Arch is incredibly stable - you just have to rethink your idea of what stability means in an Arch context.

In Ubuntu, 'stability' means that you can run apt-get upgrade all (I think that's the command), press 'y' a few times (or, better yet, just pipe 'yes' to it) and then forget about it, knowing that your system may not have the latest version of every package, but the latest version in the Ubuntu repos, which is presumably 'stable' with the rest of the system.

With Arch, you have to think before you -Syu. Running pacman -Syu will upgrade all packages to the latest version in the Arch repos, which are usually updated much more quickly, as it's a rolling-release distribution. This means that you may want to check the mailing lists before upgrading important packages, or wait until a later time to upgrade. Or not upgrade at all, which is 'stable' by virtue of the fact that you haven't changed anything. The choice is yours. You can decide what to do on a per-package or system-wide basis, depending on your use case (Personal user & tinkerer? Luddite personal user? Large-scale server? There's no 'one-size-fits-all' approach to keeping a system up-to-date, but Arch is a 'one-size-fits-all' distro in that it allows people to make these decisions for themselves very easily).

Rolling release isn't for everyone - I'll agree. But that's the main difference between Arch and other distributions. (That, and it's highly minimalist by default, whereas Ubuntu and Mint are 'everything and the kitchen sink' by default). But I certainly wouldn't say that Arch is any more or less stable than other Linux distributions (I can't compare to BSD), because it's really just as stable as you want it to be, given your definition of 'stable'.

    > Arch is incredibly stable - you just have to rethink your idea of what stability means in an Arch context.

I don't understand what your definition of stable is. Obviously anyone can not upgrade any distribution or software. If I want to upgrade I have to check the mailing lists to see if there are any major issues. That sounds like a source of instability.

How can I update Arch, on a semi-regular basis (at least yearly), without having to worry about upgrade issues? If I can't, then I don't think you can call it 'incredibly stable'. Of course, you can accept the trade-offs, but don't try to 'rethink stability'.

> How can I update Arch, on a semi-regular basis (at least yearly)

You can - in fact, it's best to do it more often than yearly.

> without having to worry about upgrade issues?

Compared to someone who's coming from Ubuntu, Arch isn't a distro that you can just upgrade all in one go, without thinking twice, and then forget about it. Or, to quote the Arch Wiki, pacman is not a 'fire and forget' package manager.

If your definition of 'stability' is 'I can run a full system upgrade as often as I want, without thinking about what I'm doing', then no, Arch isn't 'stable'.

If your definition of 'stability' is 'My system will run with minimal errors and above-average security as long as I carefully consider each package before I update it', then Arch is incredibly stable.

The concept of stability, in the context of a personal user, comes with an implicit assumption of how much choice will be presented to the user, which affects how much mental effort the user will have to provide. Ubuntu will make a set of choices on behalf of the user, which can result in bloated software packages, serious security concerns and bugs that persist for the six-month release cycle or longer. Arch will require the user to make some of those choices for himself or herself, which ends up by providing the user with a more modular set of packages, a much faster upgrade cycle, and a more (easily) configurable system.

For example, there was a bug in X that affected pretty much every distro a few weeks ago, allowing the screen lock to be bypassed trivially. If I remember correctly, Arch had that fixed within a few hours (the advantages of rolling-release). I'm not sure when (or even if) Ubuntu fixed that bug, but it ends up taking much longer, because they have to provide official support for those packages, and something as widespread as X needs to be tested against a variety of configurations before releasing a patch. With Arch, I can decide if the patch is important enough to update now, or if I should wait, and I can make a reasonable judgement as to whether it s compatible with my system -- something Ubuntu users will have a harder time doing, because they didn't go through the process of building their operating system from scratch when they installed it, so they may not understand it under the surface as well.

To put it another way, using a rolling-release system like Arch is no less stable than a fixed-release cycle, because nobody is forcing you to upgrade a package when it comes out.

(The other difference is that Arch provides community support, whereas Ubuntu provides corporate support, but at that point you're starting to compare apples and oranges).

That's not so far off. It has all of the really beautiful system stuff of FreeBSD (rc.conf, predictable file hierarchy, documentation) and matches them or does better. It forces you to learn how things work and does a good job of teaching you good practices. Even if you don't use Arch, the Arch wiki is a gold mine on configuring pretty much anything.

The main thing Arch has over FreeBSD is you get easy access to lots of shiny toys. Pacman repos update much more frequently and the process of updating packages is much faster. If your favorite text editor drops a new version, it will be available in Arch repos in minutes/hours; it may be months before it makes it to FreeBSD ports. And things like audio, video drivers, wireless are pretty painless in Arch compared to FreeBSD.

The biggest downside of Arch is that it sits on the complete opposite side of the security spectrum. FreeBSD makes sure you start with a secure machine and anything you do to cheapen the security is your bag; most of the time it'll try to let you know you when you're doing it wrong. The BSDs in general have a really healthy culture of security paranoia. You don't get that with Arch. Signed packages have only recently made their way into pacman and I'm not sure if they're even required yet. So a lot of the time, it feels like you just have to cross your fingers and trust that the repos you're hitting haven't been compromised. And you're constantly installing software from them.

Also, occasionally you'll need to spend 5 or 10 minutes recovering from a wonky upgrade (upgrading often is better than not).

Arch is an excellent, if not secure, desktop/laptop environment and you'd be crazy to run a production server on it.