Between Linux distributions there are a vast number of options on getting different styles of an operating system. Quite a few of these distributions follow the classic idealology of updates like how windows and Mac do it with major updates every so often. However there are two other styles of updates that exist. One is Long Term Service or LTS updates. Also there is rolling updates. This will focus on rolling releases of Linux.
Rolling releases are updates that come to the user whenever they are available. Think of how your apps update but for your computer OS. This is quite different from the tradition update with major release approach. This keeps users up to date with the latest availible bugs features.
Actually very much not, its quite interesting seeing the different approaches being taken to the same idea. Here are a few examples of unique things about different distros.
- Nixos - Contains 60k packages in their git due to ease of updating these packages, while its less used, it has vastly more packages because there isnt support for anything other than the nix package manager. Nix as a package manager is quite unique in ways which cannot be summerized here.
- Gentoo - Contains 19k packages in repos but the whole deal is to compile everything you install, therefore only a
ebuildis distributed. This is quite a bit slower for the end user than just simple downloads but has many other upsides such as software without unnecessary bloat. Also you can have everything be optimized for your own computer. - Arch - the main repo of packages is not very small but is also not very big, thats because arch users have easy access to the Arch User Repository (AUR), which grants them vastly more packages via
PKGBUILD's. Due to the wide spread usage of arch and its derivatives, the AUR is the largest package repository to exist. - Void - Similar to arch except the main repo does have quite a few more packages, however it has Void packages which has user submitted templates which can be built on the end users system.
You actually usually get updates that you barely notice. This is quite nice however because any software you use is able to utilize really new features. Some software is able to use these features quickly but its not very common for developers to adopt versions that are days old.
Speaking from personal experience, its possible for people to run updates 3 - 4 times a day or more. This is generally a more stable approach when it comes to rolling releases because you can really mess up your system when you neglect updates for 1 month and come back with 200 package updates.
This is also why such people have a very low uptime, they update their kernel and then reboot their computer into the newer kernel. Personally I have a cron job every night at 4am that reboots my PC.
Well it depends, different operating systems are at different levels of up to date. I'm going to use the Linux kernel itself as a comparison point here. And provide a table of the versions as of the time of writing.
Upstreams:
| Upsteam project | Branch/channel | Kernel version |
|---|---|---|
| Official | Mainline | 5.11-rc2 |
| Official | Stable | 5.10.6 |
| GNU | Stable | 5.10.6 |
| Distro | Branch/channel | Kernel version |
|---|---|---|
| Void linux | Master | 5.10.5 |
| Gentoo | Master | 5.10.6 |
| Arch | Core | 5.10.5.arch1-1 |
| Arch | Testing | 5.10.6.arch1-1 |
| Manjaro | Unstable | 5.10.6 |
| Artix | System | 5.10.4-2 |
| Kali linux | Experimental | 5.10.4-1kali1 |
| KaOS | Build | linux-next-5.10.4-1 |
| KaOS | core | linux-next-5.10.6-1 |
| OpenSEUS | Tumbleweed | 5.10.4 |
| Guix | Master | linux-libre 5.10.6 |
| Debian | Sid | 5.10.4+1 |
| Debian | Experimental | 5.10.4+1 |
| Fedora | Rawhide (34) | 5.11.0-0.rc2 |
| Clear linux | Master | 5.10.5 |
| Ubuntu | Daily | 5.11.0 |
| NixOS | Unstable | 5.11-rc2 |
| Solus | Unstable | 5.10.5 |
| Alpine | Edge | 5.10.6 |
- Added void linux overview
- Updated overviews of other distros
- Distingished upstream kernel projects
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updated versions
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changed guix link
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changed fedora link
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Removed fedora core
- updated versions
- changed debian link
- changed alpine link
- fixed guix link
- updated versions
- fixed artix link to go somewhere helpful
- added alpine linux
- updated versions
- changed below comment
- removed dahliaOS as it is not updating
- Added artix
- added Fedora rawhide
- added solus
- added links to all the versions so its easy for people to check
- added changelog
- updated versions
I will note that while kernel version is generally a good comparison point, it does not make an OS locked to however out of date it may be. Personally I have a laptop on void linux and a PC on arch, the PC however runs a mainline kernel which tracks the mainline git branch. Nearly all of these OS's can be updated even newer if you want to do a bit of extra work, but if you want bleeding edge and ease of use then the custom kernels is of less interest.
It is also important to note that while it may appear that some of them are more out of date than others in the same major version, it does not mean that its more stable, manjaro here is quite possibly more unstable than arch if some bugs are fixed in newer versions or if there is some other version mismatch due to how manjaro is made.