Thanks for the A2A.
The answer is… NEVER.
I’m serious.
You asked, how often the SYSTEM breaks? The answer is, it doesn’t.
I’m using Arch Linux on almost all my devices. I have been using it for years now. I have it on like 10 devices, running day in and day out, around the clock.
I’ve upgraded Arch daily before I started to work. I’ve upgraded Arch every now and then. I’ve barely upgraded it in months and then like 700 packages at once.
Doesn’t matter. The system NEVER broke.
There has been exactly ONE exceptions in all the years. This exception actually broke my Arch Linux system.
And this exception was, when a faulty mainboard caused a network disconnect and made the device unresponsive right in the middle of an upgrade. Forcing me to reboot, this left me with a destroyed system, including a zero size kernel file. That was the one SINGLE incident, when I lost an Arch setup. And it was due to a faulty mainboard, which I later replace.
Yes, there were a few minor issues. But the truth is, it’s never with the base system itself and it never kept me from doing my stuff. It has been with some applications here and there from the community repo, which is not being maintained by the Arch Linux providers. But once you find your setup, it gets quiet. I barely have any problems at all and barely had any at all in… I don’t know, more than a year?
Arch on desktop? Never broke for me. Not ONCE since I started using it.
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Please don’t forget to upvote the answer, if you like it: https://www.quora.com/How-often-does-your-Linux-system-break-after-an-upgrade/answer/Chris-Bailey-364