this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2023
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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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Maybe what I'm looking for is the holy grail, but what do you guys suggest as a Distro with a good balance between stability and up-to-date packages?

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Void Linux. A great compromise between being up to date and being stable AF. They're not bleeding edge, but cutting edge, most definitely. For example, they only recently transfered to kernel 6.3, while Arch had it months ago... with instability issues I might add. Void maintainers would rather let these wrinckles get ironed out than implement the latest and greatest.

It is a rolling release distro, so nothing new there. Packages get regular updates, same as any other rolling release distro, except for the kernel packages which are carefully examined before being submitted in the repo. The number of precompiled packages is not huge, but the src templates are (you just have to compile them from source with xbps-src, which is a piece of cake when you already have the template file).

The good thing is that all package templates get checked for buildability (test) on GH. If the template passes all tests, it makes it in the repo, if not, it doesn't, simple as that.

If you think you would be comfortable with Arch, you'd be comfortable with Void as well 😉.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Besides those builders that run the checks made by the developers of the apps (is simple running a make check or whatever the build system the package uses, void Linux does have some problems mostly because of the small team.

One of the biggest one is basically being stuck in 1.X series of musl forever until someone steps up and creates a solution that doesn't require to rebuild all packages because of an ABI breaking change in armv6l systems at 2.X musl series .