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?

  • @jimmy90
    2•12 hours ago

    the deployed architecture of linux is still evolving right now and there are lots of distros experimenting with different approaches

    • how the basic core OS is structured - immutability, A/B partitions, versioned rollback
    • how third party applications are executed - containerization, compatibilty, virtualization, bare metal
    • how software is updated and stored - package management (apt, pacman, nix, flatpak)

    i’m sure i’ve missed other features of new linux distros. this is all really important stuff but has nothing to do with the apps you actually use day to day