• DonutsRMeh@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    7 hours ago

    It has always confused me how they’re able to keep updates for too long on a rolling release distro. What kind of magic do they use to achieve that?

    • Possibly linux@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      3 hours ago

      Rolling release is kind of a misnomer. It is technically rolling but the system is carefully put together and everything is updated at the same time.

      • boonhet@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        3 hours ago

        I’d even argue that rolling release does not preclude grouping updates in bunches.

        Rolling release distros still have testing cycles, usually. Gentoo will mask untested package versions, openSUSE tumbleweed just doesn’t ship them (at least not on a default zypper config - I haven’t looked into this much tbh). Of course, these package versions don’t get held back in large unrelated groups generally. They get released whenever tested. But you could just delay everything until most important packages are tested.

        Actually, openSUSE SlowRoll does something like this. Instead of getting packages as soon as they’re tested like TumbleWeed, you get big updates once per month and important fixes as soon as released/tested.

      • DonutsRMeh@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        3 hours ago

        I understand that, but if you run a rolling release, you know you’re getting updates constantly, and this is what I’m asking about. How is steam keeping up with these updates while “not updating”? Lol

    • QuandaleDingle@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      6 hours ago

      I wonder if it’s running some sort of “split release” cycle, where the KDE environment updates are delayed, but kernel and graphics drivers are rolling.

      • DonutsRMeh@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        5 hours ago

        I’d love to know. I’d assume that “split release” would be happening on the steam client itself (when you get an update through the steam settings), because going into desktop mode, you only get flatpaks update (at least as far as I know). You can’t just run sudo pacman -Syu and get your update.