When I read through the release announcements of most Linux distributions, the updates seem repetitive and uninspired—typically featuring little more than a newer kernel, a desktop environment upgrade, and the latest versions of popular applications (which have nothing to do with the distro itself). It feels like there’s a shortage of meaningful innovation, to the point that they tout updates to Firefox or LibreOffice as if they were significant contributions from the distribution itself.
It raises the question: are these distributions doing anything beyond repackaging the latest software? Are they adding any genuinely useful features or applications that differentiate them from one another? And more importantly, should they be?
I honestly have no idea what you mean. I’ve been using NVIDIA cards on Linux for well over a decade. Recently the last 5 years on bleeding edge everything to get the latest benefits to gaming and the desktop. I’ve rarely run into issues with the driver. Lack of features, sure. Installing the driver, no. One of my systems has been updating year after year without a problem. Did you not use dkms? If you use dkms, it just rebuilds the driver everytime a new kernel is installed. You don’t have to do anything.
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Fair point. So having issues running latest mainline and RC kernels? I guess I stay away from those. The compatibility problems seem to never outweigh the benefits.