[LAU] How to keep an updated "standard" linux audio system?

[Fede]

I used to try to keep my software as stable as possible by avoiding
upgrades for as long as possible, but it ended up being troublesome,
because then you have to compile your own libraries, and things tend
to go out of hand when you want to receive bug fixes from later
versions.

My question is: How do you people keep an updated system stable? Do
you wipe your drive clean and start over every ubuntu LTS release?

If you are not on a debian based distro, how do you handle the lack of
a kxstudio repo?

Thanks to all!