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I started with Ubuntu, but got turned off my lack of stability, Snaps, old kernels, and obnoxious marketing. I switched to Debian, which fixes most of these iss

I started with Ubuntu, but got turned off my lack of stability, Snaps, old kernels, and obnoxious marketing. I switched to Debian, which fixes most of these issues (but not the old kernels). I like that Debian still uses apt-get and has a huge repository. The smaller repo is what keeps me off Fedora. If you're an Ubuntu refugee looking for a compatible distro, give Debian a try.

Beijinger 2y ago
I can't live without apt-get. I use Bodhi Linux but, besides the Desktop, this is bascially Ubuntu.
- germandiago 2y ago
  When you bith say apt-get you also mean apt without "get" or there are major differences?
  - cess11 2y ago
    I think they mean the repos. I wouldn't be surprised if apt-get is usually an alias for apt, but I don't know, I just type in apt and what I want to do. On a server we use nala instead, it's quite nice actually, so maybe I'll start using it elsewhere too.
  - hackyhacky 2y ago
    Speaking for myself: both apt and apt-get are different frontends to the same package management system and repository, which is shared by Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, and other Debian-based distros. I like the package management system; which frontend one uses (apt, apt-get, aptitude, nala, etc) is of secondary importance, as they differ only in user interface and aesthetics.
    - kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
      They are frontends to dpkg but with their own special behaviors layered on top that aren't identical.
    - summermusic 2y ago
      Linux Mint recently poured a lot of effort into modernizing and streamlining APT dependencies on their distro and it's great work[0] [0] https://developer.linuxmint.com/rel_xia_whatsnew.php https://developer.linuxmint.com/rel_xia_whatsnew.php
  - mplewis9z 2y ago
    `apt` (the program) is a relatively recent addition to the APT (Advanced Package Tool) ecosystem - until not that long ago, `apt-get` was the way to install packages, and `apt` is now a "cleaner" way of interacting with APT.
  - stonemetal12 2y ago
    The sells pitch for apt is "Apt is a newer, more user-friendly version of apt-get." Apt has been around for 10 years at this point, so if they haven't switched they probably aren't going to. The primary difference between apt and apt-get is apt has better dependency resolution and apt cleans up after itself when you do upgrades (it uninstalls packages that are no longer used).
    - Delk 2y ago
      The apt command also merges functionality from apt-get and apt-cache. With apt you don't have to use two separate tools to search for packages to install them. That's probably at least a moderate usability improvement for many people since you don't have to figure out whether you need to use apt-get or apt-cache for some particular command.
- bombcar 2y ago
  Is it specifically apt-get that you can't live without, or the concept of a package repository in general? I'm more and more disappointed that packages are snaps and not directly installed via apt, myself.
  - Beijinger 2y ago
    I never really liked the RPM system.
lucasoshiro 2y ago
> I like that Debian still uses apt-get Does that really make a difference? From a user perspective it's only replacing apt-get install by dnf install or pacman -S or apk add
- hackyhacky 2y ago
  It's not just the command that one types. DEB packages are more widely available than RPM. The Debian repositories are larger. And for all its flaws, I find dependency resolution is done better on apt than the alternatives.
  - lucasoshiro 2y ago
    > DEB packages are more widely available than RPM. The Debian repositories are larger. This is up to the repository. If Debian choose RPM it would be as large as it already is
    - timbit42 2y ago
      But it didn't and it isn't. Debian created DEB three years before RPM was created. Starting out, RPM didn't even support dependencies. I got into Linux before RPM so Debian was the obvious choice. I never understood why RPM was created.
    - ta1243 2y ago
      The reason I chose debian in the first place was because of the superiority of apt-get and debian/rules over getting random things from rpmfind.net I thought redhat distros later introduced yum as the "apt" equivalent?
  - kennysoona 2y ago
    > I find dependency resolution is done better on apt than the alternatives. Everyone says this about their favorite package manager.
    - alexey-salmin 2y ago
Sander_Marechal 2y ago
A long time ago there were good reasons for Ubuntu to exist. Debian releases were very slow, sometimes years apart, and focus was on servers. But slowly Debian has incorporated all the things that make Ubuntu better than Debian. It also has a much faster release cycle. There hasn't been a good reason to use Ubuntu over Debian for years.
- pseudalopex 2y ago
  Debian releases are 2 years apart roughly. The same as Ubuntu LTS. Many Ubuntu 3rd party repos have no Debian equivalent. But there are more Debian repos than before.
quercusa 2y ago
What's the migration path? Clean install?
shasts 2y ago
If you configure apt sources to use testing or unstable upstream of Debian you can get latest kernel. This way, you can also have a rolling distro. https://wiki.debian.org/DebianTesting https://wiki.debian.org/DebianTesting
- slow_typist 2y ago
  Been on testing for years without problems. Super reasonable choice for a personal machine if you need recent software versions. Always use a separate partition for /home, have backups in place and your golden.
