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I think veidr covered it pretty well. Distros like Ubuntu choose a kernel and some package versions at the time they release, e.g. 20.04 (latest LTS) and they

I think veidr covered it pretty well. Distros like Ubuntu choose a kernel and some package versions at the time they release, e.g. 20.04 (latest LTS) and they don't receive major version updates until the next release. This means that while rolling distros have the latest kernel and packages within days or weeks, Ubuntu et al can be several versions behind, even months/years behind. "Out of date" packages is a stability choice, it means they're more mature and hopefully, better tested, hence Ubuntu having LTS, Long Term Stable, meaning it can be used in important places (like production servers) and a certain level of stability can be expected. Arch pretty much makes sure a package update builds and then releases it, it's up to the user to make sure it's compatible with other packages. Manjaro, I believe does _some_ testing but can still have package conflicts. Pop, Ubuntu etc do more testing and verification, and you can be reasonably certain updates will be compatible.

istingray 5y ago
This is helpful, gives me a sense of an overall flow of packages. And a distro is a snapshot that contains a bunch of those packages. But at some point, say Ubuntu 25.01, it would have the relevant packages of Arch today, it's simply a matter of time. My question I'll be looking into, are distros simply defined by their selection of packages, or is there other unique code/glue that defines a distro.
- alias_neo 5y ago
  Distros often have their own philosophies on a variety of things. Think of it like baking a cake, if everyone is given a shop full of roughly the same ingredients, each person will make something different with them, picking and choosing different things, icing or creme, blue food colouring or pink. The only part that's fixed is Linux (the kernel). I'm not sure which bit that would be in my analogy, perhaps the flour? Some distros have preferences for desktop environments, some create their own, some allow you to choose between several. Some distros chose not to switch from sysvinit to systemd, they also each have their own packaging system, deb, rpm, nix, apk etc As for the time thing, it's not quite that Ubuntu 25.0X will be what Arch is today. Assuming more development happens between now and then on each package, Ubuntu 25.0X may have packages from 2023-2025. Ubuntu even adds their own patches as they see fit, e.g. cherry-picking Open SSL commits. Here's[0] an interesting read I just came across about why a new kernel might be important for a person gaming on Linux. If you're stuck on Linux 5.2 or 5.3, you won't be getting this "Futex2" change for a while (if it made it into 5.16 for example). If you're on LTS, that could be 2+ years. [0] https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=FUTEX2-v5 https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=FUTEX2-v...

istingray 5y ago

This is helpful, gives me a sense of an overall flow of packages. And a distro is a snapshot that contains a bunch of those packages. But at some point, say Ubuntu 25.01, it would have the relevant packages of Arch today, it's simply a matter of time. My question I'll be looking into, are distros simply defined by their selection of packages, or is there other unique code/glue that defines a distro.

alias_neo 5y ago
Distros often have their own philosophies on a variety of things. Think of it like baking a cake, if everyone is given a shop full of roughly the same ingredients, each person will make something different with them, picking and choosing different things, icing or creme, blue food colouring or pink. The only part that's fixed is Linux (the kernel). I'm not sure which bit that would be in my analogy, perhaps the flour? Some distros have preferences for desktop environments, some create their own, some allow you to choose between several. Some distros chose not to switch from sysvinit to systemd, they also each have their own packaging system, deb, rpm, nix, apk etc As for the time thing, it's not quite that Ubuntu 25.0X will be what Arch is today. Assuming more development happens between now and then on each package, Ubuntu 25.0X may have packages from 2023-2025. Ubuntu even adds their own patches as they see fit, e.g. cherry-picking Open SSL commits. Here's[0] an interesting read I just came across about why a new kernel might be important for a person gaming on Linux. If you're stuck on Linux 5.2 or 5.3, you won't be getting this "Futex2" change for a while (if it made it into 5.16 for example). If you're on LTS, that could be 2+ years. [0] https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=FUTEX2-v5 https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=FUTEX2-v...