I want to install a rolling release distro to stay at the bleeding edge of C++ GCC distributions. What distros will do this? 1. Can I retain my existing home directory with no or minimal hassle? 2. What major software, like Libre Office, might be different? 2. What additional concerns might occur?

I'm new to Arch Linux and perhaps this question has been asked hundreds of times before but I couldn't find an answer, even in the official Arch Linux documentation: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_Compared_to_Other_Distributions Arch Linux is a rolling release distribution. This is clear to me. But, what happens exactly when a new version of a package is released? Let's use the kernel as an example:
Say a new stable kernel version is available at https://www.kernel.org . For example 3.12.8. Is this version packaged as it is and pushed to Arch repositories? Or: 1. is there any QA loop (testing) before pushing a package to repository? 2. are some patches applied? If I open a shell on Arch Linux and type uname -r, I get 3.12.8-1. Does -1 mean any customization / patches?

Apart from debian stable, testing and unstable branch contains more recent version of software. Ubuntu takes unstable one and maintains its own release system. But my point is for example KDE. KDE 19 is present in Kubuntu latest, while debian unstable is still stuck at 17. So if it's based on Debian unstable, why is Debian so many versions behind? Is the Ubuntu packaging system different? Also can you suggest any 'rolling' distro based on Ubuntu (like debian unstable is rolling)?

Does rolling release differ from non-rolling release in that there is only incremental change to the system and packages, theoretically no need for reinstallation? If reinstallation can still practically happen in rolling release, when does that happen? Similarly, does rolling release require less reboots when updating/upgrading the kernel and packages than non-rolling release? When does rolling release require reboot after updating/upgrading? (what is difference between updating and upgrading?) If I am correct, NixOS follows rolling release pattern.

I desire to totally upgrade everything in Debian:Stable including the release version, to the newest stable release available: * Packages update * Packages upgrade * D:S minor_version * D:S major_version * D:S release_version Each action will be done respective to others in that entire recursive (monthly/yearly) single process, while I assume that release_version will surly be the last. In other words, I'd like to create a "fully rolling release stable Debian". I do it when having at least weekly/daily automatic backups (per month) of all the data so if something was broken I restore a backup. What will be the command to "brutally" upgrade everything whatsoever including doing a release upgrade? I was thinking about: apt-get update -y && apt-get upgrade -y && apt-get dist-upgrade -y

This is exact content from my sources.list: # # deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 2016.1 _Kali-rolling_ - Official Snapshot amd64 LIVE/INSTALL Binary 20160830-11:29]/ kali-rolling contrib main non-free #deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 2016.1 _Kali-rolling_ - Official Snapshot amd64 LIVE/INSTALL Binary 20160830-11:29]/ kali-rolling contrib main non-free I couldn't install the Synaptic package manager and was told to modify sources.list. I googled a lot and added some repos into it and ran update and upgrade command only to see Kali crash... I had to recover it. Please mention the exact content that should be there to ensure that Kali Linux works.

Let's compare *Debian Stable* as a candidate for point releases and *Arch Linux* as a candidate for rolling releases: **Does a rolling release by default cause higher fragmentation on the drive than a point release?**

I have some CentOS based VMs in Azure and recognized that depending on the precise base image I used to deploy them, a different repository configuration is in place. 1. Rolling Release Configuration

[base]
name=CentOS-$releasever - Base
#mirrorlist=http://mirrorlist.centos.org/?release=$releasever&arch=$basearch&repo=os&infra=$infra 
baseurl=http://olcentgbl.trafficmanager.net/centos/$releasever/os/$basearch/ 
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-7

2. Fixed Release Configuration

[base]
name=CentOS-7.7.1908 - Base
#mirrorlist=http://mirrorlist.centos.org/?release=7.7.1908&arch=$basearch&repo=os&infra=$infra 
baseurl=http://olcentgbl.trafficmanager.net/centos/7.7.1908/os/$basearch/ 
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-7

I have two questions: 1. What does the resulting repository configuration depend on? Is there also a way to install a "fixed release configuration" from an ISO image provided by CentOS via their website? I could not find one... 2. How to perform a release update with the "fixed release configuration" variant?

Is it possible to get Devuan Linux as a rolling release? All I can download seem to be the Jessie and ASCII releases, but I cannot find a link to Beowulf and Ceres. Can Ceres be defined a rolling release?

I need *MongoDB* to install on Arch Linux. It needs 180+GB free space for installation. However, I have 99GB partition where Arch Linux is installed and 107GB partition free. Can I installed MongoDB by ignoring all? Please suggest me how to get MongoDB

I'm trying to run a jar file which checks the installed version of Java explicitly: > *** The version you have requested to build requires Java versions between [Java 8, Java 12], but you are using Java 13 I am able to install OpenJDK 11 from my package manager but then only OpenJDK 13 is available as part of the latest rolling release. In this case, I am required to use the older JDK 11 for this software on Fedora. I can't find any information abut Fedora's rolling releases for Java. When does the Fedora project decide to provide extended support of a rolling releases?

