I’m a generalist SysAdmin. I use Linux when necessary or convenient. I find that when I need to upgrade a specific solution it’s often easier to just spin up an entirely new instance and start from scratch. Is this normal or am I doing it wrong? For instance, this morning I’m looking at a Linux VM whose only task is to run Acme.sh to update an SSL cert. I’m currently upgrading the release. When this is done I’ll need to upgrade acme.sh. I expect some kind of failure that will require several hours to troubleshoot, at which point I’ll give up and start from scratch. I’m wondering if this is my ignorance of Linux or common practice?
Both sides are absolutely valid. A complete new install is very easy when you only need to run a few scripts. A small setup with minimal dependencies should also not break that easily when you upgrade your distro release.
I personally always make sure that the way i do things in a distro is the way they intended. That’s how i keep my minimalistic Arch install and multiple larger Debian deployments going for years.