>> Updates can be handled by stuff like unattended-upgrade package in debian
>That won't keep up with the breaking changes this type of software usually has.
this only updates to current stable, so there will be no breaking changes as those are essentially security updates.
The "breaking changes" part is once every 2 year distro upgrade but it's generally very little, although that heavily depends on software you use of course. That from experience of few hundred machines at work and half a dozen private ones.
But if you wrote custom config you will have to change it if the format changed, you won't get away from that no matter how much automation you throw at the thing.
>> If you're using Ubuntu or ubuntu derivative it's same except its russian roulette whether upgrade will actually work. In my experience just fucking don't or prepare for full reinstall every few years.
> When was the last time you did that? That hasn't been true for literally years.
Just recently we fixed a machine of user where they tried to upgrade and some random shit broke. It also filled /boot with a bunch of kernels (it did not remove old ones) that made the machine unbootable coz it ran out of space on kernel update. It still could be booted on old one but of course user didn't knew that. We've actually migrated few people over the years to Debian precisely because they just broke their ubuntu during update somehow.
I imagine it is much less with actual competent users and server, not desktop.
>That won't keep up with the breaking changes this type of software usually has.
this only updates to current stable, so there will be no breaking changes as those are essentially security updates.
The "breaking changes" part is once every 2 year distro upgrade but it's generally very little, although that heavily depends on software you use of course. That from experience of few hundred machines at work and half a dozen private ones.
But if you wrote custom config you will have to change it if the format changed, you won't get away from that no matter how much automation you throw at the thing.
>> If you're using Ubuntu or ubuntu derivative it's same except its russian roulette whether upgrade will actually work. In my experience just fucking don't or prepare for full reinstall every few years.
> When was the last time you did that? That hasn't been true for literally years.
Just recently we fixed a machine of user where they tried to upgrade and some random shit broke. It also filled /boot with a bunch of kernels (it did not remove old ones) that made the machine unbootable coz it ran out of space on kernel update. It still could be booted on old one but of course user didn't knew that. We've actually migrated few people over the years to Debian precisely because they just broke their ubuntu during update somehow.
I imagine it is much less with actual competent users and server, not desktop.