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I used to run Debian, but I switched to Fedora a few years ago and haven't looked back. Fedora is always sleek and up-to-date, unlike Debian, which due to its o

I used to run Debian, but I switched to Fedora a few years ago and haven't looked back. Fedora is always sleek and up-to-date, unlike Debian, which due to its outdated packages always ends up looking like the plain step-sister. I also strongly prefer DNF to apt. With that being said, they both play crucial roles in the Linux ecosystem - Debian being the base for Ubuntu and Mint, and Fedora being the distribution which upstreams the most code.

hlieberman 7y ago
Running Debian testing is generally the practice I recommend on systems which are single-user, like desktops and laptops. It's quite stable and very up to date, except for a couple of months in the run-up to freeze. Disclaimer: I'm a Debian developer.
- h43z 7y ago
  The problem with testing is you may wait for security updates much longer.
- ChrisSD 7y ago
  I've been told before that this advice isn't appropriate for anyone who isn't a Debian developer. Things can break and testing may not get important security patches until a while after unstable and stable.
  - hlieberman 7y ago
    The security patches is certainly a concern (though testing-security does exist, albeit not with the coverage of security-updates from stable). In my experience, testing is quite stable for 95% of packages; I can only think of a few instances in the last decade that testing has really broken my computer in a way that required me to break out my developer skills. More frequently, you'll find packages which can't be installed because they've been dropped from testing due to RC bugs -- but that's not necessarily a bad thing!
  - ohazi 7y ago
    Not a Debian developer here. I've been running both Debian testing and unstable on various machines for about a decade and it's been great. In my experience, the "here be dragons" description of testing/unstable is way overstated... they're both very reliable. If you install apt-listbugs and `apt-mark hold` anything with bugs that sound scary, you'll be fine. It seems like a lot of people try Debian stable (perhaps thinking of it as an upgrade path from Ubuntu), are surprised by the ancient software packages, and then look elsewhere. Debian might want to consider changing the recommendations they make for new users. Instead of stable / testing / unstable, they could be server / workstation / testing.
    - ufo 7y ago
      I think that having to check the issue tracker before installing packages is exactly the kind of thing that people are talking about when they say "here be dragons". By your argument, we would also be able to call Arch Linux a very reliable distro. It can be if you know what you are doing, but it isn't something I would want to recommend to the average user... > Instead of stable / testing / unstable, they could be server / workstation / testing. I would love to see something like that, but I think it would need significant changes to Testing to make it usable for the masses. Some years ago there was some work towards that direction with Constantly Usable Testing, which explains some of the challenges: https://old.lwn.net/Articles/406301/ https://old.lwn.net/Articles/406301/
  - thrwayxyz 7y ago
    Who ever told you that has no idea what they are talking about. Debian testing is more stable than the average release of other distros.
    - ufo 7y ago
      I've had a more pleasant experience using Fedora than Debian Testing. Debian is great in general but the wonkyness surrounding the freeze period gave me the impression that Debian Testing really is something that should only be used if you are interested in helping Debian produce the next Debian Stable release. Some packages don't get timely updates and are only updated close to the freeze period, in preparation for the next stable release. And during the freeze period itself everything is super awkward because preparing the next stable release takes priority over keeping Debian Testing usable.
      - andrewshadura 7y ago
        Wait, that can't be right. Preparations for the release precisely is the work needed to make the testing usable, since testing is the future release.
- blihp 7y ago
  As a long time Debian user, I think you're doing Debian a disservice giving that advice. Debian testing is stable... except when it's not. Tell people that it's relatively stable, not that it's stable. And please don't tell them to run their daily driver on it unless they know what they're potentially getting into. My own experience is that things can be broken for months in testing and of course good luck finding any help when that happens. For example, since the freeze for Buster I had broken sound drivers for a couple of months until someone else found that it wasn't actually the drivers but another broken package that as of a month or so ago still wasn't fixed (but the problem had been reported) That's been my experience with testing for the last 3-4 Debian releases: it works great... except for a handful of annoying bugs that seem to linger almost until release. And assuming you know exactly which package is broken (which can be difficult to narrow down for driver/system level issues), you may or may not get the problem addressed in a timely manner. Then there's also the case of the occasional package that you depend on that disappears from testing for a month or two for any number of reasons.
  - denormalfloat 7y ago
    > I had broken sound drivers for a couple of months until someone else found that it wasn't actually the drivers but another broken package that as of a month or so ago still wasn't fixed (but the problem had been reported) I had the _exact_ same problem (the issue ended up be a MIDI program called timidity). The main problem for me was that Debian doesn't give any advice on how to report such issues (the website is firmly planted in the early 90s), and the mailing lists I found all appear to be dead. I wish Debian had a slightly more modern website.
    - blihp 7y ago
      That would be the one! I posted a stackoverflow question along with my workaround not knowing the cause. Fortunately, someone else identified timidity as the root cause. Definitely one of the stranger issues I've run into using testing in recent years, but far from the only one.
