8 ms·

Debian celebrates 30 years

344 points by susam 3y ago

binkHN 3y ago
Debian was my first Linux. Since then I mostly use OpenBSD—love its simplicity—but whenever I need to take full advantage of modern hardware I head back to Debian (usually the Testing release).
fodmap 3y ago
Happy Birthday Debian! I played around with Potato, started to felt in love with Woody, and since Sarge Debian has been my one and only distro.
- tonyarkles 3y ago
  Holy crap, it wasn't until this moment that I realized they're all Toy Story characters...
  - rement 3y ago
    https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/
  - bashy 3y ago
    Yep https://wiki.debian.org/ToyStory https://wiki.debian.org/ToyStory
    - tonyarkles 3y ago
      As I was falling asleep last night I had another realization about this naming scheme that made me laugh pretty hard. I always wondered why Debian unstable was named Sid. https://pixar.fandom.com/wiki/Sid https://pixar.fandom.com/wiki/Sid
- Propelloni 3y ago
  Dito, with the difference that I also used RHEL and ArchLinux a lot. But my main box, the one that needed to work: Debian.
j45 3y ago
It’s more common now but Debian was the first distribution that really opened Linux up for beginners like me. No offence, Slackware. Many derivatives have been able to expand in other directions because of the ability of Debian to create beginners. HBD!
- selykg 3y ago
  Yup, I started with RedHat... forget what version, 4, probably 5? Really couldn't get behind the rpm system. I think Debian might have been like the 2nd or 3rd distro I tried and it stuck a lot better. This was back in... 97 or 98? or so. Still using it today in the home lab/personal server in the basement.
  - lproven 3y ago
    Raw rpm was horrible. I used it and I wrote about it, but it was a nightmare. I think I sold an article which was just "here is how to install KDE 2.0 on Red Hat Linux". It was about 3 pages long, and included something like 200 dependency packages that you had to hand-install, one by one. I am curious to hear what Debian was like before APT came along in 1997 or so.
- askbookz1 3y ago
  Slackware in my circles around '99 was always the elitist option from day one. You were using Debian, Red Hat or SuSE? Not Slackware? Pfff... normie. I think that consolidated it as difficult for beginners. The fact it offered very few technical advantages was the nail in the coffin.
  - RuggedPineapple 3y ago
    I remember I used SuSE for ages based solely on how good Yast and Yast2 were. Its almost quaint to remember how Linux was back in the day, where an installer/setup tool that actually managed to make your system fully usable and configured without any extra tweaking or compiling kernel modules for hardware support was an honest to god selling point and killer feature. Reflecting back on it makes me appreciate all the early gurus who got us to where we are now.
m3nu 3y ago
Still remember being introduced to it in 2005 while working in the UK as sailing instructor for a summer job. An older guy showed me how he automated cataloging his grandma's possessions for auction with it, which deeply fascinated me. Back home, after lots of trial and error, I used it to run a mail- and webserver for my first business.
yabones 3y ago
The most important feature of Debian has been its governance and focus on community. That's the difference between it and CentOS or its derivatives, and why I'll keep using it forever - it's fundamentally sustainable. Here's to 30 more years!
- CSSer 3y ago
  I wish we could achieve this for package management in almost any ecosystem. It's got me pretty bummed lately.
- brnt 3y ago
  Hear hear! Thank you Debian contributors! I wish the CentOS forkers would see this in particular: it's just been amazing to see them continue to want to build on such shifting sands you fundamentally don't control. There _is_ a community-controlled distro that also has does stable and long term releases, and it is Debian! And it's really great!
arpa 3y ago
Still running Debian for the past 20 years and still hosting my own stuff in my closet! Thank you Debian!
trollied 3y ago
Discussion from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37147617 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37147617
Qem 3y ago
Was there any investigation on the policemen involved in the death of Ian Murdoch, the "ian" in Debian?
- askbookz1 3y ago
  The wikipedia page is pretty complete.
- RuggedPineapple 3y ago
  I'm not entirely sure would be needed. The circumstances of his death are tragic but also pretty much what I expect from someone in his position. The tendency among the tech community is to think expertise and intelligence applies across fields, its the perfect Dunning-Krugar trap. He was drunk as hell, and adamant he knew more then the police. Everything follows from that and his twitter rants that night about how he's 'a white man-- not a n**ger' and talking about how much money he made just reinforces that.
