Rolling release, also known as rolling update or

continuous delivery Continuous delivery (CD) is a software engineering approach in which teams produce software in short cycles, ensuring that the software can be reliably released at any time and, following a pipeline through a "production-like environment", withou ...

, is a concept in

software development Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, programming, documenting, testing, and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applications, frameworks, or other software components. Software development invol ...

of frequently delivering updates to applications. This is in contrast to a ''standard'' or ''

point release A point release (also a dot release) is a minor release of a software project, especially one intended to fix bugs or do small cleanups rather than add significant features. Often, there are too many bugs to be fixed in a single major or minor ...

'' development model which uses software versions that must be reinstalled over the previous version. An example of this difference would be the multiple versions of

Ubuntu Linux Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: '' Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. Al ...

versus the single and constantly updated version of

Arch Linux Arch Linux () is an independently developed, x86-64 general-purpose Linux distribution that strives to provide the latest stable versions of most software by following a Rolling release, rolling-release model. The default installation is a minim ...

Rolling release

Rolling release development models are one of many types of

software release life cycle A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...

s. Although a rolling release model can be used in the development of any piece or collection of software, it is often seen in use by

Linux distribution A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one ...

s, notable examples being for instance

GNU Guix System GNU Guix System or Guix System (previously ''GuixSD'') is a rolling release, free and open source Linux distribution built around the GNU Guix package manager. It enables a declarative operating system configuration and allows reliable syst ...

, Gentoo Linux,

openSUSE Tumbleweed openSUSE () is a free and open-source software, free and open source RPM Package Manager, RPM-based Linux distribution developed by the openSUSE project. The initial release of the community project was a beta version of SUSE Linux 10.0. Addi ...

PCLinuxOS PCLinuxOS, often shortened to PCLOS, is an x86-64 Linux distribution, with KDE Plasma Desktop, MATE and XFCE as its default user interfaces. It is primarily free software operating system for personal computers aimed at ease of use. It is con ...

, Solus,

SparkyLinux SparkyLinux is a desktop-oriented operating system based on the Debian operating system. The project offers a ready to use operating system with a set of various customised lightweight desktops to choose from. SparkyLinux is released 3-4 times ...

and

Void Linux Void Linux is an independent Linux distribution that uses the X Binary Package System (XBPS) package manager, which was designed and implemented from scratch, and the runit init system. Excluding binary kernel blobs, a base install is composed ...

. Some modern

Distributed SQL A distributed SQL database is a single relational database which replicates data across multiple servers. Distributed SQL databases are strongly consistent and most support consistency across racks, data centers, and wide area networks including c ...

databases such as

YugabyteDB YugabyteDB is a high-performance transactional distributed SQL database for cloud-native applications, developed by Yugabyte. History Yugabyte was founded by ex-Facebook engineers Kannan Muthukkaruppan, Karthik Ranganathan, and Mikhail Baut ...

can also support this feature. A rolling release is typically implemented using small and frequent updates. However, simply having updates does not automatically mean that a piece of software is using a rolling release cycle; for this, the philosophy of developers must be to work with one

code In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication ...

branch, versus discrete versions. When the rolling release is employed as the development model,

software update A patch is a set of changes to a computer program or its supporting data designed to update, fix, or improve it. This includes fixing security vulnerabilities and other bugs, with such patches usually being called bugfixes or bug fixes. Patches ...

s are typically delivered to users by a

package manager A package manager or package-management system is a collection of software tools that automates the process of installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing computer programs for a computer in a consistent manner. A package manager deals wi ...

on the user's

personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...

, accessing through the

internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

a remote

software repository A software repository, or repo for short, is a storage location for software packages. Often a table of contents is also stored, along with metadata. A software repository is typically managed by source control or repository managers. Package ...

(often via a download mirror) stored on an internet

file server In computing, a file server (or fileserver) is a computer attached to a network that provides a location for shared disk access, i.e. storage of computer files (such as text, image, sound, video) that can be accessed by the workstations that are ab ...

References

{{Reflist Software distribution Software release Rolling Release Linux distributions

Rolling release

See also

References