What exactly is the point of rolling release? My pc (well, the cpu) is 15 years old, I dont need bleeding edge updates. Or is it for security ?
Minimal delay between a program releasing new features or bugfixes and you getting to use them. Even as an avid Debian user, sometimes I get bummed out when they freeze a package for release right before a feature I would have really liked makes it in.
As for security, there’s not a huge difference I’m aware of. On Debian, features stay where they are, but maintainers will backport just the security fixes of each package to the current stable release.
Rolling release means that you won’t be forced to reinstall the whole system when the number after the name flips. And you won’t be locked out of some newer version of a package because the distro you use decided they’re cutting off the updates to “old” versions
This…is not accurate. Not being pedantic, just correcting the misunderstanding so you know the difference.
LTS releases are built to be stable on pinned versions of point release kernel and packages. This ensures that a team can expect to not have to worry about major changes or updates for X years.
Rolling Releases are simply updating new packages to whatever versions become available when released. Pretty much the opposite of an expected stable release for any period of time.
Doesn’t have anything to with “forced reinstall” of anything. If you’ve been having to fully reinstall your OS every time a new LTS is released, you are kind of doing extra unnecessary work.
what happens after those x years?
The same that happens when you update to receive a breaking change on a rolling distro. It’s version number go up, just at a different point in time.
Depends on the exact system but there will be a method to switch to a newer release channel without reinstalling. Rinse and repeat every x years.
It is not just about your pc hardware. I much prefer running the latest software on it as I regularly use features from tools added in the last version of something. I would hate to have to wait 6 months to a year to be able to use new features that make my life easier. That might not be every bit of software I use but enough core things that I would notice.
I run Debian Testing so I can report, and very rarely fix, bugs that I find. This way there are less bugs in Debian Stable.
I use a rolling release for mainly 3 reasons.
- Faster access to new (shiny) software/applications. Flatpak and the like could solve this for LTS distros.
- Security updates come faster and smoother.
- Less chance of an update breaking things. Lots of small and frequent updates, instead of rare and large update packs/stacks.
Less chance of an update breaking things. Lots of small and frequent updates, instead of rare and large update packs/stacks.
I would say a rolling distro update has a higher chance of it breaking something. Each one might bring in a new major version of something that has breaking changes in it. But that breakage is typically easier to fix and less of a problem.
Point release distros tend to bundle up all their breakages between major versions so breaks loads of things at once. And that IMO can be more of a hassle then dealing with them one at a time as they come out.
I tended to find I needed to reinstall point release distros instead of upgrading them as it was less hassle. Which is still more disruptive then fixing small issues over time as the crop up.
Good point. Yes. Small breakage means it’s easier to fix. Although, the years I’ve run my rolling release system, I’ve had it break maybe one of two times. Easily fixed. Both of those was because there was a change that needed a manual intervention, which I did not read about until after, so those were my own fault.
I tend to use rolling release because I tend to update my hardware with some regularity. Also I hate opening an app or a desktop environment and when I go looking for newly announced features they aren’t there within a day or two. Considering current hardware prices the latter has been my primary motivation last couple years.
What exactly is the point of stable release? I don’t need everything pinned to specific versions—I’m not running a major corporate web service that needs a 99.9999% uptime guarantee—and Internet security is a moving target that requires constant updates.
Security and bug fixes—especially bug fixes, in my experience—are a good enough reason to go rolling-release even if you don’t usually need bleeding-edge features in your software.
To be able to predict when something you depend on breaks.
This “something” could be as “insignificant” as a UI change that breaks your workflow.
For instance, GNOME desktop threw out X11 session support with the latest release (good riddance!) but you might for example depend on GNOME’s X11 session for a workflow you’ve used for many years.With rolling, those breaking changes happen unpredictably at any time.
It is absolutely possible for that update to come out while you’re in a stressful phase of the year where you need to finish some work to hit a deadline. Needing to re-adjust your workflow during that time would be awful and could potentially have you miss the deadline. You could simply not update but that would also make you miss out on security/bug fixes.With stable, you accumulate all those breaking changes and have them applied at a pre-determined time, while still receiving security/bug fixes in the mean time.
In our example that could mean that the update might even be in a newer point release immediately but, because your point release is still supported for some time, you can hold on on changing any workflows and focus on hitting your deadline.You need to adjust your workflow in either case (change is inevitable) but with stable/point releases, you have more options to choose when you need to do that and not every point in time is equally convenient as any other.
Stable will still get security patches and bug updates, just no new major kernel jumps or new features.
. . . until something in the stack requires a significant kernel upgrade, and then you’re stuck.
That’s a very odd example to choose given how trivially interchangable kernels are.
