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.
there are AUR listings which are more prone to break by “design”
in particular any custom kernel or out of tree kernel modules (like Nvidia driver)
the arch linux maintainer keep these in sync so a normal user wouldn’t notice any issue (i.e. linux kernel and nvidia driver are rebuilt in tandem) but by using AUR packages you are now in charge of package maintenance
Thank you for your input and insight.
Based on some other comments as well, it seems smart to stay clear of system critical packages