  - lnxg33k1 3y ago
    Where did he say that? Why do you spread lies? https://archive.ph/20151229023650/https://twitter.com/imurdock/with_replies https://archive.ph/20151229023650/https://twitter.com/imurdo... Where did he say the word nigger? He was clearly shaken, but he had a good point about fighting against police brutality, and he understood that it was about class, power and opportunity, not skin color
    - lnxg33k1 3y ago
      Apologies I actually saw that tweet, horrified
      - RuggedPineapple 3y ago
        I actually appreciate you coming back to acknowledge your mistake.
  - redeeman 3y ago
tmalsburg2 3y ago
I used Debian as a student when I had time to endlessly edit config files. What's the state today? Is it possible to just use it to get work done, say, on a Thinkpad?
- Nursie 3y ago
  Yes, there’s not really any more editing config files than on any other distro.
- hiq 3y ago
  What is "work" in this context? Why were you editing config files all the time? I find Debian very user-friendly, there shouldn't be much config file tinkering, especially if the machine is well supported by Linux. The situation is probably better than a few years ago, but overall I think that's been the case for some time now.
  - tmalsburg2 3y ago
    > What is "work" in this context? I'm primarily interested in 1. having all hardware work out of the box, 2. working suspend to disk/RAM, 3. not having to edit `Xorg.conf`, 4. relatively painless upgrades. Ubuntu gives me all of that and has served me well for 15 years. But their transition to snap forces me to look for something else.
    - chaosite 3y ago
      1 & 2 really depend on what hardware you have. But if you get 1 & 2 today from Ubuntu, I'm willing to bet that you'll get exactly that from Debian as well. 3 hasn't been a thing for a few years now. `Xorg.conf` technically still exists, but the normal display configuration flow doesn't touch it. 4 is better in Debian than it is in Ubuntu, in my opinion. Updates are really painless and well done. But notice that the cycle is different: Ubuntu gives you 6 months release cycles and an LTS every 2 years. Debian gives you a "when it's ready" release cycle with a expected time of 3-4 years, and two rolling releases. That is, "stable" is like a LTS release. If you're running a desktop system, you should probably use "testing", despite the name.
HeckFeck 3y ago
Happy birthday! Wouldn't reach for anything else when I need predictability and stability on my system. Here's to forever!
chaoticmass 3y ago
First time I used Debian was 2005 when it was the easiest option I could find to install Linux on a Sun Sparc Station LX with netboot. Still my favorite and my go-to Distro.
askbookz1 3y ago
Debian is more important than ever, in face of corporations abusing open source.
eimrine 3y ago
I have not used any distro except of Debian-like for more than few days. But scare of systemd makes me think about trying other ones, maybe Devuan.
- UncleSlacky 3y ago
  MX Linux is Debian-based but offers sysvinit by default (systemd is optional).
  - stOneskull 3y ago
    i think mx linux makes the perfect debian desktop. and it's really amazing how many great distros there are based on debian. happy 30th! happy debianday!
- IshKebab 3y ago
  Yeah I hadn't for ages either but have been using RHEL at work for almost a year. It's very annoying because of occasionally missing packages (e.g. `z3`), and just having to figure out different names of packages etc. However I would have to say that `dnf` (the new `yum`) is waaay better than apt. For a start it is much much faster to install things. I don't know why apt is so slow. But also it comes with great features to help you deal with very common and tedious Linux admin tasks, like "what package do I install to get this file my program is demanding?" (`dnf provides`) and they have some very nice features like if you run a command and it isn't installed it will offer to install it for you and then run your original command. Someone actually thought about UX for once. Or if you run a program and it can't find a shared library, it will tell you all the missing libraries, not just the first one. It would be amazing if it also offered to install the right packages but it doesn't quite yet. So in conclusion I'd stick with Debian given the choice but I sure wish the Apt developers would spend some time using dnf.
  - rvdginste 3y ago
    > what package do I install to get this file my program is demanding? You can install apt-file, and then use `apt-file search`.
rob 3y ago
