A new version of an app has been released with the latest and greatest features
e.g. Firefox 3.5
a) windows:
- if you haven't learned of the new version (e.g. more obscure apps), you'll carry on using the older version until the product's market penetration reaches you
- once you hear of the new version, you go to their website, download and install it
- some apps, but by no means all, include their own update notifier to tell you about the latest and greatest version. Each app though uses its own notifier.
- there is no other way to do this
- if you haven't learned of the new version (e.g. more obscure apps), you'll carry on using the older version until the product's market penetration reaches you
- once you hear of the new version, you *could* go to their website, download and install it, however:
- assume the existing version is fully functional, afterall, you've been using it fine so far, so no upgrade by default, which maximises system stability
- will release a new major version soon with the latest and greatest software having been tested for compatibility
- for those who cannot wait for the next major version, someone somewhere will have created a ppa (essentially a personal repo) with the required app
- to install it, you need to track down the right ppa, add it to your list of repos, and update - in so doing, you're personally choosing to sacrifice a certain amount of stability in exchange for the new features.
- there are also other methods of doing this
- as soon as possible after release, it'll be packaged and put into a testing repo, which will eventually make it to the main repos
- once you hear of the new version, you *could* go to their website, download and install it, however:
- once it's in the main repos, you'll be notified of *all* application updates not installed
- even if you haven't learned of the new version (e.g. more obscure apps), you'll be upgraded once it's in the main repos
- for those who cannot wait for it to make it into the main repos, they can enable the testing repo and in so doing sacrifice a certain amount of stability in exchange for the new features.
e.g. Firefox 3.0.13
a) windows:
- if you haven't learned of the new version (e.g. more obscure apps), you'll carry on using the older version until the product's market penetration reaches you
- once you hear of the new version, you go to their website, download and install it
- some apps, but by no means all, include their own update notifier to tell you about the latest and greatest version. Each app though uses its own notifier.
- there is no other way to do this
- it is assumed that these bugfix releases by definition don't change the app much, and hence less testing is necessary
- as soon as possible after release, it'll be packaged and put into a testing repo, which will eventually make it to the main repos
- once you hear of the new version, you *could* go to their website, download and install it, however:
- once it's in the main repos, you'll be notified of *all* application updates not installed
- even if you haven't learned of the new version (e.g. more obscure apps), you'll be upgraded once it's in the main repos
- for those who cannot wait for it to make it into the main repos, they can enable the testing repo and in so doing sacrifice a certain amount of stability in exchange for the new bugfixes.
- there are also other methods of doing this
EDIT: SallyK pointed out that in windows, you're particularly vulnerable to exploits if you're not running the latest version of an app. I'd just like to say that because of the way the support cycles work (at least in Mint/Ubuntu), the security patches are backported to the supported version by Ubuntu. See also, for more info: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=32809