Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Help me understand Linux distros updates. (startrek.website)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Hi I'm relatively new to Linux. There's talk about updating, say from Fedora 37 to 38.

Is this something that needs to happen manually? If I solely update through the updater software, I'm not getting the whole "38"?

I understand that, of course, I won't see updates on the installer or I won't use a new supported partition type unless I install it again.

Apart from that, what's missing? Some software won't be updated? The kernel?

Thank you all!

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This is an imperfect analogy, but think of updating between Windows 10 and 11 versus installing updates on windows 10 or win 11.

I have no experience with Fedora, but AFAIK at least in Ubuntu/Debian land, updates are installed from OS version specific package repositories. When the version of the OS is no longer supported, those repositories might not receive updates anymore.

EDIT: this is the main reason I have a rolling release distro on most of my personal machines. The package repos have the newest packages without having to update my OS major version every now and then.