Our Debian Linode was created May 2013 and is still going strong, keeping up with upgrades/updates. It's been amazing for stability.
SomeoneFromCA 3y ago
Debian 12 is essentially Ubuntu 22.10 LTS. If you use LTS versions of Ubuntu, Debian is about same thing.
- markab21 3y ago
  Debian and Ubuntu have similarities, but keep in mind - Ubuntu is derived from Debian, not the other way around. However, they differ in areas like release cycles, package management, and default configurations.
  - SomeoneFromCA 3y ago
    What you just said is such a well known truism, so it is actually rude to imply that someone on HN would not know that. My point was, however, is from the users point of view Bookworm is very very similar to 22.10 however it is an lts, so for those who want to switch from Ubuntu, this is the experience they should expect.
Bye_Felicia 3y ago
[flagged]
- lnxg33k1 3y ago
  Here's to 30 more years of OSX/Windows users complaining about how things that people has been using for 30 years are unusable! There are so many ways to rename stuff on linux that if instead of connecting the keyboard to the trash can you connected it to the brain you could have found that you can configure any action to any key/combination, I have rename on F2, nothing extremely difficult
- pak9rabid 3y ago
  How is this Debian's fault? You're free to choose whatever desktop environment you want.
  - lnxg33k1 3y ago
    I'm supposed to make a choice? To understand something and then decide for myself? Wtf? This must be some new millennials shit, they want to ruin our society :(
    - shadowgovt 3y ago
      You joke, but making the choice for you is one of the things Apple users often consider a value-add from the platform.
- VWWHFSfQ 3y ago
  This isn't really a problem with Debian but just "desktop Linux" in general. Lots of little quality of life/usability things that just don't exist or don't work. I'm a pretty happy user of Ubuntu w/gnome but I'm not going to pretend that it's some kind of great desktop system. I just prefer to use it anyway.
  - 000ooo000 3y ago
    Get in touch with the Debian folk, they're really good and would likely be happy to offer you a refund.
ElectronBadger 3y ago
My favorite distro, I use it exclusively for the last 4 year. I have Debian Testing on my laptop (T14), workstation, Pi4. Works great. Meanwhile I've been trying Arch, Gentoo, Slackware, FreeBSD, but Debian is the best.
pak9rabid 3y ago
As somebody who's gone from: RedHat 5/6 -> Slackware -> Gentoo -> Debian -> Ubuntu -> Debian. Debian (and it's derivatives) is the best of breed and will always be my distro of choice. Great job yall!
- Steltek 3y ago
  You need to be more specific with Red Hat :). I'm guessing you meant like "GNOME 1.2" era Red Hat that came on a CheapBytes CD.
  - acegopher 3y ago
    My first distro was Red Hat 5 as well. It is disambigous, it was called "Red Hat Linux version 5". Red Hat Linux went to version 9 I believe before it split into RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) and Fedora.
- sv0 3y ago
  I have almost the same way: Redhat 5 -> Mandrake -> Gentoo -> FreeBSD -> Slackware, and finally Debian Etch in April 2007. I've been using Debian for the latest 16 years and am very happy with it.
wiz21c 3y ago
Started with the TSX distro about 30 years ago then RedHat then Suse then, 25 years ago, Debian. Never looked back.
- mattl 3y ago
  What was TSX? I don't remember that one.
  - snark42 3y ago
    tsx was a MIT server that hosted minix, Linux, etc. It wasn't a distribution per se.
    - mattl 3y ago
      Oh very nice. I’m vaguely aware of some of the interesting servers they used to have but mostly via the GNU stuff. apple-gunkies, etc.
    - wiz21c 3y ago
      yeah, now you say it, I think it were some CD's containing a copy of the TSX archive. Installing from that source was like playing Quake in nightmare mode :-) Took me months to get the sound working :-)
tempodox 3y ago
Happy birthday and thank you! Debian is one of the greatest pieces of software on Earth.
jacquesm 3y ago
Debian is the only linux distro that has been able to manage an unbroken line of upgrades working across systems for many, many years. No other distro that I'm aware of has been able to do this without botching upgrades to the point that a reinstall was the only option left. That, and it's governance model and staying true to their mission are all major accomplishments. It's a pity that Ian Murdock did not live to see his brainchild become 30. I owe that man a lot.
- conkeisterdoor 3y ago
  In the 15 or so years I've been using Debian I can't remember ever having any issues with upgrades. It has always just worked smooth as butter for me. Every one of my devices (except phone and Steam Deck of course) is running Debian, and hopefully they always will! I think I'll celebrate it's birthday by wearing my Debian t-shirt today :)