  - shasts 2y ago
    Current work machine. Running fine for 4.5 years. $ stat / | grep "Birth" | sed 's/Birth: //g' | cut -b 2-11 2020-06-20 $ cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.sources # Modernized from /etc/apt/sources.list Types: deb deb-src URIs: http://deb.debian.org/debian/ Suites: unstable Components: main non-free contrib Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg # Modernized from /etc/apt/sources.list Types: deb URIs: http://deb.debian.org/debian/ Suites: testing Components: main non-free non-free-firmware contrib Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg You may also want `apt-listbugs` package to see the serious bugs before running upgrade.
    - kennysoona 2y ago
      Wouldn't running uptime be quicker than your stat command pipeline?
      - shasts 2y ago
        stat command gets the detail of when the OS was installed on the machine. uptime doesn't give that. I wanted to say that I have been using the same development machine at work for 4.5 years. "running" was not the right word for it, obviously.
voidUpdate 2y ago
I've used ubuntu on and off for a while now, and I've been debating switching over my main computer from windows to ubuntu. Would you recommend Debian instead? Are there any downsides/incompatibilities I should be aware of before doing so? I've used Raspbian a reasonable amount, but mainly for normal raspberry pi things instead of as a desktop system so I've don't really have much hands-on experience with it
- Wickedflickr 2y ago
  If you opt for Debian, try out Linux Mint's Debian edition, it's the smoothest option for desktop use.
  - zcar 2y ago
    Mint is great, served me well for many years. Never had an issue. With Debian I would mess things up if I messed with something I should not be touching. There are faster options but it requires more maintenance. Mint gets out of your way and just works.
    - kennysoona 2y ago
      You would probably have issues in mint if you messed with things you should not be touching also. Seems wrong to hold that against Debian.
      - zcar 2y ago
        That's the thing about mint. You don't have to mess with it because it works. Updating, installing, deleting, changing settings, no problems. That's is my experience with mint. Cannot say the same about any other distro.
        kennysoona 2y ago
        You don't have to mess with Debian either. By your own admission you were messing with things you shouldn't have been.
kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
It's fairly easy to compile an updated kernel. The Linux build scripts directly support generating a .deb package that plays nice with apt.
t312227 2y ago
imho. (!) if the issue with the current stable version of debian are certain packages - like the kernel -, try debian backports * https://backports.debian.org/ https://backports.debian.org/ they have a list of available packages at * https://packages.debian.org/bookworm-backports/ https://packages.debian.org/bookworm-backports/ ps. yes, using testing is another possibility, but for serious systems i personally prefer the "stable" release :)) just my 0.02€
sevensor 2y ago
Although I love Arch and use it on my main laptop, if you’re like me and you have a closet full of geriatric thinkpads, Debian is great. The one thing Arch / pacman struggles with is long intervals between updates, so if I boot a machine every three months, I’d rather have an OS in a state that was planned to persist for years.
- latentcall 2y ago
  Debian has been amazing for my fleet of geriatric ThinkPads… my T60 and X200 are my favorites to use.
- Dansvidania 2y ago
  This is so true. I had wondered if it was just me somehow messing my various manjaro/arch machines. Coming back to a hobby laptop and finding it unable to function because mirrors have been updated or whatever was a really painful thing to find out after a few months away.
- damion6 2y ago
  Debian has also been a nice alternative. Lots of open options and compatible in most ways.
- sshine 2y ago
  NixOS suffers a little from rapid upstream changes like Arch. You can pin nixpkgs and bump when you feel like it (or when a version of something isn’t recent enough), which is great. However, bumping every three months always renders my configuration broken because of some expression being deprecated. One time it was how pulseaudio got enabled. Last it was how nerdfonts were organised. I like how nixpkgs gets better. I don’t like thinking “I guess I’m not upgrading packages tonight, I’ll just roll back.”
wooque 2y ago
I migrated from Arch to Debian. It just works. It's stable, I don't need to worry about breaking updates and changes anymore. I'm at peace for at least 2 years. And all the software I care about have their own deb repos or are self updating (Firefox, Chrome, VS Code, Cursor, Signal, Slack, etc), so I always have up-to-date versions. There is flatpak as well but I really didn't have any need for it for now. It's the best combo, stable unchanging base and up-to-date apps.
dralley 2y ago
Fedora repos aren't that much smaller anymore. The difference used to be bigger.
ta1243 2y ago
I moved from debian to ubuntu because stable was too slow and testing was too unstable. Been on ubuntu on my laptop for 15 years, just seems like a hassle to move now, despite the straws (snaps etc)
sznio 2y ago
>The smaller repo is what keeps me off Fedora. Huh. I didn't notice that in my personal experience. And with Fedora I at least get recent versions of software.

