Why use Debian? - My Linux Distro of Choice

[@101kawsar]

Using Debian+KDE as a linux noob. Absolutely love it.

[@JohnCrawford1979]

If interested in the latest developments of KDE, can check out KDE Neon. It's KDE's OS, which is forked from Debian.

[@JohnCrawford1979]

I might try the next version of Debian with Plasma 6, assuming it comes packaged with a version of the OS, and see if can get Hyprland to work better that way. Unless Bookworm gets any updates that make it more functional with them. A distro that can run fairly smoothly using Pipewire, Wayland, Plasma, and Hyprland would be the most optimal Linux distro I could imagine at the moment.

[@UnhingedNW]

@@JohnCrawford1979 You are looking for Fedora. Hyprland will be a little out of date but it was pretty stable on my system when I was running it a couple months ago.

[@funkysod]

Welcome to the community! Good choice with Debian. Lots of help and documentation available.

[@JohnCrawford1979]

@@ismbks - there's people on here thinking, "You can disconnect from the internet? No way!" 😏

[@kev2020-z9s]

I run Debian + cinnamon desktop on top.

[@jasonyu-gi-oh1056]

I run Gnome desktop on top of my Debian distro in my virtual machine

[@anon78747]

Nobody gives a shit

[@funkysod]

I haven't tried cinnamon since it was new. Can imagine is really good now. Personally transcended to the beautiful simplicity of bspwm. Used openbox for very many years before. I like it light weight :)

[@UnhingedNW]

@@funkysod I really need to give bspwm a solid try. I get annoyed when keybinds are handled by a separate application LOL. I blame setting up Yabai and SKHD on macos lol. I could never get the keybinds to work.

[@wisteela]

​@@funkysodI'll have to check that out.

[@Smittron]

Debian with the XFCE desktop is the definition of stability.

[@wisteela]

They just really need to fix the issue with gdebi not working under it.

[@kevingary7018]

When I started my Linux adventure, I purchased a Linux for Dummies book, and a copy of Red Hat 6 from my local book store. Thankfully GNU/Linux has evolved. Debian is over 30 years old. I recently decided to give Debian 12 a try, and was pleasantly surprised. The newer gnome graphics, the ability to use the latest Flatpak releases, and known stability from a community based distro which does not rely solely on commercial interests is a plus. I wonder why it took me so long to come to this conclusion?

[@waynefong5960]

I use Linux Mint for my laptop, I use Debian for homelab. Debian is just a rock solid distro that doesn’t give a bunch of problems. Lovely

[@donvineyard8654]

I've moved to LMDE 6...Debian 12 + Linux Mint. It has the solid foundation of Bookworm and adds the icing on the cake from Mint. I love it. Big fan of Debian.

[@dirkhinzpeter3229]

I run Debian 12 on three mashines. Two on desktops with one with gnome and the other with kde. And the laptop with gnome too. It works all excellent. In my opinion I guess that Debian is great Distribution. Greetings from Germany.

[@PoeLemic]

Thanks for covering this, because it helps me understand the history of the different distributions. And, it helps me understand why people would pick Debian vs. Arch vs. Fedora.

[@someone01233]

Glad to see more debian users

[@Theosibo]

I learned more about programming and how computers work by spending a month building out an Arch box from mini-iso. Installing and troubleshooting fonts, clipboards, and installing literally EVERY single piece of day to day software that isn't kernel critical is an eye opening experience. I'm a better programmer, and a better computer user as a result. AND I have a very slick, very custom PERSONAL developer environment with a hand crafted set of keybinds and software. I also don't have to wait 2 years for modern features in software. Debian is great for someone who wants an open source controlled basic box with super strong stability. But as mentioned above, learning how to debug package updates in a rolling distro has been a part of becoming a better programmer and computer user. If you want something easy and no fuss that's also running up to 2 years behind on modern features? Debian is for you! If you want to tinker and stay on the bleeding edge with all the cool kids, then Arch or Nix are probably your jam. Great vid!

[@markandrews1219]

Out of curiosity, would you have rated yourself as a novice or power user prior to going through the process? Personally I have only recently jumped back into using Linux after playing with it in the mid 90s. Your project sounds like a very interesting approach to learning.

[@Theosibo]

@@markandrews1219 Well I've been hacking perl scripts to customize TUI IRC clients since the 90s. BUT, shortly started raising a family after that and kinda fell into a windows ez mode PC usage. Then went to college to get a CompSci degree in 2012. Graduated in 2017 and went on 'enterprise Visual Studio windows' dogmess since. I got tired of Windows pressuring me to install their malware riddled 11 trash so I made the plunge. Wanted rolling distro so Arch was natural choice. I will simply say this. BE PREPARED to follow the wiki to a T, and read it over and over and over again. If you are averse to reading documentation, don't bother. You're in for a real frustrating ride. If you don't mind reading, hacking, reading again, hacking some more and finally asking in an appropriate matrix server if you still don't get it, you'll get there and the final product (never really) will be SO satisfying and people who see your DE will be amazed by your customization prowess! :)

[@linuxlodge]

Oh my, don't tease me. I've used Arch for long periods of time too, but since I've got a lot of active projects, I can't / don't want to risk having a broken system. That being said, Arch never broke under my use. But the constant changes are too nerve-wracking in a production environment.

[@redlionstudio2750]

I use NixOS btw :)

[@sebastianbauer4768]

If you want to learn look into gentoo, it heavily encourages you into looking into the build options of the various packages you install. If you think about it there are 3 levels of customisation for Linux. The first is you take the base system, maybe decide on a DE, then add applications to it, you’re concerned about the application level, the actual composition of your system is decided by the maintainers of that distribution. The second level is you pick your own packages starting from a very basic system, you pick the display manager, the sound system, decide which fonts to install, maybe even pick the init system you want, you are concerned with the package level. The third level is like the second, but you also compile the individual packages with the build options that are relevant to your system, you are concerned about the code level(superficially, just the build options really). I’m not saying one is better than the other, they serve different purposes. But the amount of stuff you learn, not just about the system of Linux, but about the quirks of the individual packages, it’s a very different kind of experience. Also helps to appreciate the hard work of the people behind the distributions, the people actually writing the software.

