why does Ubuntu even use ppas
this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2025
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until a pacman update breaks your system because you didn't read the release notes telling you it needed manual intervention beforehand π€£
I use informant which in theory fixed this but even then there is an issue on it about some things happening earlier in pacman than the transaction hook it uses so... Bleh. This shit needs to be built into pacman itself, seriously.
That's happened like once in the last 3 years and the notice was right in pacman before you accepted.
And thatβs why I donβt use PPAs, but you do you, I guessβ¦
Yep. I'm on Debian for many years now. Every broken update I can recall was either caused by an undocumented PPA or nvidia drivers (which have finally been fixed, for my card at least)
guix upgrade
God this is the one thing I just hate about Ubuntu. I just avoid ppas now
Of course it won't do anything, you need to update (refresh the index) before you upgrade (download and install updates), silly you
sudo emerge -avuDN world
sudo emerge -avuDUg world
--changed-use, -U:
- Tells emerge to include installed packages where USE flags have changed since installation. This option also implies the --selective option. Unlike --newuse, the --changed-use option does not trigger reinstallation when flags that the user has not enabled are added or removed.
--getbinpkg [ y | n ], -g:
- Using the server and location defined in PORTAGE_BINHOST (see make.conf(5)), portage will download the information from each binary package found and it will use that information to help build the dependency list. This option implies -k. (Use -gK for binary-only merging.)
Yeah, I used to use -U but I prefer -N personally. I like the system to be consistent with what it would be from a fresh build.
Why -Syyu and not -Syu?
You ... you understand pacman cli switches?
Yes. -Syyu is for "Sync (repository action), database update (forced), upgrade packages", in that order (though the flags don't have to be). Doubling a lowercase character like yy or uu is to force the operation. yy in particular shouldn't be needed, as it only overrides the "is your database recent" check. Unless you're updating more than every 5 minutes, using a single y is perfectly fine.
Debian users:
What do you mean by PPA?
Also: apt-get is intended as low-level APT interface for scripts, just use apt instead. I get why people are confused nowadays, because APT documentation is terrible.
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topgrade --no-retry --cleanup --yes
And yet Iβve never had an apt upgrade break my whole system.
Agreed. I ran a system upgrade at home and then went to a coffee shop. My machine didn't boot at the coffee shop. I installed Fedora instead of doing what I had gone there to do
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Using Debian as my main laptop distro, I am usually an arch user but figured with it being a light weight laptop I wouldn't need arch, its been fine but installing updates can be frustrating, after a few weeks gnomes appstore breaks, then I need to use terminal to apt update, apt --fix-broken install.
Which Debian distribution are you using, stable, testing, unstable?
I take care of a couple machines for family members. Those have Debian stable with automatic update (unattended-upgrade). I can't recall the system or packages ever breaking. At most users are a bit confused when an update change the UI a bit.
Sticking to stable and avoiding third party repos gives a pretty solid system. Only developers or sysadmins might consider Debian testing. Only people working on Debian itself should use unstable.
Don't use gnome appstore. It's always broken
Don't use gnome.
Don't use.
Fuck gnomes
rpm-ostree upgrade && reboot
Shouldn't update come before upgrade?
Yup
Zypper gang, dup!!
[an hour later]
Done!
(But actually I like it.)
zypper is unironically the best package manager. Absolute s-tier god-mode. It's slow as hell, but that's because it makes atomic updates. If the install doesn't go well, it just rolls it back. I fucking love zypper, and I want to shake the hands of the people responsible for it.
Totally!!
I'm fully spoiled by it.
(And one of the reasons family and friends happen to run Tumbleweed.)
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