7 ms·

Lucky 13: a look at Debian trixie

235 points by signa11 1y ago

trabant00 1y ago
I was hoping for a review from a server perspective. That's where Debian shines in my opinion. I feel like the desktop part is a secondary priority for them. That's not a criticism, there's no other distribution I would use in production if it where my choice. On the desktop though they are a bit too stable. Even if one uses testing or unstable the focus on long term versions is still there.
- goku12 1y ago
  > On the desktop though they are a bit too stable. You're obviously correct here. But perhaps there are users who prefer stable packages on the desktop too. Corporate users most likely (yes, there are such users too). It helps with their security strategy and a development environment similar to their server. To be very honest, I think the stable security-oriented approach is better than that of a rapid update distro. You should probably use an overlay package manager like flatpak, mise (for dev tools) or even Nix/Guix for anything modern. Preferably something with minimal installs and good sandboxing features. Please let us know if anybody has better suggestions to offer.
  - scorpioxy 1y ago
    In my experience, corporate users have moved on to using containers(or VMs) for their development environments. It's a tricky thing to solve. One the one hand, you don't want your system to stop working due to an update but also want to keep the software you use updated, both in terms of security and functionality. Mark Shuttleworth talked about this many years ago before snaps were introduced as a solution to this. The idea at the time was that a rolling release distro is too much of a hassle to maintain and even the 6-month cycle was getting to be too much. So he talked about having a stable core with a long release cycle and rolling releases for software that need to be frequently updated, both desktop and server software. The idea was great but the details of the execution left a bitter taste for many users.
    - skydhash 1y ago
      Atomic distribution can be a nice solution for that. But the current portal ecosystem is a bit poor for integration between flatpack.
  - scbrg 1y ago
    I'm such a user. Been mostly running on debian/stable since the 90-ies. At work and privately. I cheated when I got a new computer in the beginning of August this year and installed Trixie a couple of weeks before release. My reasoning is quite simple: I really don't need the latest versions of everything. Were computers useful two years ago? Yeah? OK then, then a computer is obviously useful today with software that is two years old. I'll get the new software eventually, with most of the kinks ironed out. And I've had time to read up on the changes before they just hit me in the face. Sure, it was a bit painful with hardware support some twenty years ago or so, but I can barely remember the last time that was an issue. For the very few select pieces of software where stable doesn't quite cut it there's backports, fasttrack and other side channels.
  - pmontra 1y ago
    I'm one of those users, but only because I don't need the be on the bleeding edge. The only problem I had on Debian 11 desktop was related to the new openssh libraries. I could not install the latest nodes and rubies because 11 had older libraries. However there are workarounds related to providing some environment variables (from memory: some legacy_providers_*) so after a little googling I made them work on my dev machine (and on some old server from a customer of mine.) I'm installing Debian 13 in these days so no more workarounds, for a few years. Everything else worked fine. I don't install much on this machine: no flatpacks, no appimages, no snaps (I left Ubuntu because of them.) Only debs and docker images. I install languages through their language manager, never through the OS: I could have only one version of them, which is useless. Same about databases. There are hardly two projects on the same language and db version. I could be using LibreOffice and GIMP from 20 years ago: they already had all the features I need.
    - skydhash 1y ago
      I use incus for my dev needs. But for work computers, I’ve mostly needed one version of everything.
  - hnarn 1y ago
    > On the desktop though they are a bit too stable. >> You're obviously correct here. It's neither obvious nor correct, the "stability vs. features" expected is completely subjective. I run Debian Stable on my desktop because I've almost never encountered needing newer versions of anything, and when I did I could usually jump to testing (i.e. the upcoming release) rather than unstable, and even then the next release usually wasn't that far away, so it was still very stable. As other commenters have pointed out, you can run Debian Sid (unstable), but I'll also agree that if that is what you want long-term then maybe running something like Arch makes more sense anyway.
  - extraisland 1y ago
    I use Debian Stable on my laptop and workstation. Most packages you don't need newer versions. I don't need the latest version of Gnome or Gedit or whatever. I don't understand why people like the rigmarole of constantly updating their systems. The only things that come down the wire are security updates. Installer newer software can be managed. I use the following strategy: - For Discord / Slack / <something that needs to be the newest>. I can normally use Flatpak. - Use a third party repo. For Brave, Node and some other things. I use their repository. - Open source stuff. For smaller stuff that is easy to compile from source e.g. vim / neo-vim I just compile from source so I have the newest versions. - Python Apps / NPM tooling. I install them in my local user directory. - Docker is installed in rootless mode.