I'm using Kali Linux for pentesting exercises. Often I find that I need to install a small utility from the repositories. Because Kali is a rolling release, and I'm not updating the OS regularly, this can mean a major update to every component of the OS when installing a minor tool. To get around this in other distributions, I've used DVD releases to keep my OS consistent to be installed from and updated by a single source. I'm trying this with Kali and I'm stuck in a loop... apt-cdrom add All good, running update apt update E: The repository 'cdrom://[Debian GNU/Linux 2019.2 _Kali-rolling_ - Official Snapshot amd64 LIVE/INSTALL Binary 20190508-10:56] kali-last-snapshot Release' does not have a Release file. N: Updating from such a repository can't be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default. vi /etc/apt/sources.list deb [trusted=yes] ... Then update again apt update E: Failed to fetch cdrom://[Debian GNU/Linux 2019.2 _Kali-rolling_ - Official Snapshot amd64 LIVE/INSTALL Binary 20190508-10:56]/dists/kali-last-snapshot/contrib/binary-i386/Packages Please use apt-cdrom to make this CD-ROM recognized by APT. apt-get update cannot be used to add new CD-ROMs Please use apt-cdrom to make this CD-ROM recognized by APT. apt-get update cannot be used to add new CD-ROMs Removing the CD lines from /etc/apt.d/sources.list and trying again takes me down the same path. Does anyone know why it would to accept the CDROM as an apt source or how to troubleshoot this further? (Of course this is not for production systems or real-world exercises.)

While I am using wine to run some Windows exe program files on Lubuntu 18.04, I update and upgrade which probably have updated wine. While I am still running the Windows exe programs, I try to run another Windows exe program, $ wine another.exe wine client error:0: version mismatch 547/571. Your wineserver binary was not upgraded correctly, or you have an older one somewhere in your PATH. Or maybe the wrong wineserver is still running? I don't want to exit the running Windows exe programs. Does that mean I shouldn't kill the running wine processes? What can I do to start the other window exe program? Is this a common problem in deployment: rolling upgrade/deployment? Thanks.

The question is really that simple: is Debian stable a rolling release? If it's not a rolling release type OS, does a rolling release distro exist which is based on Debian stable? I know Debian unstable and Debian testing rolling release distros exist already.

I really like how rolling releases offer the latest versions of everything, because sometimes that is important. However, once I have things working well, I am not that anxious to keep updating to the latest. Is it a sensible strategy to "freeze" my installation of an rolling distro like Arch and then only manually update the kernel and base packages a few times a year? The install in question does nothing except host VMs for PCI passthrough, share storage to those VMs, and handle online backup. So I shouldn't be needing to add new upgrades unless I decide I need some feature in a new version. Ideally I could identify bugfix-only patches and only do those unless I had a specific reason to do otherwise. Is this a sensible strategy?

My Debian system is set to install unstable packages by default $ cat /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/99defaultrelease APT::Default-Release "unstable"; However, I would like to pull automake from stable, ie, version 1.15 $ apt-cache policy automake automake: Installed: (none) Candidate: 1:1.16.1-4 Version table: 1:1.16.1-4 990 500 http://deb.debian.org/debian testing/main amd64 Packages 500 http://deb.debian.org/debian testing/main i386 Packages 990 http://deb.debian.org/debian unstable/main amd64 Packages 990 http://deb.debian.org/debian unstable/main i386 Packages 990 http://deb.debian.org/debian sid/main amd64 Packages 990 http://deb.debian.org/debian sid/main i386 Packages 1:1.15-6 500 500 http://deb.debian.org/debian stable/main amd64 Packages 500 http://deb.debian.org/debian stable/main i386 Packages But whenever I tell it to install automake/stable or automake with -t stable, apt just ignores that part. $ apt-get install automake -t stable --dry-run Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following additional packages will be installed: autoconf autotools-dev Suggested packages: autoconf-archive gnu-standards autoconf-doc libtool The following NEW packages will be installed: autoconf automake autotools-dev 0 upgraded, 3 newly installed, 0 to remove and 125 not upgraded. Inst autoconf (2.69-11 Debian:testing, Debian:unstable [all]) Inst autotools-dev (20180224.1 Debian:testing, Debian:unstable [all]) Inst automake (1:1.16.1-4 Debian:testing, Debian:unstable [all]) Conf autoconf (2.69-11 Debian:testing, Debian:unstable [all]) Conf autotools-dev (20180224.1 Debian:testing, Debian:unstable [all]) Conf automake (1:1.16.1-4 Debian:testing, Debian:unstable [all]) I can specify the package version like this: apt-get install automake=1:1.15-6 Which should solve my problem, although the dependencies (autoconf, autotools-dev, etc.) will still be installed from unstable, which is a little concerning. Anyway why is apt ignoring the given target in this case? Also - this is not a question - if this behavior is "by design", I think it would be really nice if apt could print some informative notice. ## Edit This is the output of apt -t stable policy automake (note: *after* having installed automake) $ apt -t stable policy automake automake: Installed: 1:1.16.1-4 Candidate: 1:1.16.1-4 Version table: *** 1:1.16.1-4 1001 500 http://deb.debian.org/debian testing/main amd64 Packages 500 http://deb.debian.org/debian testing/main i386 Packages 1001 http://deb.debian.org/debian unstable/main amd64 Packages 1001 http://deb.debian.org/debian unstable/main i386 Packages 1001 http://deb.debian.org/debian sid/main amd64 Packages 1001 http://deb.debian.org/debian sid/main i386 Packages 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status 1:1.15-6 990 990 http://deb.debian.org/debian stable/main amd64 Packages 990 http://deb.debian.org/debian stable/main i386 Packages Since this might be an issue with priorities, this might also be relevant: $ cat /etc/apt/preferences Package: * Pin: release a=unstable Pin-Priority: 1001

