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Comment by shp0ngle | Hacker News Reader

I started installing Debian on desktop. It is far more stable than Ubuntu. And if you install the non-free Debian, there are usually no issues with wifi or graphic drivers (you need the non-free version though).

There was time where Ubuntu on desktop made sense, but now Debian is just better and more stable.

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That's my experience, too. I have nothing against Ubuntu, but when I've had issues with it, they're always... some Ubuntu addon to Debian, and it turns out that I don't care about whatever feature that is. So last time I had reason to reinstall the OS for the main desktop machine, I just went back to Debian. Haven't had any regrets.

(All of my experiments with Docker/K8s/Terraform/etc. are running on VMs under FreeBSD/BHyve, another OS I'm solidly back to loving after being distracted by shiny objects, but that's a different story.)

I’ve had numerous colleagues pitch Debian testing for desktop as stable has absolutely ancient packages. It’s never worked as well as Arch.

This is the new stack:

    Desktop/Laptop: Arch
    Server: CentOS/Amazon
    Small footprint: Alpine

I’ve had my Arch install for 5 years and it still works with no issue. Latest packages, runs like a dream.

Docker makes the base OS largely irrelevant for testing in my workflows.

It's better to use Debian Unstable because Testing doesn't get timely security updates.

Unstable (aka Sid) rarely lives up to its name, having ran it as my daily driver for a few years. Comparatively, the months I spent on Arch were marred by packaging issues resulting in me switching back to Debian.

I want the maintainer to hold back an update and write patches when there are noteworthy regressions that hurt my workflow. The Debian package maintainers consistently act in my best interest, not that of the developer's or outside political interests. Turns out I find that really useful.

Debian Unstable is the base for Ubuntu.

It's not unstable at all.

The "unstable" there means that everything changes all the time. It does not mean that things break (although they do break way more often than stable - when I tried it, I did have to reinstall the OS every few years).

I was under the impression that `unstable` is... well, not stable (that it breaks). Is it usable for someone who doesn't want to spend much time fixing the system?

In Debian 'unstable' means that the package versions installed aren't stable. That is, there is a high level of package churn just like any rolling release. It isn't any more buggy/crash prone than any other rolling release. There is just a risk at running bleeding edge vs. vetted/known working software.

Has things changed ? Debian stable was too old and testing used to break something every time I updated. I moved to ArchLinux since then

From my perspective the mindset with Debian is that distribution packages are never going to be the super latest, but are going to usually work well.

If I need something bleeding edge it's straightforward to just download the source from wherever and install it myself with stow in /usr/local, which makes it easy to remove/upgrade if needed. I anyways do pretty much everything in VMs, so package availability for my "base" system (which I mostly use only to run VMs) is not that big of a deal. If I need bleeding edge I can always spin up an arch linux VM...

Been running Debian with XFCE on Testing lately. No problems here.

Debian stable has never been terribly old for several generations now.

Does what you do with your computer matter? Then you probably want to consider doing it on a stable platform.

Do you want to experiment? Sure thing, have fun — but be aware that you may lose data as a result.

Debian stable has been an excellent platform for me for the better part of a decade. But I'm unafraid to install newer version of some software where appropriate (e.g. emacs, or graphics drivers).

Debian testing hardly breaks anything unless one does a blind dist-upgrade instead of upgrade. The normal "apt-get upgrade" attempts to install the latest software versions unless the process requires the removal of other software (except the older version of course) so that (newer versions bugs aside) it won't break the system. The "apt-get dist-upgrade" will attempt to install the latest version even though it could force the removal of other packages, which can completely bork the system in many ways (missing libraries, etc). When I use it I often do a normal upgrade followed by a dist-upgrade and check all packages it would uninstall before allowing it to proceed, if I do. I've burned myself multiple times before learning this:)

Ironically, the "dist-upgrade" must be explicitly called on the command line, but is the default setting in Synaptic (called "smart upgrade" there). Synaptic is a GUI package manager most newbies would probably use in place of the command line, so I would expect its default settings to be more on the safe side.

same here: see my profile for how I set up from scratch debian for desktop and debian for xen+kubernetes. I personally like to have complete control of what gets installed in my system in terms of packages, have been running debian for years and it's been serving me very well.

I do think it's good to have Ubuntu to compete in the "turn key" / "new linux user" / "enterprise support" spaces, but it's good to be able to run plain debian without issues these days.

When I tried changing into Ubuntu on the desktop (many years ago) the packages it added on the default installation kept breaking everything.

I am pretty sure that if you have a very standard machine and stay mostly focused on the GUI Ubuntu gives you a pretty good experience, but I did give up on it already.

"better and more stable." How so? I never had any issue on the desktop using Ubuntu and it has better driver support. Debian has only old packages and the only way to get new one is to use testing / unstable.

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