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i mean is a distro not made by a corp stable as in does it last years or do they often fail and vanish?

so i dont install a distro and customize it and all this and fine i need to move my whole digital life to new distro again.

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[-] davel@lemmy.ml 93 points 2 days ago

Debian is 32 years old. Arch is 24 years old. Gentoo is 23 years old. Alpine is 20 years old.

[-] Liketearsinrain@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 day ago

Not sure why I assumed alpine was much newer (saw it primarily used with docker)

[-] ranzispa@mander.xyz 2 points 21 hours ago

Same, never saw either a server or a desktop running alpine.

[-] klankin@piefed.ca 4 points 17 hours ago

Most ubiquity equipment is alpine I believe

[-] ranzispa@mander.xyz 1 points 16 hours ago

What is ubiquity equipment?

[-] unique_hemp@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 13 hours ago

He probably means Ubiquiti network gear

[-] klankin@piefed.ca 1 points 11 hours ago

Mid-range networking equiptment common in higher end homelabs or small/medium enterprises.

Doesnt compete with fancier Cisco gear, but has an easy to use interface that can scale fairly well.

Though like most networking equiptment the hardware is dirt cheap, so Alpine's lightweight base fits it well.

[-] pglpm@lemmy.ca 32 points 1 day ago

In fact all major "corp distros" are based on community distros, for instance Ubuntu on Debian. If Debian ceased to exist, Ubuntu would as well.

[-] Cris_Citrus@piefed.zip 4 points 1 day ago

What are fedora and opensuse based on?

[-] pglpm@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Fedora is not "corp", it's a community project; Red Hat is the "corp" version based on it.

I don't know about OpenSUSE that well, but it also seems to be a community-developed distro.

[-] caseyweederman@lemmy.ca 5 points 18 hours ago

They reordered it recently so as to close the Red Hat source. I couldn't tell which way though, but it sucked.

[-] pglpm@lemmy.ca 4 points 17 hours ago

Didn't know, thanks for the info.

[-] exu@feditown.com 20 points 1 day ago
[-] c10l@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago

Slackware and Debian both started in 1993.

[-] caseyweederman@lemmy.ca 3 points 18 hours ago

Debian is also prehistoric

[-] Crazyslinkz@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Came here to mention slackware too.

or do they often fail and vanish?

No. Niche, hipster, "latest hotness" distros sometimes vanish. Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, Kali, Qubes, Mint are all examples of community maintained distros that have been around for a long time.

Since you're looking for "stability" highly recommend Mint.

[-] nobody_1677@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago

And with community maintained distros like Debian and Fedora, you kinda get the best of both worlds. You have a mostly community distro that doesn't have corporate interests pushed on it, but have a corporation paying developers to work on it because it's in their interest to.

[-] grue@lemmy.world 32 points 1 day ago

You've got that backwards. Community distros are more likely to be stable than corporate ones.

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[-] IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz 28 points 2 days ago

Pretty much all 'major' distributions (Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, openSuse...) have 20+ years on their belt and none of those are not likely to go away any time soon. Some niche variants of those might vanish, but the main distributions will be there.

[-] mech@feddit.org 26 points 2 days ago

Slackware and Debian are the two oldest distros that exist (33 years). Debian is maintained by a group organized by a social contract.
Slackware is maintained by one dude in rural Minnessota.
Arch won't be going anywhere either.

[-] eldavi@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 day ago

Debian is maintained by a group organized by a social contract

it's amazing to see it still go on strong despite the police killing its founder and leader.

[-] incompetent@programming.dev 5 points 1 day ago

police killing its founder and leader

I hadn't heard about that. Do you have a link with more info?

[-] eldavi@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

i'm surprised that there are any articles out there considering that it was over 10 years ago and the cause of death is going to be determined on whether or not you trust the police

this article has enough breadcrumbs to lead you into requisite rabbit holes that'll help you understand why there's controversy around his death: https://thehackernews.com/2015/12/debian-ian-murdock-died.html

[-] wuphysics87@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 day ago

"...one dude in rural Minnessota" is there a story here?

[-] mech@feddit.org 14 points 1 day ago

Slackware has been maintained by its inventor, Patrick Volkerding, since 1993.
He used to make his living by selling Slackware DVDs.
When that market collapsed, he partnered with an online shop to make money selling Slackware merchandise.
But they fucked him over and he didn't see any money from them.
So he was forced to move from California back to his original home town in Minnessota to reduce his cost of living.
He still works on Slackware full time, but now he depends entirely on donations.