  - pxx 3y ago
    Upgrades are always a pain for me but afaict it's entirely self-inflicted by making a franken-Debian. (http://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian http://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian)
- IntelMiner 3y ago
  I wonder if anyone has attempted a full first-release to modern Debian upgrade. Bonus if it was done on real hardware Might be something fun for NCommander
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    That's a very cool idea.
  - glandium 3y ago
    I wanted to do it for the 30th anniversary, but lacked the time.
    - 3y ago
wintermutestwin 3y ago
sudo apt-get install cinnamon
sohrob 3y ago
Debian stable + Flatpaks is the most stable Linux experience I've worked with. Thanks to everyone involved in the project.
mediumsmart 3y ago
my favourite GNU/Linux distribution. thank you so much and happy anniversary.
squarefoot 3y ago
My first Linux install was the Yggdrasil fall 1994, then took a hiatus (Windows) then moved to Red Hat version something, then Mandrake, then one day discovered Debian (Sarge at that time), liked apt a lot more than rpm and stuck with it. Today I also run Manjaro on laptops and Alpine on smallish things (older stuff, embedded, etc) but my main machine is and will remain Debian: it's the one I'm more familiar with when I need to do something under the hood, and does the job nicely. Happy Birthday!
samuell 3y ago
I'm very pleased with Debian 11 XFCE as a daily driver on one of my laptops. With only a very few caveats, it can be installed, with a nice looking UI. (Wrote up a few notes for myself at [1]). Even bluetooth works perfect, connecting my Bose headset flawlessly, which even the latest Linux Mint had problem with. The only thing I haven't got working is connecting my Phone (A Sony Xperia 10 II), and our old printer. I'm sure it is possible, but haven't found a quick solution, and have so little time for fiddling. It's a bummer, since a plain Debian (XFCE) install is so very clean and stable! [1] https://rillabs.com/posts/installing-and-configuring-debian-11-into-a-great-experience https://rillabs.com/posts/installing-and-configuring-debian-...
bastardoperator 3y ago
I was converted to Debian 20 years ago and haven't looked back. Props to the maintainers and contributors, thank you.
RedCinnabar 3y ago
Tried it for the first time 15 years ago and never looked back since then. Coming from Slackware, I remember feeling relieved due to the automatic dependency management. I just wonder how they will name the release versions when they will run out of Toy Story characters.
foresto 3y ago
My first experience with Debian was though its package format, when I was fed up with constant frustrations from RPM as a way to deliver software to an operations team. (I had spent too many hours searching for format and behavior docs, only to find a couple of outdated text files full of ambiguities and omissions.) Given that Red Hat was widely considered the premier distro for businesses at the time, I didn't have high hopes for something better. Boy, was I in for a pleasant surprise. Debian's documentation was precise, comprehensive, and easy to find. It was clear from reading it that its authors were dedicated to creating a maintainable, sustainable system, even in the face of weird edge cases and failures. It went so far as to include versioned documentation and policy releases, with each one including clearly worded explanations of what changed since the previous version and (often) how to update existing packaging. Talk about exceeding expectations. This was better than any commercial software docs I had seen in ages. What a relief. The day or two I spent putting together my first Debian package was more than worth it in the long run. I migrated my servers as soon as I could, and it has served me well ever since. Nowadays, it's running my desktop/gaming systems, too. Thanks for the excellent work, Debian contributors. I feel fortunate to have found you.
curt15 3y ago
Debian's policy document [1] lays out various conventions and requirements in unparalleled detail. I haven't seen anything like that in other distros. [1] https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/
havnagiggle 3y ago
Someone recently left a comment saying Debian should consider a long-long-LTS of 50 years! I laughed my ass off at such an outrageous idea... but really, Debian is the one organization that could actually pull such a thing off (I suspect, I most likely won't be around long enough to say it was done). They are always first in my annual donations list. Thank you Debian!
debian3 3y ago
I started with Debian 3, a while ago. Still my distro of choice.

