this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2026
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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.
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They backport security updates to the existing software versions on stable, which causes the packages to be secure without introducing new behavior. Feature updates only occur with a new stable release I believe.
Exceptions exist, for example rsync recently got a new upstream version to fix 33 CVEs: rsync.NEWS
I also saw that recently. I'd like to highlight this bit from the news:
So it looks like the package is still mostly kept stable despite the exception made.
it is rare but some feature updates do get to stable, most software that is important to up to date with security fixes have the concept of an LTS or somethinf akin to it, firefox has ESR for example, basically it is a version where the devs will continously backport security fixes to it but not the features