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I ran Linux on the desktop (and LOTS of servers) for 19 years, starting with Slackware in 1994. I spent multiple years on each of RedHat, SuSE, Gentoo, and Ubun

I ran Linux on the desktop (and LOTS of servers) for 19 years, starting with Slackware in 1994. I spent multiple years on each of RedHat, SuSE, Gentoo, and Ubuntu. (I tried Debian only briefly.) I keep a wary eye on Apple, and the possibility of moving back to Linux, in the back of my mind. "I'm gettin' too old" for Gentoo or Arch. As proper, paid, commercial distros, I would consider RedHat or SuSE before Ubuntu these days (especially RedHat, because they're still heavily involved in kernel development), but I haven't seen anyone on this thread suggesting them as the alternative. Why is it all Debian?

nix23 4y ago
Rhel9 is great and free for up to 16 instances..yes for production too..and no prob for the workstation with the epel and rpmfusion repos added. SElinux is mostly why i use rhel based system's. But debian, fedora, nix and arch are great too...like all originals.
yabones 4y ago
Debian is great for desktop, I've been using 'stable' for about 3 years (Buster and currently Bullseye) with nothing but good experiences. It's basically all the good things about Linux without any of the nonsense unless you specifically opt in. You usually get "older" versions of packages on Stable (less so on Testing/Unstable), but you can also use Flatpak (or Appimage or even Snapd) to get 'current' versions of things. The only difficult thing with Debian is hardware support, but they're working to improve that. Future point-releases of Bullseye and the next Bookworm release will include non-free firmware by default, with the choice to opt out. You can also use non-free drivers and software by opting into the "contrib" and "non-free" repositories.
- BrotherBisquick 4y ago
  I've experimented with the idea of running Debian stable and using flatpaks+appimages on top of it, but I quickly discovered that those formats are really only for GUI apps. That's fine for getting the latest version of Firefox, but you (apparently) can't flatpak, say, your shell. I'm thinking specificially of Fish, which I need the latest version of at all times because it's constantly changing and I've grown used to the latest features added to it. I know there are backports, but those are available at the whim of individual maintainers, and aren't guaranteed to be present. There's also the possibility of running testing or unstable, but it's more straightforward to just install a rolling release distro rather than installing Debian stable and then dist-upgrading. I have great respect for Debian and if I had to use it on the Desktop I would be happy with it, but for me, in 2022, it just makes more sense to use a rolling release distro.

nix23 4y ago

Rhel9 is great and free for up to 16 instances..yes for production too..and no prob for the workstation with the epel and rpmfusion repos added. SElinux is mostly why i use rhel based system's. But debian, fedora, nix and arch are great too...like all originals.

yabones 4y ago

Debian is great for desktop, I've been using 'stable' for about 3 years (Buster and currently Bullseye) with nothing but good experiences. It's basically all the good things about Linux without any of the nonsense unless you specifically opt in. You usually get "older" versions of packages on Stable (less so on Testing/Unstable), but you can also use Flatpak (or Appimage or even Snapd) to get 'current' versions of things. The only difficult thing with Debian is hardware support, but they're working to improve that. Future point-releases of Bullseye and the next Bookworm release will include non-free firmware by default, with the choice to opt out. You can also use non-free drivers and software by opting into the "contrib" and "non-free" repositories.

BrotherBisquick 4y ago
I've experimented with the idea of running Debian stable and using flatpaks+appimages on top of it, but I quickly discovered that those formats are really only for GUI apps. That's fine for getting the latest version of Firefox, but you (apparently) can't flatpak, say, your shell. I'm thinking specificially of Fish, which I need the latest version of at all times because it's constantly changing and I've grown used to the latest features added to it. I know there are backports, but those are available at the whim of individual maintainers, and aren't guaranteed to be present. There's also the possibility of running testing or unstable, but it's more straightforward to just install a rolling release distro rather than installing Debian stable and then dist-upgrading. I have great respect for Debian and if I had to use it on the Desktop I would be happy with it, but for me, in 2022, it just makes more sense to use a rolling release distro.