344 points by susam 3y ago

Debian was my first Linux. Since then I mostly use OpenBSD—love its simplicity—but whenever I need to take full advantage of modern hardware I head back to Debian (usually the Testing release).

fodmap 3y ago

Happy Birthday Debian! I played around with Potato, started to felt in love with Woody, and since Sarge Debian has been my one and only distro.

tonyarkles 3y ago
Holy crap, it wasn't until this moment that I realized they're all Toy Story characters...
- rement 3y ago
  https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/
- bashy 3y ago
  Yep https://wiki.debian.org/ToyStory https://wiki.debian.org/ToyStory
  - tonyarkles 3y ago
    As I was falling asleep last night I had another realization about this naming scheme that made me laugh pretty hard. I always wondered why Debian unstable was named Sid. https://pixar.fandom.com/wiki/Sid https://pixar.fandom.com/wiki/Sid
Propelloni 3y ago
Dito, with the difference that I also used RHEL and ArchLinux a lot. But my main box, the one that needed to work: Debian.

j45 3y ago

It’s more common now but Debian was the first distribution that really opened Linux up for beginners like me. No offence, Slackware. Many derivatives have been able to expand in other directions because of the ability of Debian to create beginners. HBD!

selykg 3y ago
Yup, I started with RedHat... forget what version, 4, probably 5? Really couldn't get behind the rpm system. I think Debian might have been like the 2nd or 3rd distro I tried and it stuck a lot better. This was back in... 97 or 98? or so. Still using it today in the home lab/personal server in the basement.
- lproven 3y ago
  Raw rpm was horrible. I used it and I wrote about it, but it was a nightmare. I think I sold an article which was just "here is how to install KDE 2.0 on Red Hat Linux". It was about 3 pages long, and included something like 200 dependency packages that you had to hand-install, one by one. I am curious to hear what Debian was like before APT came along in 1997 or so.
askbookz1 3y ago
Slackware in my circles around '99 was always the elitist option from day one. You were using Debian, Red Hat or SuSE? Not Slackware? Pfff... normie. I think that consolidated it as difficult for beginners. The fact it offered very few technical advantages was the nail in the coffin.
- RuggedPineapple 3y ago
  I remember I used SuSE for ages based solely on how good Yast and Yast2 were. Its almost quaint to remember how Linux was back in the day, where an installer/setup tool that actually managed to make your system fully usable and configured without any extra tweaking or compiling kernel modules for hardware support was an honest to god selling point and killer feature. Reflecting back on it makes me appreciate all the early gurus who got us to where we are now.

m3nu 3y ago

Still remember being introduced to it in 2005 while working in the UK as sailing instructor for a summer job. An older guy showed me how he automated cataloging his grandma's possessions for auction with it, which deeply fascinated me. Back home, after lots of trial and error, I used it to run a mail- and webserver for my first business.

yabones 3y ago

The most important feature of Debian has been its governance and focus on community. That's the difference between it and CentOS or its derivatives, and why I'll keep using it forever - it's fundamentally sustainable. Here's to 30 more years!

CSSer 3y ago
I wish we could achieve this for package management in almost any ecosystem. It's got me pretty bummed lately.
brnt 3y ago
Hear hear! Thank you Debian contributors! I wish the CentOS forkers would see this in particular: it's just been amazing to see them continue to want to build on such shifting sands you fundamentally don't control. There _is_ a community-controlled distro that also has does stable and long term releases, and it is Debian! And it's really great!

arpa 3y ago

Still running Debian for the past 20 years and still hosting my own stuff in my closet! Thank you Debian!

trollied 3y ago

Discussion from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37147617 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37147617

Qem 3y ago

Was there any investigation on the policemen involved in the death of Ian Murdoch, the "ian" in Debian?

