The jump in distro versions, say, from Fedora 38 to Fedora 39, is not the same as the jump from Windows 10 to Windows 11. It’s more like the jump from version 23H2 to 24H2.
Now, I’m sure even most Windows users among those reading will ask “wtf are 23H2 and 24H2”? The answer is that those version numbers are the Windows analogue to the “23.10” at the end of “Ubuntu 23.10”. But the difference is that this distinction is invisible to Windows users.
Why?
Linux distros present these as “operating system upgrades”, which makes it seem like you’re moving from two different and incompatible operating systems. Windows calls them “feature updates”. They’re presented as a big deal in Linux, whereas on Windows, it’s just an unusually large update.
This has the effect of making it seem like Linux is constantly breaking software and that you need to move to a completely different OS every six to nine months, which is completely false. While that might’ve been true in the past, it is increasingly true today that anything that will run on, say, Ubuntu 22.04 can also run without modification (except maybe for hardcoded version checks/repository names) on Ubuntu 23.10, and will still probably work on Ubuntu 24.04. It’s not guaranteed, but neither is it on Windows, and the odds are very good either way.
I will end on the remark that for many distros, a version upgrade is implemented as nothing more than changing the repositories and then downloading the new versions of all the packages present and running a few scripts. The only relevant changes (from the user’s perspective) is usually the implementation of new features and maybe a few changes to the UI. In other words, “feature update” describes it perfectly.
Anyone coming from a development background will entirely get the idea of stable releases. 23.10 or 24.04 are just rolling releases of a stable distro. It’s the production ready version. You can choose to opt-in to the development updates at the risk that your system might be slightly more unstable, but that’s not a decision that a casual user should consider.
The version numbers on Ubuntu specifically, are just dates. 23.10 is the stable release from October, 2023. That’s all it is and there’s really no point in thinking about it deeper than that. It’s a date, not really a version number.
Isn’t that the point, people outside of tech-people will be confused and it harms the adoption by the greater masses.
Yeah, I’m saying that I agree that version numbers are harmful to mass adoption and I go on to explain that it’s not really a version number at least in Ubuntu, but a “YY.MM” formatted date. I think making that more clear would help people that are unfamiliar with versioning and development.
Ah yeah that’s reasonable. But it’s gonna be an uphill battle against every other product out there on the market that influences users.
Version numbers are not that hard to wrap your head around. Aside from that, do you really think people care that much about version numbers?
Yes I think people think bigger number is better.
Think about how smart the median person is and now wonder about the lower half.
That’s kinda what I meant. I don’t think those people will even look at version numbers tbh. They’ll probably just click update, let it install and that’s it.
I don’t think non-LTS Ubuntu releases are technically rolling releases. They are more like shorter supported snapshots.