"As anyone who has used Linux systems for production systems knows all too well, there's an art to arriving at a stable configuration with all dependencies met. Linux distributors do an excellent job of delivering systems that meet this criteria, and keeping them there through their update processes as functionality updates, bug fixes, and security updates get laid on top of the out-of-the-box system. The amount of work and the success that they have in delivering both the base distribution and the stream of updates that follow is widely unappreciated.
"When it is appreciated it's usually because the standard distribution and kernel configuration isn't suitable for many commercial applications, and one or more custom configurations has to be developed and maintained by the organization's own Linux support group..."
