this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2026
30 points (87.5% liked)
Linux
60973 readers
970 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I don't think there's any versioned Linux distros that do automatic major version updates. Only rolling release distros like Arch.
FWIW, some (perhaps even most/all) uBlue derivatives actually do automatic major version updates. Though, thanks to the bootc-model, they're dealing with a whole lot less state(/moving parts); hence smooth updates are somewhat expected. The built-in rollback functionality doesn't hurt either.
More than that I think it's a prerequisite for doing this.
You might be absolutely correct on that.
Though, I do wonder what would prevent a stateless system accompanied by a healthy dose of integrity tests from pulling this off.
Or rolling like Tumbleweed
Not sure why the downvote, other than that they specified “versioned” (not rolling).
All rolling distros obviously auto-upgrade by definition.
Yeah not sure, and tumbleweed is "versioned" in a way you get a discrete/prescribed set of updates when the dated build is ready...you can always update packages out of sync with the distribution upgrade I guess
Debian has been doing so since forever without breaking. I tried Mint when it was the latest shit on a new laptop and was quite fond of it. Until it was time to update. I chose to upgrade - to plain, old Debian that had been running on my servers, workstations and PCs since 2002 and still does. How a Debian-derived distro could fuck up the one thing that makes Deian stand out -the nearly unbreakable packet management system- still is beyond my understanding.
Debian does not do major distro version upgrades automatically. You need to run dist-upgrade to go ahead a major release.
Sure. But MInt doesn't do dist-.upgrade at all. Or it didn't when I tried some years ago. IDK what the situation is now, but then Mint's FAQ said you'd have to do a fresh install.
Yes, they do, via the mintupgrade tool.