Maybe my view here is somewhat jaded on distro versions since from the time 2.4 was released it was serveral years before major distros actually were shipping i

Maybe my view here is somewhat jaded on distro versions since from the time 2.4 was released it was serveral years before major distros actually were shipping it. Some of that was just coincidence that 2.4 was released right after several distros froze for their major versions. But yes the difference between patch versions is usually quite small.