this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2023
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Linux

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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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[–] Silejonu 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

You can thank Flatpak for that. Dependency hell is real, especially on Debian, which ships old libraries. If you stick to default repos, you're unlikely to directly run into dependency issues, but once you install a program manually or from another repo, it's another story.

One example you may not have noticed, but which is a direct consequence of dependency hell, and a serious security issue, is for Firefox on Debian 11: it took around 6 months after it was EOL for Debian to update Firefox ESR. Twice (in other words, every single Firefox update on Debian 11).

There were similar issues for Chromium.

Source: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Web-Browser-Packages-Debian (same thing happened the year after, at least for Firefox, I don't know about Chromium).