u/CitySeekerTron — reddlx

Up front: Yip, I get it.

I get why a sysadmin might choose to avoid a rolling release. I get that stability matters and changing shit can break more shit, and that features deprecate.

I also know that I'm not as versed as others might be. So with that said...

Say I run an application locally with a PHP 8.3 dependency. Suddenly, Laravel or something creates a new base version with a PHP 8.5 dependency.

How do rolling releases handle this? Would they create a new package/"metapackage" for php8.5 and simply drop that into its respective repo for the distro's management system to figure out? Do they rebuild meta-packages to set a new baseline every so often, and if so: does the baseline change impact installed packages?

I know that some distros keep certain older software available in some maintenance modes - no new features, only security and occasional performance patches, and can do so for quite a long time, but I think that's beyond the scope of the question.