BetterDev

¯\(ツ)/¯ maybe, but as long as I have the option and it's not tedious to do so (which is the case), I'm gonna opt out and encourage others to do so. Fair enough if your perspective is you want to accept whatever new security theater data collection is implemented in exchange for some perceived convenience. Making your case here with me in this conversation has taken more effort on your part than opting out of facial recognition at the security checkpoint in an airport would have, and I find that fact amusingly ironic.

I've been in and out of DFW, BOS, and JFK since these facial recognition scanners went in and I can tell you with a great deal of confidence that there's no additional wait time, or queue, or anything else if you opt out. There's a TSA agent right next to the scanner who collects your ID whether you get scanned or not. That's the same person who otherwise just checks it if you opt out. What are you even on about? Maybe its different at some airports, but I've been opting out every time I fly and it's no big deal.

Actually no, they look at your face and your ID, make sure the information matches, and move you along. No secondary inspection, no difference except you didn't get scanned with facial recognition. It's the same process as before facial recognition was implemented.

Why even write that comment?

Oh I thought that was an April fools joke! I'm pretty sure I saw something about it on April 1st on the homepage. Had no idea it was a real thing.

What the heck is archinstall?

Ah yes, I know the feeling well. I know it sounds crass, but I see this as one of the features of Arch.

Solving this will teach you things about your computer, and computers at large, that you'd otherwise never encounter.

If your box breaks due to updates often, one of two things is wrong:

• You have a brittle install that relies on low quality or conflicting packages
• Your procedure for updating needs refinement

Let me tell you what I mean by that:

• if you build a lean system that only contains the necessary dependencies for your use case, it should be easy to track down where your issue originated.
  • Use dmesg or journalctl to search for problems
• When you update, you should read the output of your terminal and respond to it. It will typically let you know if there's any issues.

I wouldn't be half the sysadmin I am today if I hadn't spent literal weeks fixing things I broke by upgrading, changing something and rebooting, or similar practice.

The next level is finding the commits to the FOSS responsible for your problem, and pushing the fix yourself.

That being said, there have been several occasions when Arch will post an update on their homepage titled "Manual intervention required". Following the contained advice, if you're affected by the issue, will usually be the easiest path forward.

I know you came here looking for answers, I'm sorry, I don't have them for you. What I do have is encouragement, and the wisdom of someone who's gone through the same gauntlet you're going through now. Stick with it. You will succeed if you try hard enough, and it is worth it in the end.

I'm sorry, what?