  - ohazi 7y ago
    I think it's reasonable advice if the user explicitly wants a rolling release, and knows what that entails. What other options do I have if my criteria are: - rolling release - not Arch As far as I can tell, Debian testing is still the least headachy way to get a rolling release, with the added bonus of out-of-the-box compatibility with most of the "we support Linux!" software that only ever gets tested on Ubuntu. During my ten years (five release cycles) of using Debian testing, there hasn't been an update that required get-out-the-recovery-disk levels of surgery to fix. All of them have been minor user-facing software bugs or package version inconsistencies that could be safely ignored until I had the time or the inclination to investigate. But yes, you do have to be willing to poke around a bit, and not everybody likes that. But this is why I wanted a rolling release in the first place. I prefer to do minor repair work on a regular basis (but on my own schedule) in order to avoid major repair work every 6-24 months (on somebody else's schedule). I also don't really mind the investigative work when something goes wrong, since it forces me to learn more about how my system works, and that knowledge invariably ends up being useful later. Some people absolutely hate this, and they would probably be better off using something else.
- xmichael999 7y ago
  Running Debian, and in my case Devuan never leaves me hanging. Ubuntu and similar distro's often break everything with a regular update. Thanks for your hard work, a huge fan for 20 years+!!!
- diehunde 7y ago
  Is there a testing image for Buster already?
- lamby 7y ago
  For all the same reasons... I would recommend Debian unstable (ignore the name).
  - ohazi 7y ago
    I've used Debian unstable and agree, but given that most packages in testing usually only lag behind those in unstable by a few weeks... any particular reason?
    - chungy 7y ago
      That's kind of the same question I would have about choosing testing over sid. If the intention is to be on rolling-release, you might as well just use sid. If you'd rather just be on rolling-release until the stable release is carved out (new features desired, for example), testing is pretty fine since it will transition into being the stable release.
      - lamby 7y ago
        In my experience, testing is (across the entire release cycle) often more buggy than sid, especially as it will get scant detailed attention in, say, the first year after a stable release. Using testing (for me) is usually just another annoying speedbump too - for example, one's issue is usually fixed in unstable and you are "just" waiting for it to migrate but it won't due to some boring, unrelated reason about 7-dependencies deep that might take a week or so to be resolved...
ShinTakuya 7y ago
Debian Testing is always more or less up to date and in the several years I've been using it I've never encountered a system breaking bug. It all seems to get ironed out in the Unstable branch. That said, Fedora is a fine alternative.
unsined 7y ago
I was debating doing the same thing, but I found MX Linux to be an appealing hop after years of Debian. I don't particularly care for sleek looks and really like XFCE, but my hardware can handle much more anyway so why not.
Proven 7y ago
Used Redhat 20 years ago, switched to Debian based distros 10 years later, never looked back. Debian distros provide a reliable and consistent experience. I don't have to use one distro flavor on my notebook, another on my workstation and yet another when I need updates for my enterprise server. Do more than 5% of Linux users use Fedora? I doubt it. It sounds like you're stuck on a marginally important distro but for some reason can't move on. Enjoy your niche IBM Linux distro!
Wowfunhappy 7y ago
> Fedora is always sleek and up-to-date, unlike Debian I mean, the entire point of Debian is that all of the packages are stable. If you don't want stable, don't use Debian. Don't knock Debian for working as intended.
- emmelaich 7y ago
  Yeah but I find Fedora to be as stable as Debian, but much more current.
  - diffeomorphism 7y ago
    So, not stable. Stable in this context means "stable foundation" or "static" and is unrelated to "not crashing".
beatgammit 7y ago
I used Debian on servers and something more recent for my desktop (Fedora or Arch), but recently I've been playing with openSUSE since it has both use cases covered, as well as an enterprise upgrade path. I love Debian and I'll always recommend it for servers, and it makes a reasonable desktop too. However, it's not right for everyone.
ausjke 7y ago
On the contrary I left Redhat at 8.0(long time ago, before Fedora) and started using debian/ubuntu and never looked back, in my opinion, while Redhat made a fortune by its business model, Debian and ubuntu are the true community OS, I can't ask for more. Ubuntu/Debian has been my primary Desktop/Server for the last 15 years, life is good with them. Thanks so much for the maintainers and contributors to put so much efforts into them.
- paulcarroty 7y ago
  > Debian and ubuntu are the true community OS Not true, Canonical doing business too. Leaved Debian/Ubuntu ~5 years ago and never looked back.
eikenberry 7y ago
Been meaning to ask a Fedora user... does it still rely on 3rd party repos? I switched to Debian around RHL 6 or so due to the reliance on 3rd party repos and I know RHEL/Centos still rely on it and was curious if Fedora did?
- dralley 7y ago
  What do you mean by "rely"?
  - eikenberry 7y ago
    In a practical sense. Are they typically used. Take CentOS for example... No 3rd party repos are required to run the system, but everywhere I've seen CentOS used in production they've installed packages from EPEL.
beenBoutIT 7y ago
Debian is as sleek as you want to it to be, in your case if you're after bleeding-edge packages the release you want to try is either Testing or Unstable, not Stable(in this case aka. Buster). APT was recently updated and shortened to a 3 letter command(à la DNF) and is now run as simply #apt update. More about the difference between Debian releases: https://www.debian.org/releases/ https://www.debian.org/releases/

