You can update your version of Fedora through the updater software as well but it’s a very clear separate process that is initiated manually.

Distro version updates bring major updates to key packages - the one you’d notice most would be to Gnome, the desktop environment. There will be other things too that get only bugfix and security updates during the life of that version, and then after a while that version will lose support and you won’t get any updates at all (https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/releases/lifecycle/).

Updating is very safe and reliable. I’ve had my Fedora install at work for 3 years, updating periodically and it’s working extremely well.

This is an imperfect analogy, but think of updating between Windows 10 and 11 versus installing updates on windows 10 or win 11.

I have no experience with Fedora, but AFAIK at least in Ubuntu/Debian land, updates are installed from OS version specific package repositories. When the version of the OS is no longer supported, those repositories might not receive updates anymore.

EDIT: this is the main reason I have a rolling release distro on most of my personal machines. The package repos have the newest packages without having to update my OS major version every now and then.

Upgrades are just a whole bunch of updates stuck together. Unlike Windows or OSX there isn’t really a clean way to determine which files are part of your OS and which aren’t. Microsoft doesn’t release a major new version of WinHTTP until Windows 12 comes out, but OpenSSL doesn’t care it Fedora is halfway through building Fedora 40 or if the next version is a year away. They release a new version when it’s done, and distros have to choose whether they want to package it or if they wait for the next version.

Every Linux distro comes with hundreds of support libraries that programs use so they don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Some deal with reading XML files, some deal with talking HTTPS over the network, some do weird shit to make GPUs work. All of these libraries and tools are independent software packages, many of them maintained by different people and teams.

Most stable distros will try to keep compatible versions of software as long as the main version doesn’t change. That means libfoobar-1.1.2 will get updated to libfoobar-1.1.9, but not to libfoobar-2.1.1 because that’s a potentially breaking change, making programs who aren’t prepares for the update crash.

The thing about updating libfoobar to 2.1.1 is that libwidgetbaz will also need to get updated to support the new version, which in turn requires an update for ThatToolYouActuallyUse from version 21.2 to 23.4. The whole Linux ecosystem is full of these dependency and version chains and a significant portion of distro work goes into finding versions of software and libraries that’ll all work together.

You can’t just update one library out of the blue if you don’t want to update the rest of the system. Distros like Arch do so, but their approach is “you update everything or you accept randomly breaking software”. This gets you the latest features, but also means that if ThatToolYouActuallyUse doesn’t get updated anymore, an update to libfoobar can just break it, crashing the program until you either find a hack to install both versions of the library or until someone comes up with a fix.

Fedora/Debian/Ubuntu/etc. basically package groups of software and software versions together, porting fixes back to old software for a couple of years, often with a specific time they promise to support the (by then outdated) software for a specific version.

If you move from Fedora 38 to Fedora 39, hundreds or thousands of programs and support libraries will get an update. Some are minor updates, some are major updates. These updates have the side effect that things may look different, but that’s not always the case, depending on the tools you use and the desktop environment you’ve installed.

You can see every individual package get upgraded individually if you upgrade through the command line. Doing these upgrades looks very impressive to people unfamiliar with the command line, but you can probably just stick with the normal updater tool if you don’t care about all that.

Is this something that needs to happen manually?

Yes, sort of. It needs to be initiated manually, but you should get an update notification, and the actual upgrade itself is automatic once you initiate it. Clicking on the notification will take you to the Software app > Updates section, from where you can do the upgrade.

If I solely update through the updater software, I’m not getting the whole “38”?

No, you will get the whole 38 (what makes you think you won’t?). Everything will get updated. The key thing to remember is to update all other applications/kernel etc and restart your system first, before you do the actual OS upgrade. This is documented here: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/upgrading-fedora-new-release/#_upgrading_to_the_next_fedora_workstation_release

Some folks recommend disabling third-party repos before you do the actual upgrade, like copr, RPMFusion etc, but personally I haven’t had any issues leaving them enabled - as long as you install all applicable updates and reboot prior to the upgrade, you should be fine.

If you want more control over the process though, you can always upgrade manually using dnf. Although there’s not much benefit doing to this via the commandline (except for power users/admins who need the control/visibility), it’s worth reading the post-upgrade tasks section to run some cleanup tasks (not a 100% sure if the GUI updater tool does this).

Upgrading on Fedora is really easy from the software center. Never had any problem, never took any precaution.

But, of course, it’s always necessary to have a backup of your important files.

There is a distinction between regular updates and distribution upgrades. The latter have to be done manually. I know that distribution upgrades via GUI have been in the works; no idea if that is a thing yet.

https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/upgrading-fedora-new-release/

As for what’s missing: The most important thing to keep in mind is that fedora releases only get security updates for 1 year after release + some grace period depending on the date of the n+2 release.

Poorly upgrades often only work manually. They are like dates, sometimes more happens, sometimes less, so they may be a bit random, but its good to wait a bit and then upgrade, as they introduce new possibly breaking changes. Meanwhile the old version (on Debian and Ubuntu even multiple ones) still get updates, mainly security fixes, but on Fedora I think there are none, so in a different way non-major updates

ctrl+alt+t
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade -y
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -y
sudo apt-get autoremove