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Finally done with the distro-hop: My return to Fedora
(unknownuniverse.uk)
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this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2026
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That is a release engineering issue on the developers side in my opinion though no less real. Developers targeting Linux should target the current version of big LTS releases like debian and Redhat enterprise if they are serious about compatibility beyond "works on my system"
For the vast majority of computer users I'd says debian is fine since most users hardly step out of the browser these days.
Staying compatible with LTS releases should absolutely be the goal, but that takes work from both sides.
If Debian is applying backported patches to old software (I think the oldest version I saw was 6 years out of support) that generates a nightmare to support for package maintainers. If there are features which are not supported since the version is so old, but there are backported security patches which change the API, the developers would essentially have to maintain a specific version for each LTS distro's specific set of patches, and the number of versions you have to maintain and the length of time you need to maintain them for quickly becomes impossible to manage.
Stable is nice, but you can have stability without being criminally outdated, as Trixie shows. The ideal is to have a stable and up to date distribution.
And yes, most users would be fine due to just being in the browser, but thats true of literally any OS or distro, not specific to this.
I don't think back ported security patches should be changing public APIs, are you speaking from actual experience or is that some kind of theoretical problem that might not actually exist or at least isn't the norm?