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Have new distro releases become meaningless? (lemdro.id)
submitted 4 months ago by mfat@lemdro.id to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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When I read through the release announcements of most Linux distributions, the updates seem repetitive and uninspired—typically featuring little more than a newer kernel, a desktop environment upgrade, and the latest versions of popular applications (which have nothing to do with the distro itself). It feels like there’s a shortage of meaningful innovation, to the point that they tout updates to Firefox or LibreOffice as if they were significant contributions from the distribution itself.

It raises the question: are these distributions doing anything beyond repackaging the latest software? Are they adding any genuinely useful features or applications that differentiate them from one another? And more importantly, should they be?

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[-] gencha@lemm.ee 16 points 4 months ago

Maybe I'm just old, but I thought a distribution is literally just a package delivery basically, just like you speculated. Making software work together nicely is actually already hard enough IMO. I don't think anything is wrong. Valid question though

[-] thevoidzero@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago

I was thinking that exact thing lol. I'm like, yes 'distributions' are distributing new softwares with the new kernel.

And the improvement in desktop environments does feel like a good improvement considering the user is interacting most with it.

Or maybe I'm just apathetic to these things because most things I care about my distribution are that it provides me a good package manager for external and self made programs. And everything else is just programs installed through said package manager.

this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2024
101 points (100.0% liked)

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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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