Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?

i ll tell you why from my end. I installed Postgres14 via homebrew many years ago on my Apple M1 mac mini. I searched a lot on how to "upgrade" this installation but found nothing. I have a few databases running with data on it which I can't afford to lose if something goes down for more than 1 hour. I wish someone would guide me on how to actually install a newer postgres such as v17 without breaking an existing v14 install or losing data since I am not an expert by any means

Forget about something as major as Postgres, I have trouble updating packages (that aren't install via pip/npm/cargo) on Linux all the time as a newbie. The experience is worse than Windows for some reason.

Hell, I have a hard time to tell the version of some system build-in binaries.

A few months ago, I have trouble to unzip a file which turns out ot be AES-encrypted. Some answers on SO [1] saying I should update my `unzip` to newer version but I can't find any updates for my distro, and I have no idea (still no, so feel free to teach me) to update it manually to make my `unzip` supporting AES. And all the versions, the good and the bad, all say they're "version 6.0.0" despite they behavior obviously differently.

[1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/60674080/how-to-open-win...

> I have trouble updating packages (that aren't install via pip/npm/cargo) on Linux all the time as a newbie. The experience is worse than Windows for some reason

If you haven't installed them via your programming language's package manager, you either installed them manually or via the OS package manager. The first one you'd know how to upgrade, and for the second you can ask it what version it is and what version is available to upgrade to (for compatibility reasons it might not be the latest, or latest major, unless you use the software vendor's own package manager repositories).

It's actually much easier than in Windows, because you have a piece of software (package manager) that is your one stop shop to knowing what is installed, update it, check versions available, etc. unless you've manually installed stuff.

In Windows you... google and download random .exes? Cool. As good as the worst possible option on Linux.

> In Windows you… google and download random .exes?

Windows has an official package manager now too.