[@navi93243]

I got a Thinkpad T480 with Debian Minimal and suckless dwm, just loving that experience

[@PoorlyWindow549]

I understand your arguments, I personally like Arch more, because you have newer packages and when you understand it it's nearly so secure and stable as Debian, but on a Server or in a business I would use Debain as well

[@atephoto]

4:50 Debian doesn't start from scratch? Net Install and bare minimum choices with no dependencies, then we are talking about a very very lightweight distro with only console kernel and some few more pkgs.

[@1pcfred]

I thought I was the only one that installed Debian that way. It starts out lightweight but I weigh it down as I go. I don't understand why everything takes so much RAM these days. My system used to idle using 15 times less RAM than it uses now. I'd like to blame systemd but every program uses more RAM. Just a terminal uses 20 MB. In the past my whole system idled at only 28 MB.

[@can1973ier]

Very fair takes from you to help someone to narrow down which distro to use. After years of distro hopping i wanted to stop on Debian to get the OS out of my way. What stoped me the most is Documentation: I know there is a big wiki there. But when i searched google "debian the results were exhausting (mixed with ubuntu) and not helpfull a lot of times. Directly reading documents is hard for me regardless of its technical level due to its design and approach of writing. The other thing is as the system libraries gets older it is getting harder to keep everything integrated even the repository of Debian is huge. Your some specific software which is not there demands never versions. Then you have to go for flatpaks. I chose to go with arch with extra securities timeshift/backups. Xz utils like attacks are bigger threat for Ach i am not happy about

[@linuxlodge]

Great, just use whatever works the best for you. I'm planning to release a lot of videos based on all the problems I've faced with Debian over the years and there's probably some Arch related stuff coming up too later on the pipeline.

[@can1973ier]

@@linuxlodge Thank you for the reply. But please let me/us also know how to approach the problems with we face if you are committed to Debian. Like if i don't do not do anything with it my distro is the best. I am ready to go back Debian if convinced.

[@JohnCrawford1979]

@can1973ier - It's understandable that Debian gets lumped in with Unbutu because Unbutu is one of the oldest forks from Debian. They both use at their core apt packages. It's also much easier to unpack .deb packages on the OS they were built from. Also like how, while you can use Snaps, flatpacks, AppImages, etc, it's not shoved down your throat the way Unbutu pushes them. The only thing keeping me back from Debian is that it's not Hyprland ready. Whether certain communities in Linux like it or not, Hyprland is likely going to remain popular and change the Linux landscape, and I think it will be for the better. Regardless, I hope Debian carries on for a long time.

[@can1973ier]

@@JohnCrawford1979 Agree with all. I changed my main machine 2012 imac!.triple boot macos for firmware. Debian for safety but i must say it is slowish. and Arch with hyprland. Damn hypryland is fun with some dot files but still some bugs with gparted, timeshift and sort. You need to start them from terminal with option -E

[@JohnCrawford1979]

@@can1973ier - Yeah, have noticed some of the bugs. At first I thought they might of been distro related, but those distros worked fine with the software before. Granted, upgrades can mess up how some apps work, or make them fail to work. But even there, it depends on what is upgraded and how any of the upgrades could effect the program in question. But it was similar with Windows updates, too, so it al. comes with the technological territory - the more they try to fix or tweak things, the more bugs they give us to find. 😏👍

[@biscotty6669]

After decades of Slackware I started using Ubuntu and was generally happy but I experienced system freezes regularly when doing development work. I never lost work but it was annoying. I assumed it was hardware related. After some time I switched to Fedora and stopped having these freezes. When the latest Debian came out I tried it for a month or so because its philosophy was more in line with Slackware's approach. But the freezes started again so I had to switch back to Fedora. I can only guess that the choices they make in the kernel config affect my particular hardware. I don't want to give the misimpression that I dislike Fedora, just the contrary, I'm very pleased with it. I just wanted to give the reason why I didn't choose Debian, which is also great, just not for my system/needs. (For stability reasons I ruled out Arch.) I'd be interested if you have any ideas why I have this clear difference between the two.

[@linuxlodge]

That's interesting. I've had issues with Fedora too. Both with X11 and Wayland, random freezes. Couldn't figure it out.

[@biscotty6669]

@@linuxlodge Sometimes hardware decides what the best distro is lol. Fortunately we've got choices. I should say that on reboot with a new kernel Fedora can take a curiously long time to be ready, sometimes involving logging in more than once, but it's never failed. (Back in the day I configured my own kernels to address finicky (usually) laptop issues but I'm not interested in that anymore. Just want a kernel that works.)

[@Woodyjims-shack]

Debian desktop kde plasma user here too and love it♥️ It was solid until I deleted system python 🙄 Managed to fix it and reinstall my display manager with some help from YT Great community 👍

[@linuxlodge]

Glad you got it back in order. It's all good learning experience. Always backups.

[@SirChristoferus]

My personal favorite is Fedora, as I consider it to be a great middle ground between Debian’s rock solid stability and Arch’s newer software. It does a nice job of balancing the two, providing newer software without the cost of stability.

[@linuxlodge]

I can completely understand that. I liked Fedora, apart from the constant freezing it is doing on my hardware for unknown reasons.

[@Tatar_Piano]

U can just use testing or sid instead of fedora

[@karama300video]

​@@Tatar_Piano Why tho? Testing got the xz backdoor for example.