hlieberman 7y ago

Running Debian testing is generally the practice I recommend on systems which are single-user, like desktops and laptops. It's quite stable and very up to date, except for a couple of months in the run-up to freeze. Disclaimer: I'm a Debian developer.

h43z 7y ago
The problem with testing is you may wait for security updates much longer.
ChrisSD 7y ago
I've been told before that this advice isn't appropriate for anyone who isn't a Debian developer. Things can break and testing may not get important security patches until a while after unstable and stable.
- hlieberman 7y ago
  The security patches is certainly a concern (though testing-security does exist, albeit not with the coverage of security-updates from stable). In my experience, testing is quite stable for 95% of packages; I can only think of a few instances in the last decade that testing has really broken my computer in a way that required me to break out my developer skills. More frequently, you'll find packages which can't be installed because they've been dropped from testing due to RC bugs -- but that's not necessarily a bad thing!
- ohazi 7y ago
  Not a Debian developer here. I've been running both Debian testing and unstable on various machines for about a decade and it's been great. In my experience, the "here be dragons" description of testing/unstable is way overstated... they're both very reliable. If you install apt-listbugs and `apt-mark hold` anything with bugs that sound scary, you'll be fine. It seems like a lot of people try Debian stable (perhaps thinking of it as an upgrade path from Ubuntu), are surprised by the ancient software packages, and then look elsewhere. Debian might want to consider changing the recommendations they make for new users. Instead of stable / testing / unstable, they could be server / workstation / testing.
  - ufo 7y ago
    I think that having to check the issue tracker before installing packages is exactly the kind of thing that people are talking about when they say "here be dragons". By your argument, we would also be able to call Arch Linux a very reliable distro. It can be if you know what you are doing, but it isn't something I would want to recommend to the average user... > Instead of stable / testing / unstable, they could be server / workstation / testing. I would love to see something like that, but I think it would need significant changes to Testing to make it usable for the masses. Some years ago there was some work towards that direction with Constantly Usable Testing, which explains some of the challenges: https://old.lwn.net/Articles/406301/ https://old.lwn.net/Articles/406301/
- thrwayxyz 7y ago
  Who ever told you that has no idea what they are talking about. Debian testing is more stable than the average release of other distros.
  - ufo 7y ago
    I've had a more pleasant experience using Fedora than Debian Testing. Debian is great in general but the wonkyness surrounding the freeze period gave me the impression that Debian Testing really is something that should only be used if you are interested in helping Debian produce the next Debian Stable release. Some packages don't get timely updates and are only updated close to the freeze period, in preparation for the next stable release. And during the freeze period itself everything is super awkward because preparing the next stable release takes priority over keeping Debian Testing usable.
    - andrewshadura 7y ago
      Wait, that can't be right. Preparations for the release precisely is the work needed to make the testing usable, since testing is the future release.
blihp 7y ago
As a long time Debian user, I think you're doing Debian a disservice giving that advice. Debian testing is stable... except when it's not. Tell people that it's relatively stable, not that it's stable. And please don't tell them to run their daily driver on it unless they know what they're potentially getting into. My own experience is that things can be broken for months in testing and of course good luck finding any help when that happens. For example, since the freeze for Buster I had broken sound drivers for a couple of months until someone else found that it wasn't actually the drivers but another broken package that as of a month or so ago still wasn't fixed (but the problem had been reported) That's been my experience with testing for the last 3-4 Debian releases: it works great... except for a handful of annoying bugs that seem to linger almost until release. And assuming you know exactly which package is broken (which can be difficult to narrow down for driver/system level issues), you may or may not get the problem addressed in a timely manner. Then there's also the case of the occasional package that you depend on that disappears from testing for a month or two for any number of reasons.
