I think most of the replies to my remark thought I was questioning Linux for grandma overall. I wasn’t. Just Arch. I don’t think grandma needs rolling releases.

I just personally wish the COVID lifestyle was more accessible.

Same, it suited me quite well and I feel bad saying I missed it because so many others, including some of my own family and friends, suffered. Now that I'm back in the office 5 days a week, I lose >2 hours a day with my kids. I had my own parents say "i don't get why you're complaining, we got by before COVID" while refusing to acknowledge it's different because one of them stayed home with us, while my wife and I must both work to survive.

I grew up in a religious conservative family. These and other experiences drove me to the left in a big way. I see now that thinking we can solve systemic issues with individualism is bullshit. I want a world where my wife or I could stay home (or some communal solution) to raise our family right rather than having a bunch of latchkey kids and being stuck doing chores from the moment we get home until the moment we lie down. Some people say "well that's how I was raised" but it isn't right.

I very seriously doubt that but cope away haha

You doubt I'll be having a blast playing Battlefield 6? Why?

Why?

A few things here.....

1. I've already played the game for 20+ hours. I loved almost every second of it, and some of the things I didn't have already been addressed. They're taking player feedback seriously.

2. Battlefield 6 is made by a whole new studio, not "EA DICE", helmed by one of the best in the history of the industry for these games - Vince Zampella.

3. Not everything by EA is bad, and anyone saying anything like that is immediately showing they shouldn't be listened to.

4. Again - I've already played the game via the beta. I know I'm going to have an absolute blast. I didn't like the last few BF games, so I didn't buy them. This one is a return to form from what everyone has seen and played.

5. You tell me to "cope away" while basing your entire opinion on a wikipedia article that's pretty much got nothing to do with the actual game that's being discussed lol. Who is "coping"?

In my opinion also Arch is usable on grandma desktop.
True, it is a rolling release but I would suppose that on such machine there would not be that many packages installed and if the network is configured correclty (so nothing can connect from the outside) it would be not be a big problem, after all what grandma use is not updated on a daily basis.

But that means she’s not getting security updates and since she’s grandma she really needs them. On the other hand, if you’re automatically upgrading her Arch install then there will be breakage she is hopeless to fix.

So what advantage does Arch offer grandma over a traditional release LTS distribution which will be nice and stable, not breaking or changing unexpectedly on her but still remaining current with security patches?

But that means she’s not getting security updates and since she’s grandma she really needs them. On the other hand, if you’re automatically upgrading her Arch install then there will be breakage she is hopeless to fix.

True, but that would be the end result in any case where an update do something wrong or require some sort of manual intervention, it is not strictly tied to Arch. But you have a point here.

So what advantage does Arch offer grandma over a traditional release LTS distribution which will be nice and stable, not breaking or changing unexpectedly on her but still remaining current with security patches?

Only to have some newer software, but you can also update Arch every once in a while, the fact that it is a rolling release does not mean you need to update every day. The everything will depend on which distro normally uses the person who install the grandma machine

I used Arch for about 7 years. I still have it installed on an old PC but I haven’t used it recently. Every time I told pacman to update everything it felt like an adventure. Never knew if I was going to reboot to a working desktop or to a console printing cryptic error messages that take a while to Google on my phone before I get things back up and running. I wouldn’t wish that experience on my worst enemy’s grandma!

It all comes down to the maintainers of Arch putting all of the responsibility for breakage (especially due to old configuration files) 100% on the user. That’s not a system any normal person should use, that’s a system for Linux hobbyists. A LTS distribution where “don’t break the user’s install no matter what” is the rule is absolutely the only system I’d ever trust for grandma.

It’s fine if you want to assume all responsibility for updating grandma’s system and fixing breakage every time. I don’t have any interest in doing that. If I’m at grandma’s house I want to spend time talking to her, not fixing her computer.