I'm currently on Debian Sid. Is there a way to only update packages that were released, e.g. at least one week ago? Could I schedule an update and then only upgrade two/four weeks later? The intent is to make the system a little more stable by rolling in after the most current release set. I haven't had any problems so far, but only by accident / laziness didn't upgrade to the recent systemd issue that affected some of the rolling distros (systemd 240?).

Is it important which version of a rolling release I start from? For example, if I download a version of Arch Linux 6 months older than the latest on the website, and then run update & upgrade, isn't it the same of running the same command on the latest version?

I am noticing a very peculiar thing just after shifting to Debian-based distros. root@Am-I-Helpful:~# uname -a Linux Am-I-Helpful 4.3.0-kali1-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.3.3-5kali4 (2016-01-13) x86_64 GNU/Linux The output of apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade is : root@Am-I-Helpful:~# apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade Hit:1 http://heanet.dl.sourceforge.net/project/ubuntuzilla/mozilla/apt all InRelease Hit:2 http://kali.mirror.garr.it/mirrors/kali sana InRelease Hit:3 http://kali.mirror.garr.it/mirrors/kali-security sana/updates InRelease Reading package lists... Done Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Calculating upgrade... Done The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required: libavcodec56 libavformat56 libavresample2 libavutil54 libdvbpsi9 libfreerdp-rail1.1 libpostproc52 libswscale3 libvncclient0 libvpx1 libx264-142 Use 'apt autoremove' to remove them. The following NEW packages will be installed: libavcodec56 libavformat56 libavresample2 libavutil54 libdvbpsi9 libfreerdp-rail1.1 libpostproc52 libswscale3 libvncclient0 libvpx1 libx264-142 The following packages have been kept back: libarchive13 vlc vlc-nox vlc-plugin-notify vlc-plugin-samba 0 upgraded, 11 newly installed, 0 to remove and 5 not upgraded. Need to get 0 B/5,605 kB of archives. After this operation, 14.8 MB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n] n Abort. The surprising thing is : It says The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required: libavcodec56 libavformat56 libavresample2 libavutil54 libdvbpsi9 libfreerdp-rail1.1 libpostproc52 libswscale3 libvncclient0 libvpx1 libx264-142 Use 'apt autoremove' to remove them. On the other end, at the very next line it also states The following NEW packages will be installed: libavcodec56 libavformat56 libavresample2 libavutil54 libdvbpsi9 libfreerdp-rail1.1 libpostproc52 libswscale3 libvncclient0 libvpx1 libx264-142 These are the same list of packages which are asked to be removed! I am not getting this as to how it is coming into picture. The content of my /etc/apt/sources.list is : # deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 2016.1 _Kali-rolling_ - Official Snapshot amd64 LIVE/INSTALL Binary 20160120-18:14]/ kali-rolling contrib main non-free #deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 2016.1 _Kali-rolling_ - Official Snapshot amd64 LIVE/INSTALL Binary 20160120-18:14]/ kali-rolling contrib main non-free #deb http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/ubuntuzilla/mozilla/apt all main #deb http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/ubuntuzilla/mozilla/apt all main deb http://http.kali.org/kali sana main non-free contrib deb http://security.kali.org/kali-security/ sana/updates main contrib non-free deb http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/ubuntuzilla/mozilla/apt all main Could someone please clarify as to what is happening here? How to solve this ambiguous case?

I am currently using Centos 7.2.1511(check from file /etc/redhat-release) and trying to downgrade it to Centos 7.1.1503 (due to some package installation issue in centos 7.2) using the command yum downgrade redhat-release But it says Nothing to do. I also tried this tutorial but dint have any luck. Can anybody help me? Thanks