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Comment by BarbaryCoast | Hacker News Reader

This is no longer true.

Most obvious example is Firefox. The Debian Project allows Firefox to update outside the packaging system, automatically, at the whim of Firefox.

And there's the inclusion of non-Free software in the base install, which is completely against the Debian Social Contract.

The Debian Project drastically changed when they decided to allow Ubuntu to dictate their release schedule.

What used to be a distro by sysadmins for sysadmins, and which prized stability over timeliness has been overtaken by Ubuntu and the Freedesktop.Org people. I've been running Debian since version 3, and I used to go _years_ between crashes. These days, the only way to avoid that is to 1) rip out all the Freedesktop.Org code (pulseaudio, udisks2, etc.), and 2) stick with Debian 9 or lower.

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> Most obvious example is Firefox. The Debian Project allows Firefox to update outside the packaging system, automatically, at the whim of Firefox.

No, it's not. Stable ships ESR which has its update mechanism is disabled. Same for Testing/Unstable. It follows standard releases, but autoupdate is disabled.

Even Official Firefox Package for Debian from Mozilla has its auto-updates disabled and you get updates from the repository.

Only auto-updating version is the .tar.gz version which you extract to your home folder.

This is plain FUD.

Moreover:

Debian doesn't ship pulseaudio anymore. It's pipewire since forever. Many people didn't notice this, it was that smooth. Ubuntu's changes are not allowed to permeate without proper rigor (I follow debian-devel), and it's still released when it's ready. Ubuntu follows Debian Unstable, and Unstable suite is a rolling release, and they can snapshot it and start working on it whenever they want.

I'm using Debian since version 3 too, and I still reboot or tend my system only at kernel changes. It's way snappier w.r.t. Ubuntu with the same configuration for the same tasks, and is the Debian we all know and like (maybe sans systemd. I'll not open that can of worms).

pulseaudio is default for atleast kde desktop in current debian stable. Trixie might change that, but its not official release yet

Firefox only updates on its own if installed outside of the package manager. This applies to Debian and its forks. If I click on Help -> About it says, "Updates disabled by your organization". I personally would like to see distributions suggest installing Betterfox [1] or Arkenfox [2] to tighten up Firefox a bit.

[1] - https://github.com/yokoffing/Betterfox

[2] - https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js

>Most obvious example is Firefox. The Debian Project allows Firefox to update outside the packaging system, automatically, at the whim of Firefox.

It seems likely that you personally chose to install a flatpak or tar.gz version probably because you are running an older no longer supported version of Debian.

>These days, the only way to avoid that (crashes) is...

Running older unsupported versions with known never to be fixed security holes isn't good advice nor is ripping out the plumbing. Its almost never a great idea to start ripping out the floorboards to get at the pipes.

Pipewire seems pretty stable and if you really desire something more minimal it's better to start with something minimal than stripping something down.

Void is nice on this front for instance.

Long time Debian fan, current Devuan user. I'm sure it still has it's problems, but it feels nice and stable, especially on older hardware that is struggling with the times. (Thinkpad R61i w/core2duo T8100 swapped in and middleton bios)

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