[@grimfistgaming7694]

You leave out a pretty substantial mass of Linux Distros: Non-SystemD variants. They are becoming increasingly more important especially in the DIY scene. Void Linux for example. I think these deserve a mention

[@igormarkov1529]

Very true, systemd exploits are just waiting to be used by anyone with basic qualification. And there are so many systemd-based distros, which makes systemd-based attacks a VERY lucrative area, this problem will not go away(architectureal defect in systemd), it will become worse and worse. Sane question is: do you need to have this BIG surface of attack in you system, in the first place? I think not. Happy Void(independent) and antiX(debian ecosystem) user here.

[@folksurvival]

Void is very good. I've been using it for years.

[@funkysod]

Void is very good. Except for the spelling of the package manager, it never sticks in my head :) I don't have a beef with systemd really. Sure init is more intuitive for us old timers but systemd is pretty good also.

[@uknowme1811]

Ive used many Distros over the years. I cant say ive found a more convoluted way to get to download a distro as Debian. What is with Debians site? Its a mess. Definitely not a good first impression.

[@clankfish]

this is debian's number 1 issue imo, it's enough to put a lot of people off of debian entirely

[@stepannovotny4291]

It's also Debian's ONLY issue. I've been using it since circa 2000 and now it's my daily driver. I haven't booted Windows in 3 months!

[@uknowme1811]

@@stepannovotny4291 ya I like Debian too.. Just wish the neck-beards over at Debian would update website..

[@matijacizmar9372]

I agree, but site was updated, i downloaded Debian with first version of site lol, i managed to find iso but it is not user friendly site. Now at least has big DOWNLOAD button:D

[@stepannovotny4291]

That didn't get me where I need to be this year. IMHO Trixie is the first ever good release, due to the significant improvements in Gnome but especially Wayland and ancillaries. I can see myself sticking with Trixie until it retires.

[@Genaro_Flores]

Debian Trixie Cinnamon on my old Xeon E5-2696v2, still a good machine for music. I switched to Linux 3 years ago after 25 years with Mac OS and I would never go back.

[@stevejohnson1321]

I moved to Debian 12 after fourteen years on Ubuntu. As of 24.04, Ubuntu would no longer wake from Suspend on 2010 imac. Probably it would get fixed by the .01 revision, but I chose not to wait. Everything runs pretty much the same; there were no device issues, and no dealing with snap I didn't like. All the commands are the same. I should have moved several years ago, but didn't know yet!

[@rawbeartoe_AK]

Been running Debian Testing for months. Stable and no issues so far.

[@donaldwilliams6821]

A common issue with debian testing is the removal of packages when issues are found it. Which can and does break other packages.

[@funkysod]

Funny enough I've actually been having less trouble in unstable than I experienced in testing. No stability issues what so ever. If you need newer packages unstable is a better choice is my honest experience. Stable is for servers, both for reliability and security. Workstation=unstable. My personal opinion and experience.

[@RomainDelmaire]

@@donaldwilliams6821 That was my issue during the couple weeks I tested Debian. Had a lot of my softwares that I couldn't even install because libraries couldn't be downloaded. If I didn't need some pretty important software for work and stability, I would stay with Debian because of all the distros I tried, that has been the fastest and the more enjoyable to use. But I can't really afford risking stuff to break all of a sudden. In the end, I switched and settled on Pop Os....not the most excited of distros, but everything works out of the box, everything is easy to install (even the latest Nvidia drivers), no issues with Wayland either. If I had an extra laptop just for personal use, I'd probably install Debian on it though.

[@demerdemer328]

Debian Trixie doesnt find my Nas.....😢

[@gregcampwriter]

One problem I had while trying Debian was that I'd install a web browser--from the package manager or by using the terminal--but was unable to run it.

[@wisteela]

Excellent video about an excellent distro. Subscribed. I really hope that Mint cuts out the middle man that is Ubuntu, and switches to just the Debian edition.

[@eyzake]

man youtube algorithm is getting better.... i ordered the ssd 3 days ago (yep i am ready to go bare metal with debain )

[@haydarjohn]

I tried all debian fedora and arch recently. When i used fedora i had some issues with gtk while coding an app. I switched to arch with i3 and it was too much " work " and pacman was not designed for my brain. I used debian with gnome first. Used hanabi to animated background. Now i figured how to rice bare bone debian with i3 and i am happy since.

[@jawuku3885]

I'd humbly add NixOS to the other 3 Linux distros you recommended.

[@linuxlodge]

Sure, whatever works, just use it, sir!

[@benstechroom]

I love Debian. I run Linux Mint on my desktops. I run LMDE on my servers. The one thing Mint does is timeshift with btrfs. I'm sure its a user error on my part, but for the life of me I could not get timeshift to work with btrfs on vanilla Debian. Mint seems to handle it well. If Debian ever fixes that, I would switch all my machines over right now. All my virtual machines are Debian based. It is by far the easiest, most compatible, stable experience out there. I am glad to see Debian growing. I have a feeling were gonna see more innovation start coming from the community based distros as more people flee corporate distros. While the corporate based are busy with drama... Debian has seen growth. And Mint saw a spike in downloads of its Edge ISO. People are flocking to community based distros in droves.

[@DS-ou7xm]

I have been using openSuse for 12 years. Does the job perfectly..... Linux rocks👍 With recent doubt which way the Distro will go I am closely looking at Debian ..... will miss YAST 😅

[@linuxlodge]

Nice, nice. Which desktop are you using / did use with openSuse? I feel as a window manager user (which I sometimes am) the choice of distro becomes less meaningful, as you sort of carve out your own journey and everything's the same, apart from the package manager of course.

[@DS-ou7xm]

@@linuxlodge at first KDE, but the last 6 + years GNOME 🤷‍♂️

[@1pcfred]

I ran SuSE when they printed it like that. And yeah YAST was nice. I went from Redhat 7.3 to suse. When they made up2date subscription. Because as this video points out suse is also RPM based. I ran that suse install for 8 years until that computer literally exploded. Then I figured it was time to upgrade. I took the explosion as a sign. So I cast around for a new distro and tried Ubuntu out. It was something new. That was version 10.04. After a month I decided it was a bit too busy for my tastes so I switched to Debian. I've been running Debian ever since. Debian is where old Linux users retire. It's quiet. I liked Linux years ago so older versions don't bother me. It's the new fangled stuff that I don't like. I use the same Window Manager that I did in 1998. So I'm set in my ways.

