As a 20+ years Debian user I've never seen the added value of Ubuntu. Why use a derivative if you can get the real thing?
If you run stable, which is released as snapshots ala Ubuntu, the packages are ancient.
If you run testing, which is a rolling distro ala Arch, they're a lot newer and pretty solid, but security updates lag.
If you run unstable, which is also rolling, things can (rarely) break.
Additionally, Ubuntu has decided to incorporate non-free software and drivers right into the base product, which gives a better out-of-the-box experience. In Debian this is all opt-in and requires a bit more effort.
Now, I run Debian testing on my laptop, and I'm a huge fan of the distribution, not the least because Debian is the bedrock on which at least a half a dozen other distros are built. But I can acknowledge that their more conservative approach to packaging does have its downsides.
I doubt Ubuntu offers newer packages than my Debian Sid installation.
As for drivers and firmware etc as I've mentioned below I've installed a new state of the art desktop in recent weeks and everything simply worked. From the wifi to Bluetooth to the Nvidia gpu. I wouldn't call enabling the non-free repo "work" since it's just a question to answer during the installation...
Oh sure, has Debian testing or unstable resulted in a non-booting system for me in the 15-20 years I've been using it? No. But that's an incredibly low bar to set. Issues absolutely pop up that, while not that catastrophic, remain problematic.
Just recently (like, in the past 2-3 weeks) the move from pipewire 0.3.36 to 0.3.37/38 broke bluetooth audio for me, which is a dealbreaker as I use a headset every single day for work. No idea why, but I had to go pull the previous package versions from /var/cache/apt/archives (thank goodness I didn't run a purge!), manually install them with dpkg, then pin them in my apt policy until the issue is fixed.
Similarly, the wifi drivers that ship with the kernel have periodically broken and worked again across major kernel versions.
These sorts of intermittent surprise issues are far less likely to happen with a snapshot distro due to the stability of the package set and the additional testing those snapshots undergo before being released.
The problem is the Debian snapshot distro is stable which, again, has an ancient package set.
Ubuntu strikes an interesting middle ground, giving you up-to-date packages that are vetted and then the whole distro is snapshotted which minimizes the potential for surprise breakage.
Now, again, I use Debian testing. I'm fine dealing with the intermittent issues that pop up. I know the system well enough to diagnose issues, manually downgrade packages if needed, pull things from sid if I have to, or even build packages by hand when absolutely necessary.
But that certainly isn't for everyone.
You can, have all that with debian, but then you have to do the work.
I don't want to do the work if canonical can do it for me.
I recently moved from Arch to Fedora and I have all the same up to date vanilla packages without having to do any real work.
I don't want to move out of ubuntu based distros, they get too many things right.
I'd rather try Elementary, Pop OS, Xubuntu, etc.
So I'm not sure what you're talking about. Also, more up to date software, I'm quite certain my Debian Sid has more recent versions of everything compared to what Ubuntu has.
There is always somebody to say that in those kind of threads. Same as Vi is easy, try Manjaro, Nix, this latest implementation of LISP, that NoSQL db, this DSL, etc.
I used to give them the benefit of the doubt, spend some time testing the alternative the person talked about, came out disappointed, and wasted time.
Now I just trust numbers. When 100 people like you will tell me the same for 3 years, I will try.
Before that, I'll stay on what I know works.
Hence why I mostly run Linux on VMs nowadays, and Android/Linux.
While I often rebuild my servers much more frequently than that, it is nice to know that I could neglect things for a decade.
- If I use Debian, security scan at Quay.io shows included packages have vulnerabilities
- If I use Ubuntu, security scan at Quay.io shows included packages do not have vulnerabilities