And not just that: if an update breaks my Linux install, I can figure out what broke it and roll back to an older version. Rolling back updates on macOS or Windows is just... not really a thing, at least not without a full reinstall, assuming you even have installation media for older versions these days.
If you restart several times in succession after an update (e.g. if the machine is stuck in a boot loop), Windows automatically rolls back the update. If the machine boots but you still want to rollback manually, the option is available for a period of time after the update is installed in Settings under Windows Update > Advanced options > Recovery. It's true that once the period of time is up (something like 10 days), you can't rollback any more, but I think your statement about Windows is untrue enough to warrant a correction. Rollback of Windows OS updates is there and it works. I have relied on this functionality in actual real life practice.
It's actually really difficult to roll back a MacOS machine to an earlier OS even with a full reinstall.
You either have to make MacOS backup disks immediately upon opening the machine, or you have to find MacOS installation disks from the dodgy high seas.
Not really difficult to reinstall every major Intel Mac OS release, at least, as they're all downloadable from Apple in one way or another:
1. You can reinstall "the version of macOS that came with your Mac or the closest version that’s still available" via Internet Recovery[1].
2. You can download installers for every major release back to High Sierra from Apple via the App Store[2] or directly from Apple's update servers using a tool like installinstallmacos[3].
3. You can download installers for Sierra, El Capitan, Yosemite, Mountain Lion, and Lion directly from the Apple support site[2].
3. You can download Snow Leopard and Leopard from the Apple developer site[4] (free registration required; paid membership possibly required).
Note that the downloads on the developer site are the 10.x.0 retail builds, which may not be compatible with all Macs that shipped with a later build.
In this case, assuming the version you need is no longer available via Internet Recovery, you'll probably need to install and patch on an older machine, then transfer the patched install to the target via disk swapping, imaging, or NetInstall, or to install and patch directly to the target machine's hard drive using Target Disk Mode (or else track down a copy of the model-specific restore DVDs that shipped with the target).
Downloads from the App Store and support site should always be the latest point release, so this should only be a problem if you want to install Snow Leopard or Leopard on a post-release machine.
Installing non-final point releases is admittedly problematic: you can download some but not all x.y.0 builds from the developer site, some but not all patches from the support site, and a few x.y.(z < latest) installers from Apple update servers, but AFAIK there's no way to get an arbitrary point release of any version unless you can find someone who has a copy saved.
Though I wouldn't even be a little surprised if older patch releases were still available, unadvertised, somewhere on some public Apple Web server, given that you can still download System 6.0.3 (released October 1990; last supported Mac was the Classic, discontinued September 1992) if you know the correct URLs[5].
You can. Most Linux users can't -- I say 90%, if not 99%. Most Linux users are just users, many of which don't know how to use tar or xargs without looking it up, very few have the technical knowledge and capability of figuring out "what broke it".
I had it for a while. Then systemd came and everything changed. Can’t just grep logs and won’t bother learning how to handle that “journal”. Some programs don’t write logs at all, they just crash with an indicator in a systray that something crashed (the most useful info in the world, /s). Linux was being made by hackers who know how to debug things, not anymore. Now it’s new kids raised on rainbow unicorn nonsense. I feel myself in linux like I’m in early windows now, so what’s the benefit?
Here's the command it sounds like you're looking for:
`journalctl --grep="search string"`
You can limit it by time period like this:
`journalctl --since=-6h --grep="search string"`
Note that there's a separate user journal (such as for things that show up with an indication in the systray), accessible like this when in a shell as that user:
Also, if you really want, SysV still exists and works. You can setup a system with SysV and syslog-ng and have the good ol' service run system and flat log files back.
Thanks, but today I avoid troubleshooting it, I just accept the roadblocks and escape to my windows+msys2 installation as soon as possible. I find this combination a better gnu-based system and better upside / downside balance, which is all I need on desktop. Even logs usually get written to text files cause windows system logs are rarely used by regular apps and unixy services.
I’m not a gnu vs linux pedant, but gnu never let me down like that, and linux is really just an implementation detail underneath that I’m free to replace without compromising key functionality.
It's a shame as APDS does support snapshots and they appear to work well. Having said that I could foresee problems with rolling back the system partition but not the data.