[@ArefinKarim]

Used Archm, got frustated by an update. installed debian, it just works.

[@1pcfred]

That should be Debian's motto, It just works.

[@elalemanpaisa]

Alpine, void which i daily drove for long time as i wanted to use musl instead of glibc yet i missed systemd (yea i know).. gentoo is also worth mentioning (never used it in my life)

[@ngtube9]

I use and love FreeBSD - but when I have to use Linux, I would choose Debian. I installed a server with 128 cores and 1TB RAM with Debian. The installation was a bit tricky at some points, but it works 🙂 Cheers...

[@khanderaopareekshannarende9417]

1 TB of ram?? Any company??

[@ngtube9]

@@khanderaopareekshannarende9417 University 🙂

[@rursus8354]

There are numerous primary "use cases" (or more properly "usages"): - stable working desktop (such as for me: a programmers text authoring desktop): things should just work, - advanced programmers' desktop: need latest libraries, - infrastructure engineers' desktop: need to install networking tools, as well as securing the network, - Linux learners' desktop: need to learn how to configure everything, - network programmers' desktop: need to configure and run docker, - gamers' desktop: need a recent system that runs graphical applications fast, and is compatible to fast GPU:s, - embedded system programmers' desktop: need to run Linuxes on both embedded systems and desktop for network communication.

[@deusexaethera]

Programmers' computers rarely need the latest libraries. They need the libraries that their clients will be using, and those are almost always somewhat outdated because stability matters more in business.

[@NADEEMKHAN-sj5hn]

Opensuse Tumbleweed, i find that it is greater than debian unstable or sid because debian unstable still uses old version of kde plasma but Archlinux, opensuse Tumbleweed, Fedora Rawhide uses kde plasma 6 Debian unstable also late on providing security updates as compared to others

[@jx86xj]

Debian sid isn't meant for that purpose. Use Arch for everything latest

[@sebastianbauer4768]

Opensuse tumbleweed actually test their packages before releasing them, their OBS system has some quite in-depth automated quality control. I have a machine running it at my neighbour for close to 2 years now I think, set to automatic updates. In that whole time there only have been 2 issues, one when a gnome extension stopped working due to a new gnome-shell and another when thunderbird of all things started in background instead of coming to the front when launched, probably a wayland issue. That’s not bad for a system being used daily and doing automated updates, in my book at least. In hindsight I shouldn’t have used gnome with extensions or wayland, but still nice track record. Distribution is opensuse microos and the system was a $120 used hp desktop from eBay. Pretty damn good value these things btw, my neighbour was and is happy with the system.

[@jakobw135]

Is Fedora part of Red Hat? Did you try MX Linux?

[@s8err1]

Fedora, while not technically part of RedHat, has a lot of RedHat involvement, including RedHat employees who are paid to work on the project. Fedora is in a lot of ways the testing ground for RedHat's enterprise distributions

[@linuxlodge]

Yes, Fedora is indeed like a testing ground for Red Hat. Available software in repos is pretty fresh, but not so bleeding edge as in Arch. I've tried MX Linux. I thought it had some pretty nice spins on things like the Fluxbox window manager. But I prefer to use non-forked distros in most cases.

[@mandrael]

For servers Debian 12. For Desktop Mint LMDE

[@supplementalhorsey4510]

Using Arch and OpenBSD for my personal machines, but my work laptop runs Debian, since I need the stability there.

[@rmcellig]

I love debian!!! Puppy Linux bookworm is my goto distro for all my desktop computers.

[@peteradshead2383]

I use Debian 12 for my server , so the xz backdoor may not have made it into the final .

[@1pcfred]

I do Debian net install in expert mode and select nothing. That's pretty bare bones. Then I install packages as I go. I have over 3,000 packages installed now.

[@andrewpalm2103]

I've been using Linux for several years now. After starting with Mint I had a long journey exploring different distros and desktops/window managers. I finally settled down on Fedora, which I used for a few years. My reason was it had (unofficial) corporate support and this seemed good for a long-term commitment. However, a while back I got tired of the frequent kernel updates, testing of new technologies, and the drama. So I switched to the community supported Debian Stable with the Plasma desktop. It meets my needs just fine and I have no regrets.

[@1pcfred]

I've been using Linux for a few decades now. Well, this is my 29th year. So I'm closing in on a few decades fast.

[@tcapd]

I'm using Debian since Woody, xfce4-panel and Fluxbox, and what I want in newer software I get as flatpak. I play games on it with Lutris and Steam, and everything runs well. I look sometimes at other distros in a virtualbox, but nothing so far convinced me to change. I like it that I only have to sweat through a major system update around every two years, an these have been mostly uneventful.

[@marcc5768]

Recently ventured into using Debian 12 w/ XFCE desktop. Just to try something different from Linux Mint. Been using Mint for over 12 years. On my work laptop not my daily driver tho.

[@vishmonster]

I'm on Fedora 40 right now but I remember my days using debian as being ultra stable and really the best way to learn what linux os's are and do.

[@K2teknik.]

I use Debian because it get as close to the OS on Raspberry Pi (and Raspberry Pi Desktop) as possibly, feel and look, not perfect but close enough. I have a setup with a PXE server that make a new install easy and fast, I also have an APT server to make updates faster locally because my internet is slow I need to serve as much as possibly locally. I have installed Debian 12 more than hundred times on different HW, and it sucks, two installs just after each other can give two different end-results, it should not be like this but it is. The same goes for applications installed by APT, different results on exactly the same gear and install methods, and I have automated most of my stuff so it should be the same every time. Settings for applications is a nightmare, conf files are located many different places and nobody seems to care for consistency, in some cases you can make changes ti an existing conf file and save it, reboot and only some of your changes works, others not, you look at your conf file and everything is as you put it, but still it do not work. A lot of Linux stuff appears to be not as polish as in other OS. I would like to use Linux as my daily driver, but it sucks too much in different places for an end user.