Beijinger 2y ago

I can't live without apt-get. I use Bodhi Linux but, besides the Desktop, this is bascially Ubuntu.

germandiago 2y ago
When you bith say apt-get you also mean apt without "get" or there are major differences?
- cess11 2y ago
  I think they mean the repos. I wouldn't be surprised if apt-get is usually an alias for apt, but I don't know, I just type in apt and what I want to do. On a server we use nala instead, it's quite nice actually, so maybe I'll start using it elsewhere too.
- hackyhacky 2y ago
  Speaking for myself: both apt and apt-get are different frontends to the same package management system and repository, which is shared by Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, and other Debian-based distros. I like the package management system; which frontend one uses (apt, apt-get, aptitude, nala, etc) is of secondary importance, as they differ only in user interface and aesthetics.
  - kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
    They are frontends to dpkg but with their own special behaviors layered on top that aren't identical.
  - summermusic 2y ago
    Linux Mint recently poured a lot of effort into modernizing and streamlining APT dependencies on their distro and it's great work[0] [0] https://developer.linuxmint.com/rel_xia_whatsnew.php https://developer.linuxmint.com/rel_xia_whatsnew.php
- mplewis9z 2y ago
  `apt` (the program) is a relatively recent addition to the APT (Advanced Package Tool) ecosystem - until not that long ago, `apt-get` was the way to install packages, and `apt` is now a "cleaner" way of interacting with APT.
- stonemetal12 2y ago
  The sells pitch for apt is "Apt is a newer, more user-friendly version of apt-get." Apt has been around for 10 years at this point, so if they haven't switched they probably aren't going to. The primary difference between apt and apt-get is apt has better dependency resolution and apt cleans up after itself when you do upgrades (it uninstalls packages that are no longer used).
  - Delk 2y ago
    The apt command also merges functionality from apt-get and apt-cache. With apt you don't have to use two separate tools to search for packages to install them. That's probably at least a moderate usability improvement for many people since you don't have to figure out whether you need to use apt-get or apt-cache for some particular command.
bombcar 2y ago
Is it specifically apt-get that you can't live without, or the concept of a package repository in general? I'm more and more disappointed that packages are snaps and not directly installed via apt, myself.
- Beijinger 2y ago
  I never really liked the RPM system.

lucasoshiro 2y ago

> I like that Debian still uses apt-get Does that really make a difference? From a user perspective it's only replacing apt-get install by dnf install or pacman -S or apk add

hackyhacky 2y ago
It's not just the command that one types. DEB packages are more widely available than RPM. The Debian repositories are larger. And for all its flaws, I find dependency resolution is done better on apt than the alternatives.
- lucasoshiro 2y ago
  > DEB packages are more widely available than RPM. The Debian repositories are larger. This is up to the repository. If Debian choose RPM it would be as large as it already is
  - timbit42 2y ago
    But it didn't and it isn't. Debian created DEB three years before RPM was created. Starting out, RPM didn't even support dependencies. I got into Linux before RPM so Debian was the obvious choice. I never understood why RPM was created.
  - ta1243 2y ago
    The reason I chose debian in the first place was because of the superiority of apt-get and debian/rules over getting random things from rpmfind.net I thought redhat distros later introduced yum as the "apt" equivalent?
- kennysoona 2y ago
  > I find dependency resolution is done better on apt than the alternatives. Everyone says this about their favorite package manager.
  - alexey-salmin 2y ago

Sander_Marechal 2y ago

A long time ago there were good reasons for Ubuntu to exist. Debian releases were very slow, sometimes years apart, and focus was on servers. But slowly Debian has incorporated all the things that make Ubuntu better than Debian. It also has a much faster release cycle. There hasn't been a good reason to use Ubuntu over Debian for years.

pseudalopex 2y ago
Debian releases are 2 years apart roughly. The same as Ubuntu LTS. Many Ubuntu 3rd party repos have no Debian equivalent. But there are more Debian repos than before.

quercusa 2y ago

What's the migration path? Clean install?

