Most up-to-date distro?

[Majorix]

What are the distros that are updated most often?

Out of the distros I tried lately:

Ubuntu is updated pretty often. Especially the testing release has most of the times the newest releases.

Arch comes up second.

openSUSE has relatively old software, and is not necessarily updated very often. It doesn't mean it doesn't look cute though :)

Other distros I tried in different times:

PC-BSD is lacking any recent software.

Slackware, as some of you may know, values stability very much; probably too much. So it is not updated often either.

Pardus is updated pretty often.

Fedora usually has recent software too.



So what did you spot?

[p_quarles]

Never used Arch, so I can't compare, but Debian Lenny always has very recent packages, sometimes betas and RCs. Sid is even more bleeding edge, but at the price of stability.

Many of the packages in Lenny, currently, are now newer than the ones in Ubuntu 7.10. Compiz and GIMP, to name two.

[LaRoza]

Probably Gentoo, or any distro that is built with the latest packages.

[earobinson]

ya Id vote for gentoo

[Majorix]

Never used Arch, so I can't compare, but Debian Lenny always has very recent packages, sometimes betas and RCs. Sid is even more bleeding edge, but at the price of stability.

Many of the packages in Lenny, currently, are now newer than the ones in Ubuntu 7.10. Compiz and GIMP, to name two.
I can cope with instability :D I was thinking of installing Debian some time, maybe this is it.
Probably Gentoo, or any distro that is built with the latest packages.
I could never like Gentoo. I think it didn't like me either, since I could never get it to install on any of my PCs :D

[justin whitaker]

Well, the most up to date distro is Linux From Scratch...because you compile it on the fly yourself.

:)

Just saying....

[LaRoza]

Well, the most up to date distro is Linux From Scratch...because you compile it on the fly yourself.


Like Gentoo?

[hyperair]

I'm actually pretty happy sticking around Ubuntu development versions. =P But then Fedora does appeal to me so perhaps I'll try installing it sometime.

[Vadi]

Ubuntu + getdeb.net

[woedend]

arch testing.....and more stable than lenny or ubuntu dev

[lespaul_rentals]

I'd say Gentoo. You can get brand new stuff all the time. Slackware might be up there as well, considering you can compile anything from source no matter how new. No repositories to wait on.

[igknighted]

Gentoo and Debian Sid are about as cutting edge as you can get.

As a second tier, there are distros like Debian Lenny and Arch that update often

Beyond that, I would say Fedora and Suse (due to the build system, special community repos, and one-click install) are the next most update (and first of the distro's that are truely stable enough for mainstream use)

Finally, Mandriva and then Ubuntu, because neither of these distro's really update on the fly. You must upgrade to the next version (especially in Ubuntu... mandriva has at least a decent backports repo)

Slack is probably the least up to date... very long between releases, still uses lilo, and only recently ditched the 2.4.x kernel tree...

[anaconda]

sidux is based on sid, but more stable

[Antman]

+1 for Sidux

[Unity]

indeed , i am a new user of Sidux and i like it a lot.
Too bad that gnome is known to be unstable on sid tho , i would love to have a sidux gnome ;)

[andrek]

1. Gentoo
2. Arch
3. Ubuntu alpha versions
4. Debian Unstable - Sid ( however, I'm a Sid user and I really like it.. ;) I would have been using Arch for few months - I'm with Debian just because I can't understand pacman ;) )

[darrelljon]

Why does it matter?

[Majorix]

Why does it matter?

You talking to me?

It matters because everyone wants a faster and more responsive computer, don't they?

[justin whitaker]

Like Gentoo?

True...:mrgreen:

[justin whitaker]

You talking to me?

It matters because everyone wants a faster and more responsive computer, don't they?

That's not the same thing though.

Up to date does not equal fast, compiled and optimized for your system does.

In fact, over time, there is a tendency for more features to be added, which adds size. Software gets larger over time.

That's where optimization comes in. You can recompile or compile things for your chip set and with the options you need and make the system noticeably faster than an unoptimized system.

Gentoo tends to be the most bleeding edge of the source distributions, but you can compile anything yourself on any source distribution.

[Vadi]

Latest != greatest

[Antman]

Latest != greatest

indeed...:KS

[davtaine]

+2 for Sidux

[new2*buntu]

Debian Sid, most likely

[r4ik]

+3 for sidux.

[Majorix]

Isn't Sidux mainly a LiveCD distro? Those are basically designed to run off the CD, and not to be installed. But I may be thinking wrong.

[igknighted]

Isn't Sidux mainly a LiveCD distro? Those are basically designed to run off the CD, and not to be installed. But I may be thinking wrong.

Actually, sidux is designed to be installed more so than most distro's that have a live CD. The whole point of Sidux is to provide a usable install of Debian Sid (unstable). So the live disk gets the system installed, but you really aren't using sidux fully until you have gone through a dist-upgrade and synced up with the Sid repo's.

[r4ik]

@ Majorix,

Read the Sidux Manual (don't get me wrong this is no RTFM)

http://manual.sidux.com/en/welcome-en.htm

Good luck !

Oh and don't try to find that extra codecs to hard :)

[ZBREAKER]

Another vote for Sidux..by far the most current/cutting edge....of course...it's sid!
The devs have made it quite stable though...as long as you "play by the rules". They've developed a dynamite script (smxi) for the dist-upgrades.

[darrelljon]

That's not the same thing though.

Up to date does not equal fast, compiled and optimized for your system does.

In fact, over time, there is a tendency for more features to be added, which adds size. Software gets larger over time.

That's where optimization comes in. You can recompile or compile things for your chip set and with the options you need and make the system noticeably faster than an unoptimized system.

Gentoo tends to be the most bleeding edge of the source distributions, but you can compile anything yourself on any source distribution.

I think this is one of the issues where a minority of forum users are out of touch with the majority of casual PC users. Apart from security fixes, general updates risk causing new problems and slowing your PC (particularly if you upgrade hardware as infrequently as possible). They're rarely worth the trivial new features they add.

[RAV TUX]

Isn't Sidux mainly a LiveCD distro? Those are basically designed to run off the CD, and not to be installed. But I may be thinking wrong.I believe you are thinking wrong.

I have always run Sidux installed.(Last time I installed it I ran OzOs on Sidux)