alt Hacker News> System updates obviously don't become less risky because of the OS they're updating
The last time I used arch, I ran an update and it broke my bootloader, meaning the next time I restarted it wouldn't boot at all.
Sure I could make a recovery USB and fix it, but at that point I was away from home, and just really needed to do the totally crazy thing of "using my computer to actually do work".
(To be clear, I didn't and I'm not recommending going back to Windows, just a more sane Linux)
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My point was exactly that GGP shouldn't have expected to be able to do the system update without risk.
But the usual way to install Linux nowadays is from a live boot, so you automatically have a recovery drive anyway. It's not hard to set up regular restore points with Timeshift or similar, either.
That said, I haven't had problems like what you describe in nearly 4 years.
Yikes. It's 2026. "Don't break the bootloader" should be table stakes for any OS distribution's update process by now. I am not a fan of Windows or macOS, but I don't even recall the last time an operating system software broke my ability to boot--maybe during the Windows 2000 days?
Yet, when you go online to refresh your memory on how to update your Linux installation, too many of the guides still say STEP 1: Back everything up because you may not be able to boot after you do this!