askbookz1 3y ago
The wikipedia page is pretty complete.
RuggedPineapple 3y ago
I'm not entirely sure would be needed. The circumstances of his death are tragic but also pretty much what I expect from someone in his position. The tendency among the tech community is to think expertise and intelligence applies across fields, its the perfect Dunning-Krugar trap. He was drunk as hell, and adamant he knew more then the police. Everything follows from that and his twitter rants that night about how he's 'a white man-- not a n**ger' and talking about how much money he made just reinforces that.
- lnxg33k1 3y ago
  Where did he say that? Why do you spread lies? https://archive.ph/20151229023650/https://twitter.com/imurdock/with_replies https://archive.ph/20151229023650/https://twitter.com/imurdo... Where did he say the word nigger? He was clearly shaken, but he had a good point about fighting against police brutality, and he understood that it was about class, power and opportunity, not skin color
  - lnxg33k1 3y ago
    Apologies I actually saw that tweet, horrified
    - RuggedPineapple 3y ago
      I actually appreciate you coming back to acknowledge your mistake.
- redeeman 3y ago

tmalsburg2 3y ago

I used Debian as a student when I had time to endlessly edit config files. What's the state today? Is it possible to just use it to get work done, say, on a Thinkpad?

Nursie 3y ago
Yes, there’s not really any more editing config files than on any other distro.
hiq 3y ago
What is "work" in this context? Why were you editing config files all the time? I find Debian very user-friendly, there shouldn't be much config file tinkering, especially if the machine is well supported by Linux. The situation is probably better than a few years ago, but overall I think that's been the case for some time now.
- tmalsburg2 3y ago
  > What is "work" in this context? I'm primarily interested in 1. having all hardware work out of the box, 2. working suspend to disk/RAM, 3. not having to edit `Xorg.conf`, 4. relatively painless upgrades. Ubuntu gives me all of that and has served me well for 15 years. But their transition to snap forces me to look for something else.
  - chaosite 3y ago
    1 & 2 really depend on what hardware you have. But if you get 1 & 2 today from Ubuntu, I'm willing to bet that you'll get exactly that from Debian as well. 3 hasn't been a thing for a few years now. `Xorg.conf` technically still exists, but the normal display configuration flow doesn't touch it. 4 is better in Debian than it is in Ubuntu, in my opinion. Updates are really painless and well done. But notice that the cycle is different: Ubuntu gives you 6 months release cycles and an LTS every 2 years. Debian gives you a "when it's ready" release cycle with a expected time of 3-4 years, and two rolling releases. That is, "stable" is like a LTS release. If you're running a desktop system, you should probably use "testing", despite the name.

HeckFeck 3y ago

Happy birthday! Wouldn't reach for anything else when I need predictability and stability on my system. Here's to forever!

chaoticmass 3y ago

First time I used Debian was 2005 when it was the easiest option I could find to install Linux on a Sun Sparc Station LX with netboot. Still my favorite and my go-to Distro.

askbookz1 3y ago

Debian is more important than ever, in face of corporations abusing open source.

eimrine 3y ago

I have not used any distro except of Debian-like for more than few days. But scare of systemd makes me think about trying other ones, maybe Devuan.

UncleSlacky 3y ago
MX Linux is Debian-based but offers sysvinit by default (systemd is optional).
- stOneskull 3y ago
  i think mx linux makes the perfect debian desktop. and it's really amazing how many great distros there are based on debian. happy 30th! happy debianday!
IshKebab 3y ago
Yeah I hadn't for ages either but have been using RHEL at work for almost a year. It's very annoying because of occasionally missing packages (e.g. `z3`), and just having to figure out different names of packages etc. However I would have to say that `dnf` (the new `yum`) is waaay better than apt. For a start it is much much faster to install things. I don't know why apt is so slow. But also it comes with great features to help you deal with very common and tedious Linux admin tasks, like "what package do I install to get this file my program is demanding?" (`dnf provides`) and they have some very nice features like if you run a command and it isn't installed it will offer to install it for you and then run your original command. Someone actually thought about UX for once. Or if you run a program and it can't find a shared library, it will tell you all the missing libraries, not just the first one. It would be amazing if it also offered to install the right packages but it doesn't quite yet. So in conclusion I'd stick with Debian given the choice but I sure wish the Apt developers would spend some time using dnf.
- rvdginste 3y ago
  > what package do I install to get this file my program is demanding? You can install apt-file, and then use `apt-file search`.

rob 3y ago

Our Debian Linode was created May 2013 and is still going strong, keeping up with upgrades/updates. It's been amazing for stability.