At NixOS, we ship the same set of kernels on stable and rolling; the only potential difference being the default choice.
I’m pretty sure most other stable distros optionally ship newer kernels too. There isn’t really a technical reason why they couldn’t.
They are cool cos you get to say “btw I use <insert-distro-name>”.
Also, one big advantage is the end of big disruptive updates - e.g. the one from Win10 to Win11.
You don’t have to live on the edge either. Arch for example has an LTS version.
Interesting. I did not know Arch had an LTS version.
It has an LTS kernel. Not a separate version. This does not make everything LTS. This is very different from LTS distros.
Ah. Not as interesting then
For me its security patches. I frequently lock app versions manually.
I do have an old laptop that uses a fixed release, because it sees infrequent use.
One needs to adjust whats needed per usecase. For me that means daily drivers get semi-rolling or rolling. Where stability is neede/older systems, fixed releases.
I follow linux news I like hearing about new features and have them come to my system quickly. I’d hate to have to wait years for anything new. I’m not worried about stability, i run nothing critical and if I have an issue I’ll just fix it.
CPUs are usually fine. It’s the GPUs that need updates faster, especially Nvidia. However I generally love to have new features as soon as possible too. On the other hand, I like the slowest updates as possible on my home server.
You’ll need to update to a point release sooner or later.
Are you the kind of person who lives to peel off the band-aid or pull it off in one go?
I prefer to peel mine. I’ve learned from pulling stitches by ripping it off.
On a more serious note: btrfs and timeshift are 👌. If there ever is a botched package, I’ll just roll back to this morning and keep working. It’ll probably be fixed by tomorrow.
I have a relatively new PC and eventually I decided at Debian Stable.
Granted, I was already somewhat familiar with APT and Debian based systems, but I also was thinking to choose something different or even a rolling release distribution…
…but at the end of the day, I wanted a stable, useable, tested and functional system that I can’t easily fuck up or can restore if needed, because, well, it won’t be a first time I bork a Linux system with misconfiguring stuff or doing something straight out stupid. But this is irrelevant this case.
I ain’t that super familiar with Linux world, so I deliberately chose the safe way. My hardwares are working fine, I have the drivers that work for everything, games running amazingly well… in the past 2 years I use Linux as main OS, I had no problems not being bleeding edge. I kinda had some minor FOMO when Plasma 6 came out and I was “stuck” on 5 with Debian 12, but didn’t had to wait too much for Debian 13 that has Plasma 6 by default. Though, I reinstalled everything when 13 came out - but only because I wanted some changes on my partition table, I added a new disk and… I wasn’t quite happy how I managed some things with it so I wanted a fresh start - so wasn’t upgrading to 13, but I assume it wouldn’t be a problem either, not too long ago I upgraded my server from Debian 10 to 12, without issues. (From 10 to 11 and to 12. First I tried from 10 to 12, that was a disaster though. However, the documentation explicitly said not to do such thing, so it was on me.)
I was tinkering with my tech stuff all my life, I now really just want a stable, working OS. But it’s just personal preference, I have nothing against rolling release and I can imagine that there are scenarios where rolling release is the better choice.
I like getting updates and new features? My computer isn’t new by any means. But I tinker with stuff, sometimes bleeding edge technology. Other than that I don’t really care. Rolling release, Debian Stable… I’m fine as long as it does the job. And for half the stuff it doesn’t even matter. I can write a letter with a 5yo LibreOffice or answer mails with any version of the mail client. Just give me modern, up-to-date tools when developing software, and it doesn’t hurt if the slicer knows about my new 3d printer from this year.
This is admittedly anecdotal, but my experience with point releases is that things still break, and when they do, you’re often stuck with the broken thing until a new release comes out. For this reason, among others, dist-upgrades tend to be extremely nervewracking.
With a rolling release, not only are fixes for broken things likely to release faster - if something does break, you can pin that package, and only that package, to an older version in the meantime. Then again, I’ve been using Arch almost exclusively on my desktop for about 7 years and I’ve never had to do this. I don’t doubt that things have broken for people, but as far as I’m concerned, Arch just works.
As far as security goes, I don’t think there’s much, if any, advantage. Debian, the stablest of them all, still gets security updates in a timely fashion.
Dist upgrade is only dangerous for the people who do it. Wait a few weeks before upgrading to the new release and most broken things will be fixed already. I used arch a lot, and I do like the idea of rolling releases, but at this point for the couple programs I need new features in, I just build them from source.
Rolling vs. point release is not about whether a breaking change happens or not but when.
With rolling, breaking changes could happen at any time (even when inconvenient) but are smaller and spread out.
With point release, you get a big chunk of breaking changes all at once but at predictable points in time, usually with migration windows.
