I’m looking for the opinions and experience of unbiased Linux enthusiasts whose daily driver uses an arch based distro.
When I was using and learning EndeavourOS I frequently (enough) came across posts and videos that stated that although the AUR is useful, but it’s use should be limited to keep your system stable. If someone was having issues or a discussion about stability came up, there was always a seemingly condescending tone of “well my system has always worked fine, just don’t install too many AURs and it won’t break”.
However, whenever I see posts that relate to package managers, I always see praises for the AUR that seem to imply that there aren’t really any issues.
Stable, in this context, only means, that there are no major version jumps. So, you won’t update from, say, version 3.4.9 to 4.0 if that comes out, but instead to 3.4.10, which provides stability, but no new features. It depends a lot on your usage profile, if this is important to you. In that sense, the AUR usually isn’t very stable – but that can be seen as a good thing. If it is significant, typically, you can find pinned versions, too, just as you are still able to download python 2 (not supported for years, but it’s there, stable).
Thank you for your input and insight.
Based on this Arch may not be compatible with my usage profile, but sounds like it’s warrant more personal research just in case.