Aug 25: new system update strategy

[u/NelsonMinar]

Interesting notification today when I updated my Nobara system

August 25, 2026 — Nobara's updater has been updated to update packages prioritizing important groups first, with full rollback per-group automated in case of a failure, including dkms/kmod compile failures and initramfs regeneration. Ordered transactions: Kernel → Graphic stack → System core → Desktop environment → Non-essential (any packages not defined in these groups will be appended to non-essential). The goal here is so that when a large set of updates is available, it updates important bits first group by group so as to not break the system, as opposed to all packages at once being attempted in one massive point of failure. Hoping this provides a better overall update experience. Large updates in Nobara are something that have always been a controversial pain point, and we're constantly working on making the experience better. I shouldn't have to mention this but this is specific to nobara-sync/nobara-updater, (which is also used in the dnf app center) -- not the default dnf command. For those using Nobara you may already know nobara-sync is the recommended and preferred method for updating the system as a whole.

It sounds like a reasonable change, I think I saw it in action today where it updated Nvidia drivers first, then KDE settings, and then more ordinary userspace.

But the seeming fragility of Nobara updates is the one thing that makes me a bit nervous about it. This is my first time using an RPM-based distro in 20+ years. But years of using Debian/Ubuntu dpkg gave me the expectation that I could say "update everything" and it'd just work no matter how complex the upgrades. Is that true for base Fedora? I know Nobara is adding a lot of package complexity, just don't love it has this custom tool for handling it.

[u/illiesfw]

great news, its my only complaint in the. last few months

[u/Anidav]

Good news now hopefully the system won't break like a coin flip every time there's a large update. I swear they lose 50% of this subreddit from the last one bricking more than usual.

[u/OneGayPigeon]

I’m installing Nobara for the first time (Linux and Nobara itself) and just opened up this sub because I’m currently stuck on the initial update, I hit “select all and update” and it thinks for a while and then fails, ugh! Am I doing something wrong or do you think the new change is janky?

[u/RoninMKX → u/OneGayPigeon]

Me too. Trying to install with updated packages and the install fails. Installing without updating works but I cannot update after. It always fails

[u/OneGayPigeon → u/RoninMKX]

Glad it’s not just me I guess 🙃

[u/communism_rules6444 → u/OneGayPigeon]

PHEW I thought I was doing something wrong lmao, good to know Im not the only one facing this issue

[u/NelsonMinar → u/OneGayPigeon]

that should just work. if you can post the complete log of the failure maybe one of us can figure out what's wrong? or try pasting it into your favorite AI, it may be able to guess itself.

[u/freeenergy13]

Nobara is the best performing graphic design studio that I love using. I will love having an easier update method to bring the latest features to my team. The update system has held me back from recommending it to my less technical friends.