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this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2026
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Same thing stands. I run Arch daily on a 10 year old mid-range laptop, and I used to run it on a 20 year old core 2 duo laptop.
It won't become noticeably slower with time, that's a Windows and MacOS thing.
Arch will update all your software to the latest version, but it will still not add anything. Updating your software can even make it faster. Of course, things like web browsers will get slower the more stuff they add, but that will be the same in any Linux distro or OS.
You can also just not update, it won't suddenly stop working. I still recommend updating for the security patches, but if you won't connect the machine to the internet, it's perfectly fine to not update it.
I can see it, latest distro is still small, but do you have the choice between older and newer software? Are there compatibility issues with Arch's nonstop updates?
The Arch repos only host the latest version of a package, so usually you can't install older versions of a software. There are some exceptions (like with PHP or Python, where you may require a specific version of the framework), but there's not that many of them. You'll see that it's usually not a problem, as it's still recommended to run the latest version of every software, for the security patches.
If you update your system constantly, there shouldn't be any compatibility issues with the updates. The official repos are carefully managed so that, at any given point, every package works with every other package. If a common library is updated, all the packages that depend on it are recompiled and updated to use the newer version.
If you stop updating your system, everything that you already have installed will keep working as it was.
For a while, installing new apps without updating will work flawlessly. But after a while, the new apps will start becoming incompatible with your system, due to outdated libraries and missing dependencies. In that case, you'll need to update the system so that everything is up to date again and it works. The package manager will prevent you from messing things up, so don't worry that much about it.
Arch is a rolling release, so it's designed to be constantly updated. That's the way I recommend people use it, especially if they're new to the distro. But if you don't inatall new software, it's also perfectly stable without updating (and you can also install new software without necessarily updating everything, if you know what you're doing).