zlacker

Arch is a rolling release distro. So it gets hardware support faster than other distros that stick to older kernels and userspace. Most users are not on rolling releases.

I personally like the rolling approach, but that doesn't reflect everyone's experience.

>>uluyol+(OP)
Ubuntu with the HWE kernel is basically rolling release for drivers, which seems like the best of both worlds.

>>yjftsj+Ub
you also want recent userspace for some components, e.g. mesa or libinput

>>yjftsj+Ub
HWE is not a rolling release, it's just backported kernels from newer non-LTS Ubuntu into an LTS version, releases every 6 months, so still very much a time-based release..., Ubuntu calls them "rolling" because when using HWE you get new kernel versions through regular "apt upgrade" once it gets released. But rolling release usually means that packages get upgrades as soon as possible after they are released upstream.

btw HWE isn't even the best "ubuntu flavored kernel" in terms of hardware support.., there are the OEM kernels designed for Ubuntu certified laptops (such as XPS 13 Developer Edition) which get newer kernel versions and drivers faster than HWE, you can install them on any Ubuntu with regular apt ("apt install linux-oem-22.04" for example) ...

>>uluyol+(OP)
Arch/Fedora are fine if you are OK with rolling release, but there are options for newer hardware support in stable distributions. E.g., you can install your kernel and firmware from backports (or even unstable) on Debian, so you get a stable distribution with bleeding edge kernel (currently 5.19 in the repos). Or, you can go the other way and run Debian testing/unstable, and pin some packages from stable. And, Redhat backports new drivers into its frozen shipping kernel version, so some popular new (server) hardware will work with their old kernels.

>>black3+nH
Oh, my mistake; you're quite correct that it's not a proper rolling release. I still think that it's a step forward for drivers, but yeah that's still a significant lag especially when Arch is in the running. Didn't know about the OEM kernels, either; that's a nice touch for what hardware it supports.