Most of the time, though, it's really hard to figure out which is which. Sometimes not even upstream knows about it, and a seemingly innocent fix turns out to plug a gaping security hole. Sometimes upstream patches issues silently (not ideal, but it happens). And in large projects, security issues that can be unpleasant, but not deemed CVE-worthy (e.g. trivial DoS attacks, not issuing complaints about a potentially insecure config etc.) sometimes get squashed into a minor release.

It sucks but when you're downstream, things are what they are.

My laptop is my only Slackware machine at the moment. It is running Slackware-current and I turn it on every few days. The first thing I do is apply any updates.

There's something I'd like to point out about updates.
What I'm writing concerns specifically PCLinuxOS, because this is the system I mostly use and prefer, but when it comes to perform updates, these generally ends in big problems. An example among many: on a Fujitsu Lifebook P702 the installation of PCLinuxOS 2017-11 went very well..., until I had the bad idea to update the system to the latest version... The main problem is then Internet access, with the Wifi card not working anymore, unwelcome changes in the layout, colours and icons, system much slower, less clear to read with less opportune contrasts and colours, etc... This kind of problems always occured when I had the bad idea to just try out an update of a complete system, and sometimes by just updating one single software!
So, no other choice than reinstalling the old version and carefully avoiding general updates!
Security set aside, why change a system that works? Why change every few months layouts, colours and icons? Security, yes, I understand, but not the seemingly artificial way of slowing down systems. I guess slowing down Internet access forces people needing Web access to change their hardware...
Sorry for the lack of more nuances, but I had to express this everlasting problem of updates.

Maybe you should try Slackware. It doesn't have those problems (as long as you are not running -current.)

Thanks for the suggestion, well understood ;o)
More seriously, till now PCLinuxOS has many advantages, as for instance the easy installation, the huge software repo also easy to use, in spite of some bugs, and I suspect some virus infections. Nevertheless, maybe, one of these days, I'll give Slackware a new go ;o) In fact I already did try Slackware long ago, but at that time it did not seem very practical to me. Il also stopped trying out the latest Debian versions because of the, for me, irritating smartphone look.

I don't see the option of "Every few hours".

Don't give such bad advice. Linux platform is quite fast moving. If you don't keep track of it everyday you risk losing track of changes and when you do do an update you might get left high and dry. It can happen on any distro. Why? Because as I mentioned, Linux platform is fast moving.

You seem to miss the point on many levels. Why are you interested in Linux?
You are interested in Linux if you want a system that you can build from the ground up and a system that you have total autonomy over.
The overwhelming merits of Debian is its huge runtime repo.

For the vast proportion of users I would recommend Windows if they want a complete runtime system. They shouldn't bother with Linux unless they are genuinely interested in getting their hands dirty. Linux on the desktop is complete balony, what a load of tosh. Linux has its own merits and shouldn't try to compete for these small potatoes.

This couldn't be further from the truth when it comes to a stable release cycle such as that used by Slackware, Debian, and CentOS. If you are referring to a rolling release distribution like Arch Linux, then you may be right. I have no experience with rolling release distributions, unless you count Debian Sid and Slackware-current (which I do not believe are rolling release), so I cannot comment further on that topic. At any rate, I am not sure where you are getting your information.

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He probably had a bad experience running Quackware.

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I'm a long time Slackware user who tried PCLinuxOS for awhile. Actually that is not quite correct, I installed it on my wife's and daughter's machines for them to use. I found similar problems. Eventually I decided to switch them over to Slackware. I happy, they are happy.

Good question. I started with Linux around 2007 because of my frustration with Windows, and because Internet access with Mac OS 9 became difficult (by the way, I still do use Mac OS 9 for some tasks). Then seemed left the choice between Mac OS X and Linux, and it seemed logic to choose Linux with the huge variety of distributions and all the free software. Also, the wide variety of distributions seemed to limit the easy access of virusses to a particular system. Anyway, I like the Linux philosophy, although my knowledge is too limited to start programming and building from the ground a system.

I don't think Linux should be limited to a geek public. Anyone starting to use a computer should be given the chance to try Linux, which is not more difficult to learn than any other system.

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Indeed, I guess all systems we don't know very well will seem less interesting, although updates seem an everlasting universal problem ;o) I also guess the distribution we prefer will depend on which distribution we first had contact with...

Debian Sid is a rolling release. It's called "Unstable". As is SW-Current. It's patently obvious these sort of issues mentioned here arise with rolling releases distros.
Surely you must know this if you have the gaul to point out what is and what isn't a rolling release.

No, he was pointing out that these issues *ONLY* occur on rolling release distros. If you stick with stable releases, you don't run into those problems. And in the Slackware world, it is recommended to run the stable releases unless you are ok with the occasional breakage in -current. -current is a development snapshot and should not be used to determine Slackware's stability.

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