[@Tatar_Piano]

Haters gon hate

[@K2teknik.]

@@Tatar_Piano I do not hate Linux, I start using Suse Linux in the mid 90's and it was ok but not great as a replacement for Windows desktop at that point in time, later again when Novell got into Suse Linux I gave it another try, still not a replacement for a Windows desktop. Then within the last 5-7 years small computers became cheap and I had been using linux for server stuff on these, great, but still not a replacement for a Windows (2k/7) desktop. So I am not a hater regarding Linux, I am giving it a try and had spend many hundred hours to try to make Linux my daily driver as a desktop system, but it still sucks, especially the strange behaving regarding repeatability, you do a fresh install and it behave in one way, then you do a ne install, same hardware, from the same media, everything the same, and the new install behave differently it can be network it can be other hw related stuff whatever, and it should not be so. I know that windows can do the same strange thing now and then but not that often as I experiences Linux does. I have a list of applications types I would like on a daily driver and I try out different applications in the same way: Fresh install of Linux, update whatever needs to update and install the application I would like to test, I do some testing and then take some notes about settings and how to setup the thing, and then I do it all over again with fresh install aso, and I do it many times to insure that I understand the application and that I am able to replicate the install and setup, some applications is just crap and then their life is over with me, but the issue that an application can install/behave different between install/setup is still there now and then plus the issue with conf files that is installed default do not do as they clearly are intended to do. So Linux as a daily driver desktop sucks, to many distributions and applications developers reinvent the wheel it seems and they do not polish their stuff to make it easy and stable to use, as a user I should just install an application and adjust whatever settings and next time a start the application it should just be as a left it or as I did set it up, not to much to demand ? And lets not forget the Linux updates that breaks your system, it can be the OS or application updates, this is unacceptable, but it do happen, also on Windows, but on Windows you can most often do a system restore and get back on track fast, but with Linux a reinstall is often the only way out, it would had been nice with a system restore function build into the OS on Linux. Anyway if telling the truth about Linux as a daily driver desktop is to be a Linux hater then let it be.

[@davidparker2173]

Maybe I should move to Debian from Mint on my next reinstall; after I buy a bigger newer M2 HD. I think I just need the command line to install security updates with pure Debian. All I use is the GUI, and I'm not learning anything with that. Would have to remember that about once a week. I wonder if any of the desktops are more secure than others. I have always preferred Mate, but could learn to get around in another if I knew about any trade off I might prefer.

[@RichardHarlos]

I'm running LMDE (Linux Mint - Debian Edition). Maybe you'll find it gives the best of both worlds? Cheers!

[@davidparker2173]

@@RichardHarlos Many flavors of Debian, and I too am using Mint. Good thing about Linux is, if what you're using does not fit, you have a lot of choices. Maybe I should install Debian on top of Mint and see if I can adjust to it first. I think it is mere laziness that has held me back from pure Debian. I have always had the best luck with Debian derivatives.

[@1pcfred]

# aptitude update ; aptitude safe-upgrade

[@davidparker2173]

@@1pcfred Thank you.

[@1pcfred]

@@davidparker2173 occasionally you may want to run apt clean too. Because everything you download when you update gets cached on your system. After a while all of those files can add up to a substantial amount. gigabytes. You'll probably never use any of them ever. But if you ever did need one you could simply download it again. It's not even obvious you have any of that. They're in /var/cache/apt/archives which if I wasn't telling you now you might not ever know.

[@gmasterdude]

I installed Debian on my mothers computer she mainly does zoom meeting on it, after 8 months zoom wouldn't start I tried reinstalling the zoom Deb package and the Flatpak but neither worked so I changed her setup to Fedora it's been working as intended for about 6 months.

[@cooleech]

I use Debian Trixie + KDE @ work (for my pleasure, Win10 for their pleasure) and Arch + KDE @ home

[@matijacizmar9372]

I use debian 12 with GNOME customised code in css for dock to be super compact, and it looks sleek..This OS is like install and forget for few years just use and enjoy.

[@rmcellig]

What DE do you use?

[@folksurvival]

It's XFCE

[@rmcellig]

Thanks​@@folksurvival

[@1pcfred]

None of the above. I use a Window Manager. DEs suck.

[@pwhv]

whats your desktop environment?

[@fufuyfiufyuyvfhvjvjhvjjv6014]

I think it's lxqt

[@pwhv]

@@fufuyfiufyuyvfhvjvjhvjjv6014 thanks

[@linuxlodge]

It's Xfce.

[@ENNEN420]

Funnily enough, the public opinion of what "just werks" is the opposite for me. Ubuntu, Debian and Mint break easily and quickly for me but I can abuse an Arch, Void or Gentoo install and it'll be as stable as people tell me Debian is and I don't need to do extensive set up or troubleshooting at all.

[@MrAlhaines]

I've been trying Debian 12 for a month and it works. It;s not my favorite but my favorite, Linux Mint, derives from it. I have used one Debian based OS or another for 30+ years and like apt. Some of my favorite software is not in the repo so I had to jump thru hoops to get them installed, like mysql-server which is critical for my home lab. I was surprised that many of my apps just work. Debian WORKS what more can I say. I'm not deleting my Mint 22 install.

[@rachidboudjema8807]

I'm on Debian since 2002 (started with woody. Debian 3.0), I run Debian stable everywhere : my workstation, on the cloud/VPS,... Everywhere... My daily driver OS is Debian.

[@mhavock]

yeah, tons of good reasons to use Debian and some of its derivatives distros.

[@linuxlodge]

That's amazing. My first Debian was 3.1 Sarge. Sadly, since video editing on Linux was still in its infancy, and due to work environment pressure, I switched to Mac for a while, until I came back to Linux.

