![]() Stability as defined for distributions also affects users, but not so much through program crashes etc. Keeping a release consistent also allows it to be considered as a known whole, with a better-defined overall behaviour than in a constantly-changing system minimising the extent of changes made to fix bugs helps keep the release consistent. This is a major reason why bug fixes (including security fixes) are rarely done by upgrading to the latest version of a given piece of software, but instead by patching the version of the software present in the distribution to fix the specific bug only. (This is one of the reasons why stable distributions never upgrade the C library in a given release.) This works forwards as well as backwards: thus, a binary built on Debian 10.5 should work as-is on 10.9 but also on the initial release of Debian 10. In RHEL, whose base distribution moves even more slowly than Debian, this is described explicitly as API and ABI stability. A stable distribution provides a stable foundation for building more complex systems. ![]() As a result, third parties can build programs on top of the distribution, and expect them to continue working as-is throughout the life of the distribution. ![]() “unstable” distributions.Ī stable distribution is one where, after the initial release, the kernel and library interfaces won’t change. In the context of Debian specifically, and more generally when many distributions describe themselves, stability isn’t about day-to-day lack of crashes, it’s about the stability of the interfaces provided by the distribution, both programming interfaces and user interfaces. ![]()
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