not responsible I use Debian/Ubuntu stable and on home servers I use Arch cos it's easier).

My current laptop is this and it's fucking lovely. I use it for dev and writing and gaming (in the garden :| ). Everything worked out of the box with Arch (in as much as anything ever works 'out of the box' with Arch). I was dubious about the point of a 4k 15" screen but fell in love with it as soon as I got it - text looks fucking amazing. Decent (for chicklet-style) keyboard, nice trackpad and good hardware (it runs Rocket League playably at 4k (which is absurd and pointless, but still)).

I use libinput rather than xinput because it's moderner which means that the touchscreen only works like a basic mouse pointer, with xinput it would work like a touchscreen should but... I don't want a touchscreen on a laptop so I disable it in the bios anyway.

It's a nice laptop. Runs Vim well :D

Oh and GW2 runs fine in Wine with CMST.

I've got that problem, my dedicated server is currently running Ubuntu 12.04 but a fresh install will be so much hassle.

Here.

This won't fix Node, which still sucks because of it's association with npm and it's awful dependency directory structure, but it will at least fix most of the issues with the Windows command prompt (Even though 10's is massively better than before, allowing such things as ANSI/VT100 colours and being fully resizable.)

Ohhh crikey I'd completely forgotten about that, cheers :D

Does it make the command prompt Unicode compatible, I wonder.

I just started using powershell, it seems to be an improvement over standard command prompt.

Why the fuck are people using Windows command prompt!?

Git for Windows has allowed running Bash on any version of Windows since long before Windows 10 even reached GA, and it doesn't have a dumb restriction of not running on Server editions.

I installed and use it for... Git.

The latest UBUNTU is well worth it

Milko-man, I don't like the text ad in that sig; also:

oh, sneaky! Tsch.

Decided to give Gnome 3.20 a go (should probably figure out how to install 3.22).

Apparently Gnome don't maintain packages for even the most recent Ubuntu LTS release (no)

Ubuntu is kind of a maverick distro that does stuff its own way. Not really for bleeding edge.

I agree, but you generally see major software maintaining packages for at least the most recent LTS. Time for debian rolling or something.

Definitely not for LTS. You'll likely see a package for it in a few months, assuming they backport it.

Anyhoo, here's how to do it:
http://www.webupd8.org/2016/04/how-to-install-gnome-320-in-ubuntu.html