[@mellowww2222]

Im facing a problem dual booting linux in my asus laptop I almost dual booted every linux iso but my screen is dim and I cannot control brightness I tried alot of online fixes but everything failed is there a way you could help me with this issue?

[@fgregerfeaxcwfeffece]

SID is very much an open beta. You can use it and will probably work most of the time to an acceptable degree. Use it if you want to write Bug reports and open issues. So much like every windows patch for the first 4 weeks. Sid Is Dangerous And also the kid that breaks toys. Yes it's all Toy Story references. "Testing" is the first one that is meant for actual "use". But even then it's more for tinkerers. For actual usage I recommend Debian stable, or Ubuntu LTS. They are also hardly ever affected by security problems. There is a nice example in the VERY recent history.

[@johanb.7869]

Debian based MX Linux Xfce. Stable and quick.

[@toddpark2893]

What about Peppermint?

[@johanb.7869]

@@toddpark2893 Current Peppermint I don't like. Previous version was better. But after Mark Greaves died it's not as good anymore anyway. It was my first ever Linux distro I used after I installed it in 2017. Peppermint 8.

[@maticjurac]

Been on linux for 3 months (Debian stable + Plasma 5) and I've been thinking of distro-hopping but I'm probably more likely going to move over to Trixie, because I want newer packages.

[@styrelsefksu4463]

I was first intruduced to Gnu/Linix back in 1999 when my neighbor had a pentium 100 ftp server running debian 2.0 My first own experience with linux was to help another neighbor of mine to install redhat5.2 on his pc and then shortly after that I got an old pc that I installed redhat 6.1 on but I didnt like it so I installed debian 2.0 on it instead what a nightmare it was back then Everything had to be done manually and you had to know exactly what every peace of hardware was in your pc to even have a chance to get it to work then configure the x windows system as well and if you missed something there wasnt a way to change it so you would have to start over again but once it was done it was really good After that I started to test all kind of linux distros to serch for a windows replacement I finally switched over in 2006 when Ubuntu 6.06 came out and has newer looked back I am running ubuntu MATE right now and it has the right look and feel for me as an old school linux user (looks like old gnome )

[@TerenceKearns]

I've been a very casual linux user since I stumbled across a slackware linux book at my university in the 1990's with a CD in the back. I installed it on my pentium 90 without really knowing what for. LOL. Since then I ran into a proper computer guy who got me into Debian and while I have tried other distros, I always go back to Debian. The other day I decided to see what's new in computer land in terms of open-source servers that I can play with deploying in docker and holy smokes, a lot of stuff has changed. It's an exciting time to learn dev-ops. Good to see Debian hasn't changed much. It's definitely the "old faithful" of operating systems.

[@kbaeve]

Debian was my goto for years, until OpenSUSE Tumbleweed - a much more stable rolling release then Arch, with a beautiful rollback system if it breaks (literally takes 3 mins).

[@reinn-df2ti]

linux mint is my first, but this is correct......as a new user I feel lost with so much distro on linux...then I realize most of them based on debian, with some tweaks....and I found out that you actualy can use cinnamon, gnome, kde and other desktop environment, on debian....and I feel like, well they all actually debian, why not try use debian instead

[@scottmorgan5212]

Thinking about Debian testing for a daily driver b/c my laptop is pretty new and anything with a kernel less than 6.5 can't drive my wifi card. IK I can change the card out cheaply but I don't want to open up this laptop yet, would rather work around it. Is there a way to get Debian w/o testing to work with a very new Realtek wifi card?

[@vox9841]

What Linux would you recommend for a MacPro 6.1 (Trashcan Mac)? They have multi core Xenon v2 CPUs? Thanks

[@linuxlodge]

Apple devices can be a bit tricky sometimes. I'm not experienced with the Trashcans, but try some distro with an Xfce desktop or something else lightweight. If you want to try Debian, go ahead, but I read there may be issues, and if so, try PopOS or Mint for this case.

[@iplyrunescape305]

I've been messing with some distros on my own trashcan mac. Haven't landed on one that isn't Debian or Mint, yet. I have wanted to make it the most Mac-esque through Fedora but haven't nailed it yet. Just for the (forgot the word), just for the look

[@batemanjo9]

Very nice! In 2004 I picked SUSE 9.2. That was the first downloadable whole DVD image they released. Then I actually bought the box set for 9.3 so I could have the nice book it came with. That morphed into openSUSE and I have been using them ever since. I have experimented to see what other distros are like but I always came back openSUSE. I use Leap for my home lab and Tumbleweed with KDE on my Microsoft Surface Pro 6 😁 I get a lot of work done on it and that's what matters. The rolling Tumbleweed releases are very stable, never any issues.

[@Tatar_Piano]

This videos is about debian, don't care about suse, debian has rolling version as well

[@joejoe2452]

I need a Debian server setup tutorial for a home server project

[@funkysod]

Debian user since 1999. Nowadays using unstable (it's stable enough) and bspwm. It's home :)

[@linuxlodge]

bspwm is wonderful.

[@funkysod]

@@linuxlodge yes it really is a gem!

[@1pcfred]

I never liked Debian back in the bad old dselect daze. I'd get the worst dependency hell out of it. Oh if you have that installed you can't have this other thing they conflict! Yeah screw you. It works just fine on Slackware. But once they introduced aptitude then Debian was OK. So I've been running Debian since Lenny.

[@funkysod]

@@1pcfred yes, it was a hassle. I did run slack back then also on a couple of machines. But that had its own challenges! Debian really came in to its own with aptitude, I agree completely.

[@1pcfred]

@@funkysod I've been running Debian since Lenny. I've been thinking about maybe giving Arch another shot. But I don't know if I need all that drama in my life. Sometimes I run into out of date package version issues. Like not so long ago I wanted to build a new version of ffmpeg. I can't because the version of my video driver is just too old. I could manually install a newer version but maintaining that is a hassle. I just decided it's not that important.

