A rolling release Linux is one that is continuously updated as improvements are made to the OS. It’s similar in concept to the growing DevOps culture that seeks continuous deployment, and is centered around the idea that users and developers should get patches and updates as they are created.
The number of people favoring rolling release distributions of Linux are growing, including Greg Kroah-Hartman, one of Linux’s premier developers. Arch, Ubuntu Core, and CoreOS are some of the distributions leading the charge in the development of rolling releases. This has the potential to help developers and users that absolutely need cutting edge software, but questions remain as to how well rolling release distributions will handle stability for people that need long term support.
