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"use strict";(self.webpackChunkfi=self.webpackChunkfi||[]).push([[866],{24612:e=>{e.exports=JSON.parse('{"blogPosts":[{"id":"/2024/02/07/lts-distros","metadata":{"permalink":"/blog/2024/02/07/lts-distros","editUrl":"https://github.com/mfocko/blog/tree/main/blog/2024-02-07-lts-distros.md","source":"@site/blog/2024-02-07-lts-distros.md","title":"LTS distributions","description":"Shower thoughts on the LTS Linux distributions.\\n","date":"2024-02-07T00:00:00.000Z","formattedDate":"February 7, 2024","tags":[{"label":"lts","permalink":"/blog/tags/lts"},{"label":"linux distributions","permalink":"/blog/tags/linux-distributions"},{"label":"support","permalink":"/blog/tags/support"},{"label":"paywall","permalink":"/blog/tags/paywall"}],"readingTime":14.515,"hasTruncateMarker":true,"authors":[{"name":"Matej Focko","email":"me+blog@mfocko.xyz","title":"a.k.a. small Fedora maintainer","url":"https://gitlab.com/mfocko","imageURL":"https://github.com/mfocko.png","key":"mf"}],"frontMatter":{"title":"LTS distributions","description":"Shower thoughts on the LTS Linux distributions.\\n","date":"2024-02-07T00:00:00.000Z","authors":[{"key":"mf","title":"a.k.a. small Fedora maintainer"}],"tags":["lts","linux distributions","support","paywall"],"hide_table_of_contents":false},"unlisted":false,"nextItem":{"title":"Mixed feelings on Rust","permalink":"/blog/2024/01/28/rust-opinion"}},"content":"Linux distributions are a common choice for running the servers. There\'s a wide\\nvariety of distributions, but on the servers majority is made by only a few.\\n\\nSome corporations also profit from the support of the \u201cbig\u201d distributions. Let\'s\\ndive into the pros, cons and peculiarities of such _business_.\\n\\nThis post is inspired/triggered by the following Mastodon post:\\n[![Mastodon post about Ubuntu Pro](https://i.imgur.com/mh5RAlV.png)](https://hackers.town/@antijingoist/111864760073049505)\\n\\n\x3c!--truncate--\x3e\\n\\n:::caution Disclaimer\\n\\nYou may take my opinion with a grain of salt, since I\'m affiliated with Red Hat,\\nbut at the same time I\'ve also seen the other side of the fence, so I know how\\nit works from the perspective of the provider/maintainer.\\n\\n:::\\n\\n:::tip\\n\\nIf you are not very oriented in the matters of Linux distributions and\\nmaintaining of packages, I suggest looking at the [glossary](#glossary) at the\\nend to have a better grasp of the terms that are used throughout the post.\\n\\n:::\\n\\n## Point of linux distributions\\n\\nFirst thing I\'d like to point out is the point of the Linux distributions. What\\nbenefit do they provide? And why there are so many of them\u2026\\n\\nAs it has been brought up many times by the _rms_[^1], Linux by itself is not\\nenough, it\'s just the kernel that does the underlying work. We need more\\nsoftware to utilize the hardware. That\'s the gap that Linux distributions bridge\\nby providing the Linux and much more other software that we need.\\n\\nEach distribution is unique in its own way. Some prefer different ways of\\nhandling the software (like Gentoo that allows you to compile it yourself) and\\nothers stable releases of software (like Debian).\\n\\nIn the end it mostly boils down to the packaging. I, as a user, want to do\\nsomething like\\n\\n```\\n$ sudo dnf5 install firefox\\n```\\n\\nand not bother about anything else. I don\'t want to open browser to look the\\nthing up, download it and then click mindlessly 500\xd7 \u201cNext\u201d. I just want to run\\none command and when the maintainers decide it\'s time to move on, another one to\\nupgrade the software to the newer version.\\n\\nOf course, for some use cases you want to minimize the latter. And even make\\nsure that it\'s safe to do it when you need to. You don\'t want to break your\\nproduction deployment just because someone decided it\'s time to push something\\nout.\\n\\nThat\'s when the _maintainers_ come in. They take upon themselves the\\nresponsibility of maintaining the packages. If you\'ve ever used the Debian, you\\nknow very well how _old_ the software is, but that\'s what you