- denormalfloat 7y ago
  > I had broken sound drivers for a couple of months until someone else found that it wasn't actually the drivers but another broken package that as of a month or so ago still wasn't fixed (but the problem had been reported) I had the _exact_ same problem (the issue ended up be a MIDI program called timidity). The main problem for me was that Debian doesn't give any advice on how to report such issues (the website is firmly planted in the early 90s), and the mailing lists I found all appear to be dead. I wish Debian had a slightly more modern website.
  - blihp 7y ago
    That would be the one! I posted a stackoverflow question along with my workaround not knowing the cause. Fortunately, someone else identified timidity as the root cause. Definitely one of the stranger issues I've run into using testing in recent years, but far from the only one.
- ohazi 7y ago
  I think it's reasonable advice if the user explicitly wants a rolling release, and knows what that entails. What other options do I have if my criteria are: - rolling release - not Arch As far as I can tell, Debian testing is still the least headachy way to get a rolling release, with the added bonus of out-of-the-box compatibility with most of the "we support Linux!" software that only ever gets tested on Ubuntu. During my ten years (five release cycles) of using Debian testing, there hasn't been an update that required get-out-the-recovery-disk levels of surgery to fix. All of them have been minor user-facing software bugs or package version inconsistencies that could be safely ignored until I had the time or the inclination to investigate. But yes, you do have to be willing to poke around a bit, and not everybody likes that. But this is why I wanted a rolling release in the first place. I prefer to do minor repair work on a regular basis (but on my own schedule) in order to avoid major repair work every 6-24 months (on somebody else's schedule). I also don't really mind the investigative work when something goes wrong, since it forces me to learn more about how my system works, and that knowledge invariably ends up being useful later. Some people absolutely hate this, and they would probably be better off using something else.
xmichael999 7y ago
Running Debian, and in my case Devuan never leaves me hanging. Ubuntu and similar distro's often break everything with a regular update. Thanks for your hard work, a huge fan for 20 years+!!!
diehunde 7y ago
Is there a testing image for Buster already?
lamby 7y ago
For all the same reasons... I would recommend Debian unstable (ignore the name).
- ohazi 7y ago
  I've used Debian unstable and agree, but given that most packages in testing usually only lag behind those in unstable by a few weeks... any particular reason?
  - chungy 7y ago
    That's kind of the same question I would have about choosing testing over sid. If the intention is to be on rolling-release, you might as well just use sid. If you'd rather just be on rolling-release until the stable release is carved out (new features desired, for example), testing is pretty fine since it will transition into being the stable release.
    - lamby 7y ago
      In my experience, testing is (across the entire release cycle) often more buggy than sid, especially as it will get scant detailed attention in, say, the first year after a stable release. Using testing (for me) is usually just another annoying speedbump too - for example, one's issue is usually fixed in unstable and you are "just" waiting for it to migrate but it won't due to some boring, unrelated reason about 7-dependencies deep that might take a week or so to be resolved...