[@patrickprucha5522]

I have to agree with you. I am a dedicated Debian user. I have tried many many distros, but in the end, Debian is the only OS for me.

[@daddybrian11]

I use Linux mint as my daily driver

[@indradyumnadasa8155]

Please make a video on how to install nvidia drivers on debian

[@1pcfred]

You add the non-free repo to /etc/apt/sources.list , update and then choose the nvidia binary driver with the package manager. # aptitude install nvidia-driver That should pull in everything you need and install the binary driver for you.

[@personanongratis]

Debian is the best, but you have to work for it and work hard!With backports and flatpaks old software isn't a problem anymore!I manged to make VMware workstation and Da Vinci Resolve to work, software where you have to fiddle with kernel modules or opencl stuff,but because of the stable kernel 6.5 everything works!

[@steeltormentors]

first time Linux user here...been using MX Linux (also Debian based) for 2 months so far. I don't know how's the comparison with other distros, but to be honest I'm pleasantly surprised how error-free MX Linux is! I had been hearing scary stories about Linux is unreliable compared to Windows...but that's all myths I think. I guess the credit goes to MX Linux and Debian.

[@espinita.]

Been 5 mouths since this video came out, im sure you jist got an update didnt you :D

[@willi1978]

i am very happy with manjaro. installing things in arch is just a lot nicer with the aur

[@Rombizio]

Slackware.......you forgot Slackware.

[@choppergirlfpv]

Nah. I've been running tinycore / microcore for 15 years now in 110mb of RAM. All your distros are bloated with tons of cruftware. You're just like MS, trying to get me to force me to throw out my old hardware and spend lots of money to upgrade. Just say no to massive ISOs.

[@lukeholloway7836]

just got debian my open suse broke after the update I just wanna use my computer and it to work

[@Dr_piFrog]

I would say a toss-up between Debian and Linux Mint.

[@RichardHarlos]

I'm running LMDE (Linux Mint - Debian Edition) and love it.

[@omfgihopethisworks]

​@@RichardHarlos Is it ok to use KDE with this?

[@RichardHarlos]

@@omfgihopethisworks I've read of others doing it but I'm truly a linux noob so I cannot say from any personal experience. What I can say is that LMDE has been very friendly and stable to me, even as a noob. I'm confident others will have bad things to say about it, and perhaps even hold their preferred distribution as 'better' in this or that way, and that's fine by me. I just want to be able to use my computer as I see fit without any reliance at all on Microsoft Windows. Sorry I can't be of more help.

[@JohnCrawford1979]

But Fedora forks from Red Hat, doesn't it?

[@GER_Jan]

Fedora is Upstream from RedHat. Meaning the access restriction to RHEL Source code last year does not effect Fedora. Rocky Linux for example is Downstream RedHat -> meaning it is effected by these RedHat Desicions

[@JohnCrawford1979]

@@GER_Jan - I see. Red Hat was probably the first instance I can remember of Linux from back in the 90's. So I'm not sure what goes where on the timeline, other than I thought I heard Rocky forked from Cent OS, and is named after a dev, or someone involved with Cent OS and/or Red Hat.

[@codeitlikemiley]

I only use Arch and Artix but to each his own LOL

[@linuxlodge]

Arch is amazing! Just not what I'd use in a production environment where things are not allowed to change or break for extended periods of time.

[@tech889]

Why should you use debian? = so that you can have problems in basic tasks. I have a wired microphone which works perfectly in windows but now in linux . Linux users always cry about they don't have proper driver this and that but dude linux can't even handle a bsic wired mic

[@linuxlodge]

Ask around or check the other distros whether it works there, troubleshoot. Let's remember Debian (and Linux) is a project maintained by lots of volunteers and you get it for free. Take some patience with you coming in. In general, it's a good idea to check hardware compatibility before jumping in. Haven't had problems with any mics, but for example some USB headsets come with bizarre custom, possibly proprietary parts in them, that might require a 3rd party software even in Windows to function. I don't know what your mic is about but it's good to ignore all non-standard unfriendly devices that try to shove some 3rd party applications down one's throat and buy the ones that follow wide standards instead.

[@tech889]

@@linuxlodge thanks for the advice sir, But my mic is very basic ,no rgb no gimmicks just plug and play type i tried ubuntu , debian and had problem with both

[@linuxlodge]

@@tech889 That's odd. Maybe report it to Debian or the manufacturer and see what happens.

[@tech889]

​@@linuxlodge update: so I tried Linux again and checked my mic and it was sounding awful. Then I decreased the sound input, then everything was solved

[@SamirOumghar01]

Try Fedora or MX Linux (ahs) both can support most hardware (and newer)

[@desvendandoornasaude4127]

I use Debian with Gnome. I love it.

[@mementomori1868]

debian (easy + stable) but...no aur/ppa...

[@linuxlodge]

In a way, it's also a blessing to not have AUR. It's too easy to download more stuff than you need and pollute your system, perhaps even break it. One day one of those scripts doesn't work and you've got a mess. What bothers me about Arch is the severe lack of pacman packages for some very basic applications and more often than not that's the reason to use AUR.

[@1pcfred]

No aur/ppa is a feature.

[@FrackinNuggets]

i dunno i find arch really stable these days

[@linuxlodge]

In general, in Linux terms, and what "stable" means in Debian, is 'unchanging'. Ergo the stability is a combination of no new changes received during your Debian version, thorough testing of release versions and the only updates being mainly security updates. But I get it, Arch is not breaking for you. That's good. I haven't had any issues with it myself. It's just that the environment isn't stable in the sense that it is ever-changing, feature-wise and otherwise.

[@gautamsinha5998]

Why not say ubuntu? It is debian based and more user friendly

[@1pcfred]

Ubuntu is not any more user friendly than Debian is. In fact I'd say Ubuntu is less user friendly. Because Ubuntu is too cluttered. Too much crap. Ubuntu is just a crappified version of Debian. Debian plus crap!

