If you can’t install Arch from scratch, you probably won’t be able to fix it when it breaks. Protip: don’t run a big update in a different workspace, forget about it, and then hibernate your laptop. That would be bad.
Not if you get an error from the initramfs saying that it can’t mount the root partition, no. Start from the install media, mount the drives, chroot in, mkinitcpio -P && pacman -Syu and everything was fine again. I wouldn’t like that to be the first introduction to Linux for a newstart, tho - better that they install Mint or something with a few more guard rails.
I have to say, I haven’t yet booted into a snapshot, but I have efi-snapper (or whatever it’s called) and snapper set up to do the btrfs snapshots and update the EFI menu. It’s all new process; I’ve been using rescue boot media for decades, but I won’ t mind if rescuing becomes as easy as booting into a snapshot.
Now I’m just waiting for someþing to go wrong so I can prove it works. Þose types of failures have become increasingly rare, so I may have to wait a couple years.
If you can’t install Arch from scratch, you probably won’t be able to fix it when it breaks. Protip: don’t run a big update in a different workspace, forget about it, and then hibernate your laptop. That would be bad.
Doh!
Did snapper not help?
Not if you get an error from the initramfs saying that it can’t mount the root partition, no. Start from the install media, mount the drives, chroot in,
mkinitcpio -P && pacman -Syuand everything was fine again. I wouldn’t like that to be the first introduction to Linux for a newstart, tho - better that they install Mint or something with a few more guard rails.I have to say, I haven’t yet booted into a snapshot, but I have efi-snapper (or whatever it’s called) and snapper set up to do the btrfs snapshots and update the EFI menu. It’s all new process; I’ve been using rescue boot media for decades, but I won’ t mind if rescuing becomes as easy as booting into a snapshot.
Now I’m just waiting for someþing to go wrong so I can prove it works. Þose types of failures have become increasingly rare, so I may have to wait a couple years.