Why distros don't have a unique version which continously provide updates?

Question

I don't see the point why distros, instead of building new versions, don't have a unique version, which continously provide upgrades for the linux kernel, desktop environment, software packages, etc. Everything seems to be upgreadable in a distro version to convert it in the following version. Clearly I am missing something.

For instance, new distros' versions release notes feature new software versions, like gcc or gnome, but they could have been upgraded in a previous version, so what is the point?

Ah! Didn't know of their existence. So my question turns out to be: what are the disadvantages of rolling releases distros? I'll google it.. thx! — bryant1410, Oct 24 '14 at 23:28
I cover this a bit in this Q&A: What is the prefered way of updating all software in a Fedora installation? — slm, Oct 25 '14 at 00:24

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 24 '14 at 23:29

You, sir, are looking for Arch Linux. You do have to run pacman -Syu about once or twice a week to stay current, but after that, you've got the latest versions of everything.

As far as disadvantages, occasionally something big and complex will make a clean break with the past, and you'll have to do some weird extra work. Changing from PostgreSQL v8 to v9 comes to mind, as does changing to systemd. There's just no "typical" with that kind of thing. The pacman package manager takes care of upgrades and packages that get replaced by other packages, things like that.

Not the best answer I was hoping, but helped me to understand what I was not understanding, so thanks — bryant1410, Oct 26 '14 at 01:57

Why distros don't have a unique version which continously provide updates?

1 Answers1