[@omfgihopethisworks]

​@@1pcfred btw is there alot of crap included?

[@1pcfred]

@@omfgihopethisworks in Debian? Not the way I install there isn't. I use the net install ISO and use expert mode. Then I choose nothing. So when I boot into the install I don't even have a GUI. But then I install a light Window Manager and get the X Window system then. Then I build the Window Manager I want and install whatever else I want too. Which is a lot. My root file system has 25GB of disk space used in it now. That's all packages I've installed over the years. I compile a lot so I install a lot of dev packages. But I don't install software out of my home dir. The build directory in my home dir is 136GB. I should probably clean that up some. there's multiple copies of some things in there that I don't use.

[@billysherman2702]

LMDB is my JAM!

[@cbbcbb6803]

Deciding what iso to download can be confusing.

[@reinn-df2ti]

correct, debian has .iso with whatever your prefered desktop environment on their website, they all the same debian

[@cheako91155]

Debian really messed up testing and sid, unless I missed a solution. Time 64 libraries will uninstall some applications, but are required to upgrade others.

[@cheako91155]

They didn't make it so you could have bother variants installed.

[@eriksiers]

I've been using Slackware for almost 20 years. Before that was Red Hat. Shrug.

[@1pcfred]

I started out on Slackware but eventually I just couldn't deal with their idea of package management. Which was virtually non-existent. So Slackware 8 was the last version of Slack I ran. Then I ran Red Hat. Everyone ran RH 7.2. It was beautiful. Linux could have been something. Then they blew it making up2date subscription. Everyone left.

[@Darkstar39]

Forgot Slackware

[@linuxlodge]

It is indeed an original project, but a minor player these days and some odd unprofessional quirks. Currently, I guess their website certificate has expired in the vain of Manjaro or they have issues with forwarding since my browser won't let me access their page.

[@birdsghost]

Debian ❤

[@TrustJesusToday]

I prefer Debian, but Hyprland is not available. So, I am using Fedora. The moment Debian offers Hyprland I am back to Debian.

[@linuxlodge]

I do agree that it's worth waiting for, because the manual installation from source can easily go wrong and then your system is full of packages you won't use, potentially not easy to get rid of.

[@thesullivanstreetproject]

I’m on Debian 12 and hating that Hyprland isn’t ready for it yet, too…

[@TrustJesusToday]

@@linuxlodge 100%. Backdoor script installs of Hyprland in Debian seems to be an invitation to breakage especially in Trixie or Sid. You are right..be patient.

[@TrustJesusToday]

@@thesullivanstreetproject I was using Sid, Debian 12, and Trixie. But discovered that Hyprland was a preferred environment. So, it's Fedora for now.

[@1pcfred]

@@linuxlodge I consider not being able to run in place a bug. If I have to install software to use it I don't like that. But sometimes it happens. So I set a prefix to my home directory and let it install there. I'll also log the installation too by redirecting the install terminal output to a file. Although decent software has the make uninstall target. Missing that is yet another bug.

[@MrBobWareham]

I just use one, and you should to LMDE it just works!

[@omfgihopethisworks]

Does it work well with KDE?

[@RademenesVG]

Using Debian + i3wm

[@TheLinuxCast]

Great video!

[@linuxlodge]

Thanks so much! Love your content.

[@RakibHasan-hs1me]

There is no such thing as the best distro. There is always something slightly better than the one in question.

[@nigga_nigga]

i hope you have a bad day

[@johanb.7869]

The best distro is the one that works for you😉

[@mhavock]

Sure, most distros can be configured to suit the user. But Debian is straight forward and has been around for a long time, so people should use it at least once to get a Linux experience.

[@johanb.7869]

@@mhavock I've used it. The Xfce non-free version.

[@1pcfred]

The best distro is always the one that you custom configure yourself.

[@anasouardini]

For months now, Debian12 + i3 = memory leak 😆, Debian is not that stable.

[@1pcfred]

Then don't use i3 Problem solved! Debian is stable enough here $ uptime 03:11:28 up 107 days, 8:32, 9 users, load average: 0.04, 0.15, 0.16

[@anasouardini]

@@1pcfred That'll make me learn more tools which is the opposite of why I've chosen i3. Stability is a complex and vague concept, but shipping broken packages that have obvious bugs is not worth waiting two years for it, you know what I mean. I'm currently trying to switch to NixOS, I hope it'd be as stable and useful as they market it.

[@1pcfred]

@@anasouardini I don't know what you mean. I don't see an issue for it on the Debian bug tracker either. If it was me I'd just get the upstream source and build it. If the issue persisted I'd deal directly with the code authors too. It would have been fixed long ago. Or I'd have just moved on to using something else. I have to ask now, just what have you been doing about any of this for the past two years?

[@anasouardini]

@@1pcfred It's not two years, it's about 6months. Just a script that restarts it every 10 minutes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. IDK, how you don't get it, maybe the spain mirror doing something weird (I don't verify the iso 😆). Anyways, I've installed Deibian multiple times and it still persists. I'm planning to move to either NixOS or Arch, since Debian is not for me, Too old packages and installation automation is icky or impossible depending on the approach. Just playing with both Arch and NixOS in VMs still, I'll keep trying them for 4-5 months before I dive head-first.

[@1pcfred]

@@anasouardini oh OK. I still don't see a bug report filed for it.

[@Uber.spooky]

i use arch btw

[@linuxlodge]

I use on occasion btw.

[@Astinsan]

I always go back to debian.. its faster. Lighter.. better

[@MarioDanielCarugno]

You forgot Slackware as one of the originals still alive

[@linuxlodge]

Still alive, but not relevant for most people. Quite the underground distro these days with one main developer as far as I'm aware.

[@1pcfred]

@@linuxlodge I'm telling Bob Dobbs that you said that.