SomeoneFromCA 3y ago

Debian 12 is essentially Ubuntu 22.10 LTS. If you use LTS versions of Ubuntu, Debian is about same thing.

markab21 3y ago
Debian and Ubuntu have similarities, but keep in mind - Ubuntu is derived from Debian, not the other way around. However, they differ in areas like release cycles, package management, and default configurations.
- SomeoneFromCA 3y ago
  What you just said is such a well known truism, so it is actually rude to imply that someone on HN would not know that. My point was, however, is from the users point of view Bookworm is very very similar to 22.10 however it is an lts, so for those who want to switch from Ubuntu, this is the experience they should expect.

Bye_Felicia 3y ago

[flagged]

lnxg33k1 3y ago
Here's to 30 more years of OSX/Windows users complaining about how things that people has been using for 30 years are unusable! There are so many ways to rename stuff on linux that if instead of connecting the keyboard to the trash can you connected it to the brain you could have found that you can configure any action to any key/combination, I have rename on F2, nothing extremely difficult
pak9rabid 3y ago
How is this Debian's fault? You're free to choose whatever desktop environment you want.
- lnxg33k1 3y ago
  I'm supposed to make a choice? To understand something and then decide for myself? Wtf? This must be some new millennials shit, they want to ruin our society :(
  - shadowgovt 3y ago
    You joke, but making the choice for you is one of the things Apple users often consider a value-add from the platform.
VWWHFSfQ 3y ago
This isn't really a problem with Debian but just "desktop Linux" in general. Lots of little quality of life/usability things that just don't exist or don't work. I'm a pretty happy user of Ubuntu w/gnome but I'm not going to pretend that it's some kind of great desktop system. I just prefer to use it anyway.
- 000ooo000 3y ago
  Get in touch with the Debian folk, they're really good and would likely be happy to offer you a refund.

ElectronBadger 3y ago

My favorite distro, I use it exclusively for the last 4 year. I have Debian Testing on my laptop (T14), workstation, Pi4. Works great. Meanwhile I've been trying Arch, Gentoo, Slackware, FreeBSD, but Debian is the best.

pak9rabid 3y ago

As somebody who's gone from: RedHat 5/6 -> Slackware -> Gentoo -> Debian -> Ubuntu -> Debian. Debian (and it's derivatives) is the best of breed and will always be my distro of choice. Great job yall!

Steltek 3y ago
You need to be more specific with Red Hat :). I'm guessing you meant like "GNOME 1.2" era Red Hat that came on a CheapBytes CD.
- acegopher 3y ago
  My first distro was Red Hat 5 as well. It is disambigous, it was called "Red Hat Linux version 5". Red Hat Linux went to version 9 I believe before it split into RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) and Fedora.
sv0 3y ago
I have almost the same way: Redhat 5 -> Mandrake -> Gentoo -> FreeBSD -> Slackware, and finally Debian Etch in April 2007. I've been using Debian for the latest 16 years and am very happy with it.

wiz21c 3y ago

Started with the TSX distro about 30 years ago then RedHat then Suse then, 25 years ago, Debian. Never looked back.

mattl 3y ago
What was TSX? I don't remember that one.
- snark42 3y ago
  tsx was a MIT server that hosted minix, Linux, etc. It wasn't a distribution per se.
  - mattl 3y ago
    Oh very nice. I’m vaguely aware of some of the interesting servers they used to have but mostly via the GNU stuff. apple-gunkies, etc.
  - wiz21c 3y ago
    yeah, now you say it, I think it were some CD's containing a copy of the TSX archive. Installing from that source was like playing Quake in nightmare mode :-) Took me months to get the sound working :-)

tempodox 3y ago

Happy birthday and thank you! Debian is one of the greatest pieces of software on Earth.

jacquesm 3y ago

Debian is the only linux distro that has been able to manage an unbroken line of upgrades working across systems for many, many years. No other distro that I'm aware of has been able to do this without botching upgrades to the point that a reinstall was the only option left. That, and it's governance model and staying true to their mission are all major accomplishments. It's a pity that Ian Murdock did not live to see his brainchild become 30. I owe that man a lot.

