Zarathustra
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It depends very much on the distribution. Because Linux is made up of different groups who all thought they wanted to do it their own way, there are different distributions that do things a number of different ways.
Generally though, unlike in Windows, existing releases don't get feature updates. A release is released with certain major revisions of key packages and they tend to only get minor point releases in those major versions, not major feature or layout changes. There are exceptions to this though. Some distributions follow so called "rolling release" structures, where they push new packages when they are available, and don't worry about maintaining specific distribution versions.
The main version of Debian, and releases that are based on it like Ubuntu, and in turn Linux mint are very much in the camp pf the former. A release gets security and bug patches only, not feature updates.
In a way, most Linux distribution releases are like running Windows after feature support has ended, but while security and bug patching is still taking place.
If you want new features you upgrade to the next release when it is available. If you don't, you continue on the current release until support ends. During the period of security support they will do **** near everything to maintain the release, including backporting patches for security issues which upstream are only applied to higher level package releases, and doing their own testing to ensure it works.
Again, for Ubuntu there are two types of releases, regular releases and LTS releases. The LTS releases represent a "extra stable" release that stays unchanged for an extended period of time. This is much like an LTSB version of Windows. The regular releases are generally more bleeding edge. It's kind of an informal rule that you don't run the regular Ubuntu release right after an LTS release if whatever you are running needs to be reliable. The regular releases right after LTS releases are generally where Ubuntu experiments the most with new stuff, and it is not unheard of for that to be rolled back in the following release if it didn't work out well.
Either way, whether you run a regular Ubuntu Release or a LTS release, they have an end of support date, after which it is highly recommended you discontinue use. Each release has an end of support date. Several releases coexist at the same time. For Ubuntu, LTS releases have an optional extended security support, but it is paid and usually only used by Enterprise users. As you can see in the version history chart below, the LTS releases are supported A LOT longer than regular releases.
Part of the complications with this approach is that in Linux, hardware drivers are usually included with the kernel, and for some graphics hardware in the MESA libraries, often distributed with the Xserver (X11 or Wayland) which is the framework that underpins GUI desktop environments in Linux and Unix. Both the kernel and the X server are usually considered major packages which don't get feature updates except when you move to a new distribution release. So, you can run into problems if you have brand new hardware and are trying to run an LTS release that is a year old. It may not have drivers for it. Because of this they release what they call HWE packages (Hardware Enablement) which release major packages (X server, Kernel, etc) from newer releases backporting them into the LTS release (after testing of course)
The chart below illustrates the release history and support lengths of Ubuntu.
Recent releases of Linux Mint operate similarly. It bases itself off of the LTS branch of Ubuntu, but releases point releases in between LTS branches where they allow feature updates to their own Desktop environments (primarily two choices, Cinnamon and Mate) which run on top of the base packages from the Ubuntu LTS release. In those they often automatically apply the HWE backports as well to maintain hardware support. They are thus attempting to strike a balance. Core packages are LTS and stable, whereas they can still add feature updates in point releases in between.
So, the following releases of Linux Mint were based on the previous LTS release of Ubuntu (18.04 LTS)
- 19 (Tara) Released 29 June 2018
- 19.1 (Tessa) Released 19 December 2018
- 19.2 (Tina) Released 02 August 2019
- 19.3 (Tricia) Released 18 December 2019
These are all built on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, and are supported until April 2023 (when 18.04 LTS ends support)
The following releases are based off of Ubuntu 20.04 LTS:
- 20 (Ulyana) Released 27 June 2020
- 20.1 (Ulyssa) Released 08 January 2021
- 20.2 (Uma) Released 08 July 2021
- 203 (Una) Current release, Released 07 January 2022
All of these will be supported until April 2025 (when Ubuntu 20.04 LTS ends support.)
So in the case of Linux Mint, they are currently supporting 8 separate releases with bug and security patches. But it is not as bad as it seems, as only two of them are major releases (19, and 20) with the other releases heavily based on them. That, and a lot of the maintenance of individual packages is done upstream in the Ubuntu project or in some cases even by Debian which Ubuntu is based on.
Chances are the next release will be Linux Mint 21, a new major release based on the upcoming Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, all codenamed with girl names starting with V (which ought to be easier than U
) This will be an interesting one, as tentatively this is the first Ubuntu LTS release which utilizes the "new" Wayland display manager, replacing the venerable X11/Xorg design. It remains to be seen if Mint will dive head first in to that, or stay behind on Xorg (which I understand will still be an option in 22.04 LTS.)(I say "new" in quotation marks because it has been under development for some time, with the initial release coming out in 2008, and has had several releases. it just hasn't really gained traction until the last couple of years. Ubuntu tried to switch to Wayland in 17.10, but quickly reversed course with the next release as they deemed it not quite ready. Wayland remained an option on subsequent releases, but didn't become the default again until 21.04, and even then only on systems which do not have Nvidia GPU's. with 21.10 all hardware uses Wayland by default.)
Moving to Wayland is huge. X11/Xorg has been very outdated and clunky for some time. Wayland will allow Linux users to do things Windows users take for granted, like run multiple monitors in the same session connected to different GPU's, use different scaling and refresh rates on different screens, etc. etc.
I hope this provides some clarity, or at least didn't add confusion
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