[-] limelight79@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago

Aww I didn't know that. I used Slackware for many years and had the DVD subscription. I got tired of worrying about dependencies and moved to Debian, but I still have a soft spot for Slackware.

I do remember one time Slashdot had an article about a new Slackware release, and he was like, "Do I get first post?" lol What a time that was.

[-] fozid@feddit.uk 16 points 1 day ago

You're missing the point of Linux. Generally, gnu/ Linux is a community based ecosystem across the board. Most of the software, most of the distros and most of the code you will use and encounter using any Linux distro will be community based. That's what gives Linux its advantage. The community can vet and improve any piece of code to improve the system for everybody.

[-] atomicStan@programming.dev 14 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

You seem to have the false notion that corporate distros are safe (or something). But, that's not true. Look e.g. at the demise of Clear Linux OS.

For (perhaps) a better assessment on whether a distro is well-established^[I.e. that it will not cease existing overnight.] or not, consider looking at the following factors:

  • How long does it exist? Like, if it's old enough to drink, then that's definitely a good indication.
  • How strong is its community? If there are literally millions of users, many of which actively contribute, then that's definitely a good thing.
  • How active is its development? The Linux landscape is constantly evolving. Hence, adopting changes (or, at least, enabling them) is somewhat to be expected.
  • Does it serve a distinct raison d'être? It simply has to offer a strong justification for its existence.
  • Does it have any strong dependencies/contingencies? Here, a lack thereof is actually what's good.

TL;DR: If you want to be absolutely safe, then I'd recommend Arch, Debian or Gentoo.

[-] anon5621@lemmy.ml 16 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Debian, arch the closest are that u want

[-] DieserTypMatthias@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 day ago

Any distro is stable as long as you don't screw something up.

[-] deadcade@lemmy.deadca.de 8 points 2 days ago

The smaller/newer distros have no evidence of staying around for years, so it's hard to judge whether they'll be around in another couple years. Distros like Bazzite are definitely interesting, but you can't reliably predict whether it'll get updates in 10 years. There are stable community-led distros that have been around for a long time, like Debian.

[-] atk007@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Depends really. Small community distros serve a purpose as they either provide some niche configurations or pre-installed software that major distros don't, or they are made because they are trying to fork a major distros that is becoming too corporate with risk of becoming less open source. Now within community distros there are reputations. Debian is famously a community driven distro that hundreds of other distros are based on, and so is arch. They are pretty stable and will last more and more. Also, corporate distro doesn't guarantee longevity or stability either, because there are several corporate projects that get abandoned and are picked up by communities.

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[-] z3rOR0ne@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

For cases where you just want to install it once and then update only once a month or even a couple months, and not worry about the distro not being maintained, I'd highly recommend installing Debian. You will eventually have to reinstall years down the line when a new major release happens, but it is many many years down the line and even that can be put off for quite a long time. The only drawback is that the latest releases of the software you like aren't always available in the official repos, as Debian's MO is to vet every package for stability before releasing it via their repos.

If you want a slightly less stable distro that has almost all the packages in the world and is up to date and is going to be around for a long time, go with Arch Linux. It's a rolling release model so packages are updated as soon as they are made available by the distribution maintainers. Things do break occassionally on Arch and a familiarity with the command line and where to go research/ask questions (the Arch Wiki and Arch Linux Forums) is very much needed in those situations. But Arch is very widely used and established nowadays and is a fine option if you're okay with the rare package that breaks.

Gentoo is a great option if you simply want to customize every aspect of your system, but it's considered an "advanced" distro and usually some familiarity with a different distro is recommended before using Gentoo, though some do end up using Gentoo as their first and only Linux distro. Gentoo, like Arch, is rolling release. Unlike Arch and Debian, packages are compiled from source, giving you granular control over which features of every piece of software you want to have and the ability to omit those features you don't want/need. Gentoo is as stable as you make it. Like Arch and Debian, Gentoo isn't going anywhere. That said, imho, Gentoo requires more maintenance than Arch or Debian, and potentially a little bit more knowledge of Operating Systems.

Other distributions like OpenSuse and Slackware are fine options as well as they have a very long established history in the Linux Distro ecosystem, but I am unfamiliar with them, so will leave it to others to make their comments/recommendations regarding them.

[-] hexagonwin@lemmy.today 4 points 1 day ago

gentoo, slackware, debian etc all seem ultra stable

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this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2026
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