ShinTakuya 7y ago

Debian Testing is always more or less up to date and in the several years I've been using it I've never encountered a system breaking bug. It all seems to get ironed out in the Unstable branch. That said, Fedora is a fine alternative.

unsined 7y ago

I was debating doing the same thing, but I found MX Linux to be an appealing hop after years of Debian. I don't particularly care for sleek looks and really like XFCE, but my hardware can handle much more anyway so why not.

Proven 7y ago

Used Redhat 20 years ago, switched to Debian based distros 10 years later, never looked back. Debian distros provide a reliable and consistent experience. I don't have to use one distro flavor on my notebook, another on my workstation and yet another when I need updates for my enterprise server. Do more than 5% of Linux users use Fedora? I doubt it. It sounds like you're stuck on a marginally important distro but for some reason can't move on. Enjoy your niche IBM Linux distro!

Wowfunhappy 7y ago

> Fedora is always sleek and up-to-date, unlike Debian I mean, the entire point of Debian is that all of the packages are stable. If you don't want stable, don't use Debian. Don't knock Debian for working as intended.

emmelaich 7y ago
Yeah but I find Fedora to be as stable as Debian, but much more current.
- diffeomorphism 7y ago
  So, not stable. Stable in this context means "stable foundation" or "static" and is unrelated to "not crashing".

beatgammit 7y ago

I used Debian on servers and something more recent for my desktop (Fedora or Arch), but recently I've been playing with openSUSE since it has both use cases covered, as well as an enterprise upgrade path. I love Debian and I'll always recommend it for servers, and it makes a reasonable desktop too. However, it's not right for everyone.

ausjke 7y ago

On the contrary I left Redhat at 8.0(long time ago, before Fedora) and started using debian/ubuntu and never looked back, in my opinion, while Redhat made a fortune by its business model, Debian and ubuntu are the true community OS, I can't ask for more. Ubuntu/Debian has been my primary Desktop/Server for the last 15 years, life is good with them. Thanks so much for the maintainers and contributors to put so much efforts into them.

paulcarroty 7y ago
> Debian and ubuntu are the true community OS Not true, Canonical doing business too. Leaved Debian/Ubuntu ~5 years ago and never looked back.

eikenberry 7y ago

Been meaning to ask a Fedora user... does it still rely on 3rd party repos? I switched to Debian around RHL 6 or so due to the reliance on 3rd party repos and I know RHEL/Centos still rely on it and was curious if Fedora did?

dralley 7y ago
What do you mean by "rely"?
- eikenberry 7y ago
  In a practical sense. Are they typically used. Take CentOS for example... No 3rd party repos are required to run the system, but everywhere I've seen CentOS used in production they've installed packages from EPEL.

beenBoutIT 7y ago

Debian is as sleek as you want to it to be, in your case if you're after bleeding-edge packages the release you want to try is either Testing or Unstable, not Stable(in this case aka. Buster). APT was recently updated and shortened to a 3 letter command(à la DNF) and is now run as simply #apt update. More about the difference between Debian releases: https://www.debian.org/releases/ https://www.debian.org/releases/