conkeisterdoor 3y ago
In the 15 or so years I've been using Debian I can't remember ever having any issues with upgrades. It has always just worked smooth as butter for me. Every one of my devices (except phone and Steam Deck of course) is running Debian, and hopefully they always will! I think I'll celebrate it's birthday by wearing my Debian t-shirt today :)
- pxx 3y ago
  Upgrades are always a pain for me but afaict it's entirely self-inflicted by making a franken-Debian. (http://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian http://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian)
IntelMiner 3y ago
I wonder if anyone has attempted a full first-release to modern Debian upgrade. Bonus if it was done on real hardware Might be something fun for NCommander
- jacquesm 3y ago
  That's a very cool idea.
- glandium 3y ago
  I wanted to do it for the 30th anniversary, but lacked the time.
  - 3y ago

wintermutestwin 3y ago

sudo apt-get install cinnamon

sohrob 3y ago

Debian stable + Flatpaks is the most stable Linux experience I've worked with. Thanks to everyone involved in the project.

mediumsmart 3y ago

my favourite GNU/Linux distribution. thank you so much and happy anniversary.

squarefoot 3y ago

My first Linux install was the Yggdrasil fall 1994, then took a hiatus (Windows) then moved to Red Hat version something, then Mandrake, then one day discovered Debian (Sarge at that time), liked apt a lot more than rpm and stuck with it. Today I also run Manjaro on laptops and Alpine on smallish things (older stuff, embedded, etc) but my main machine is and will remain Debian: it's the one I'm more familiar with when I need to do something under the hood, and does the job nicely. Happy Birthday!

samuell 3y ago

I'm very pleased with Debian 11 XFCE as a daily driver on one of my laptops. With only a very few caveats, it can be installed, with a nice looking UI. (Wrote up a few notes for myself at [1]). Even bluetooth works perfect, connecting my Bose headset flawlessly, which even the latest Linux Mint had problem with. The only thing I haven't got working is connecting my Phone (A Sony Xperia 10 II), and our old printer. I'm sure it is possible, but haven't found a quick solution, and have so little time for fiddling. It's a bummer, since a plain Debian (XFCE) install is so very clean and stable! [1] https://rillabs.com/posts/installing-and-configuring-debian-11-into-a-great-experience https://rillabs.com/posts/installing-and-configuring-debian-...

bastardoperator 3y ago

I was converted to Debian 20 years ago and haven't looked back. Props to the maintainers and contributors, thank you.

RedCinnabar 3y ago

Tried it for the first time 15 years ago and never looked back since then. Coming from Slackware, I remember feeling relieved due to the automatic dependency management. I just wonder how they will name the release versions when they will run out of Toy Story characters.

foresto 3y ago

My first experience with Debian was though its package format, when I was fed up with constant frustrations from RPM as a way to deliver software to an operations team. (I had spent too many hours searching for format and behavior docs, only to find a couple of outdated text files full of ambiguities and omissions.) Given that Red Hat was widely considered the premier distro for businesses at the time, I didn't have high hopes for something better. Boy, was I in for a pleasant surprise. Debian's documentation was precise, comprehensive, and easy to find. It was clear from reading it that its authors were dedicated to creating a maintainable, sustainable system, even in the face of weird edge cases and failures. It went so far as to include versioned documentation and policy releases, with each one including clearly worded explanations of what changed since the previous version and (often) how to update existing packaging. Talk about exceeding expectations. This was better than any commercial software docs I had seen in ages. What a relief. The day or two I spent putting together my first Debian package was more than worth it in the long run. I migrated my servers as soon as I could, and it has served me well ever since. Nowadays, it's running my desktop/gaming systems, too. Thanks for the excellent work, Debian contributors. I feel fortunate to have found you.

curt15 3y ago

Debian's policy document [1] lays out various conventions and requirements in unparalleled detail. I haven't seen anything like that in other distros. [1] https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/

havnagiggle 3y ago

Someone recently left a comment saying Debian should consider a long-long-LTS of 50 years! I laughed my ass off at such an outrageous idea... but really, Debian is the one organization that could actually pull such a thing off (I suspect, I most likely won't be around long enough to say it was done). They are always first in my annual donations list. Thank you Debian!

debian3 3y ago

I started with Debian 3, a while ago. Still my distro of choice.