> This is provably false, as I can witness from my recent experience where Arch has 14 month old, long superseded, version of a package, while other Linux distros (including Manjaro, but also Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, openSuse, etc.) use the most/more recent version.
Would you mind telling us what package that is?
My line is that I want the latest upstream packages with as little delay as possible while not breaking things. It’s a vague line, but that’s how it is. Arch Linux has generally managed to hit that line consistently and I haven’t experienced any breakages in years. Most of the issues I’ve had were due to Antergos screw-ups.
Unfortunately, I have seen out of date (1+ month) packages without any response from the maintainer, so I guess it’s just something that happens. My reasonable expectation is that I do have the latest ones, and I’m annoyed if I don’t.
This is provably false, as I can witness from my recent experience where Arch has 14 month old, long superseded, version of a package, while other Linux distros (including Manjaro, but also Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, openSuse, etc.) use the most/more recent version.
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> AFAIK, Manjaro is behind by like a month? In which case, why even bother with rolling release?
Even if this were true (and it isn't, see the sibling comment), I've seen responses like yours and I don't understand them.
Where would you draw the line when it comes to rolling? You say that one month behind is too long. Is 2 weeks ok? One week? 3 days? 1 day? 12 hours? Why does it even matter?
To answer you from my perspective:
I "bother" with Manjaro because I like the rolling distro philosophy, but I also value stability. If those two weeks of delay will bring me packages which are better tested and more stability overall - I'm all for it.
Oh and I don't even update as soon as an update hits the stable channel, I regularly decide to wait at least a day or two to see if others have any problems with the update.
For other people, who are more impatient (and more adventurous), Manjaro offers two other channels: testing and unstable.