shasts 2y ago

If you configure apt sources to use testing or unstable upstream of Debian you can get latest kernel. This way, you can also have a rolling distro. https://wiki.debian.org/DebianTesting https://wiki.debian.org/DebianTesting

slow_typist 2y ago
Been on testing for years without problems. Super reasonable choice for a personal machine if you need recent software versions. Always use a separate partition for /home, have backups in place and your golden.
- shasts 2y ago
  Current work machine. Running fine for 4.5 years. $ stat / | grep "Birth" | sed 's/Birth: //g' | cut -b 2-11 2020-06-20 $ cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.sources # Modernized from /etc/apt/sources.list Types: deb deb-src URIs: http://deb.debian.org/debian/ Suites: unstable Components: main non-free contrib Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg # Modernized from /etc/apt/sources.list Types: deb URIs: http://deb.debian.org/debian/ Suites: testing Components: main non-free non-free-firmware contrib Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg You may also want `apt-listbugs` package to see the serious bugs before running upgrade.
  - kennysoona 2y ago
    Wouldn't running uptime be quicker than your stat command pipeline?
    - shasts 2y ago
      stat command gets the detail of when the OS was installed on the machine. uptime doesn't give that. I wanted to say that I have been using the same development machine at work for 4.5 years. "running" was not the right word for it, obviously.

voidUpdate 2y ago

I've used ubuntu on and off for a while now, and I've been debating switching over my main computer from windows to ubuntu. Would you recommend Debian instead? Are there any downsides/incompatibilities I should be aware of before doing so? I've used Raspbian a reasonable amount, but mainly for normal raspberry pi things instead of as a desktop system so I've don't really have much hands-on experience with it

Wickedflickr 2y ago
If you opt for Debian, try out Linux Mint's Debian edition, it's the smoothest option for desktop use.
- zcar 2y ago
  Mint is great, served me well for many years. Never had an issue. With Debian I would mess things up if I messed with something I should not be touching. There are faster options but it requires more maintenance. Mint gets out of your way and just works.
  - kennysoona 2y ago
    You would probably have issues in mint if you messed with things you should not be touching also. Seems wrong to hold that against Debian.
    - zcar 2y ago
      That's the thing about mint. You don't have to mess with it because it works. Updating, installing, deleting, changing settings, no problems. That's is my experience with mint. Cannot say the same about any other distro.
      - kennysoona 2y ago
        You don't have to mess with Debian either. By your own admission you were messing with things you shouldn't have been.

kevin_thibedeau 2y ago

It's fairly easy to compile an updated kernel. The Linux build scripts directly support generating a .deb package that plays nice with apt.

t312227 2y ago

imho. (!) if the issue with the current stable version of debian are certain packages - like the kernel -, try debian backports * https://backports.debian.org/ https://backports.debian.org/ they have a list of available packages at * https://packages.debian.org/bookworm-backports/ https://packages.debian.org/bookworm-backports/ ps. yes, using testing is another possibility, but for serious systems i personally prefer the "stable" release :)) just my 0.02€

sevensor 2y ago

Although I love Arch and use it on my main laptop, if you’re like me and you have a closet full of geriatric thinkpads, Debian is great. The one thing Arch / pacman struggles with is long intervals between updates, so if I boot a machine every three months, I’d rather have an OS in a state that was planned to persist for years.

latentcall 2y ago
Debian has been amazing for my fleet of geriatric ThinkPads… my T60 and X200 are my favorites to use.
Dansvidania 2y ago
This is so true. I had wondered if it was just me somehow messing my various manjaro/arch machines. Coming back to a hobby laptop and finding it unable to function because mirrors have been updated or whatever was a really painful thing to find out after a few months away.
damion6 2y ago
Debian has also been a nice alternative. Lots of open options and compatible in most ways.
sshine 2y ago
NixOS suffers a little from rapid upstream changes like Arch. You can pin nixpkgs and bump when you feel like it (or when a version of something isn’t recent enough), which is great. However, bumping every three months always renders my configuration broken because of some expression being deprecated. One time it was how pulseaudio got enabled. Last it was how nerdfonts were organised. I like how nixpkgs gets better. I don’t like thinking “I guess I’m not upgrading packages tonight, I’ll just roll back.”

wooque 2y ago

I migrated from Arch to Debian. It just works. It's stable, I don't need to worry about breaking updates and changes anymore. I'm at peace for at least 2 years. And all the software I care about have their own deb repos or are self updating (Firefox, Chrome, VS Code, Cursor, Signal, Slack, etc), so I always have up-to-date versions. There is flatpak as well but I really didn't have any need for it for now. It's the best combo, stable unchanging base and up-to-date apps.

dralley 2y ago

Fedora repos aren't that much smaller anymore. The difference used to be bigger.

ta1243 2y ago

I moved from debian to ubuntu because stable was too slow and testing was too unstable. Been on ubuntu on my laptop for 15 years, just seems like a hassle to move now, despite the straws (snaps etc)

sznio 2y ago

>The smaller repo is what keeps me off Fedora. Huh. I didn't notice that in my personal experience. And with Fedora I at least get recent versions of software.