  - eadmund 1y ago
    I prefer stable packages on my desktop and laptop, both for professional and for personal use. I hate the current Javascript/Python/Rust bleeding-edge, left-pad, if you haven updated to yesterday’s latest version which breaks compatibility with everything culture. I like to build things which last. I like to craft a software system and then use it for decades, moving it from machine to machine and intentionally upgrading the components at my pace.
    - skydhash 1y ago
      Same opinion. I tried Fedora and I really liked it. But the constant cache updating frustrated me quickly. I just want something that worked that I can update without doing more than running the command.
- fh973 1y ago
  Indeed, with the tmpfs move (tmp in RAM) however it sounds like they have more Desktops in mind. You don't want to use RAM for tmp files for which you probably can't do capacity planning, and you don't to enable swap on server either.
  - Dunedan 1y ago
    I honestly don't understand that change, as most desktops are RAM limited as well, especially as Debian is regularly used for older machines, which aren't supported by Windows 11 anymore.
    - Mashimo 1y ago
      Is it common for scripts to download multiple gigabytes to /tmp? I sometimes manually changed the /tmp to be in memory, or used /dev/shm which by default is in memory. Did not run into any problems just yet, but then again it's just a home server.
      - Dunedan 1y ago
        Not sure about scripts, but I download and store everything I know I'll only need until the next reboot in /tmp and naturally that tends to be quite a lot from time to time. That worked fine for decades, so I'm not sure what's the benefit if storing the contents of /tmp in memory instead.
        Mashimo 1y ago
        Now you can use /var/tmp I think.
- jillesvangurp 1y ago
  Long term usually equates to a bit stale/out of date with distributions that only release every few years. Appropriate for stuff you don't really care about. That's why I use rolling release distributions on my Desktop. For Debian, people recommend Debian testing usually. And that's fine. Maybe they should just call it Debian rolling releases and rename stable to Debian LTS. I think it's more appropriate to how people actually use these things. Manjaro is not without issues but I've had it on one of my laptops for the last four years and it's nice to have the latest driver updates, kernels, etc. working together. It also helps that the community is just focused on current versions of stuff and fixing minor integrations with released packages rather than working around issues in some long forgotten release with distribution specific patches, etc. You find relatively little of that in Arch (which underlies Manjaro). For production servers, the server just needs to boot my docker containers and get out of the way. IMHO There's no need to support > 10K packages for god knows what there. Most of that stuff probably has no business being installed on a server. I'm actually leaning towards immutable distributions and servers for that reason. The business of manually fiddling with servers in a production environment is something I'm trying to avoid/do less off. They shouldn't need a package manager if they are properly immutable.
scorpioxy 1y ago
Installed trixie a few days ago and test driving it and it's been going very well. Coming from Ubuntu so it wasn't a big change but initially I went with Ubuntu many years ago due to its reputation in making Debian a more user-friendly distribution. I can say that my experience with trixie was quite friendly. This may have been the case for a few releases but I was invested in the Ubuntu platform so didn't see the need to switch. Was bummed to see firefox at version 128 as I've been missing features from the more recent versions. I don't know how I'm going to address that yet as I prefer not to add external apt sources, if I can. This is on a desktop system so somewhat recent versions of software is desirable. What do other people do for desktop systems? Go with testing/unstable or just another distro for desktops?
- cricalix 1y ago
  I've been happy with Fedora for my personal systems, and it's the only blessed distro at work for those who don't want Windows or Mac. Heck, I use Fedora Server as my homelab OS to run Incus. Works For Me.
  - scorpioxy 1y ago
    Nothing against Fedora and the rpm-based platforms but I prefer the debian-derived distros. My preference is due to Debian feeling like a community project rather than being driven by corporate interests. Ubuntu was doing for a while but that started changing a few years ago.
  - hnarn 1y ago
    > Heck, I use Fedora Server as my homelab OS to run Incus. Works For Me. In your case I guess it makes sense since you have to run Fedora at work, but I was under the impression that the support for Incus (i.e. official packaging etc) was better on Debian.
    - cricalix 1y ago
      It might be better on Debian, but it's absolutely fine on Fedora too - in that I've hit zero snags. Maybe there are problems somewhere, but I've not encountered them yet (with a mix of all three supported ways to run things).
DyslexicAtheist 1y ago
> Truly adventurous users may take their chances with the unstable ("sid") release. been running "unstable" since 2007 as my daily driver, work-horse, dev-machine, ... Not once faced a "problem" I couldn't recover from. Not once a restore from backup of the main OS due to something the upgrade or OS had caused, no booting from a rescue-image. For something that comes without warranty and has "unstable" in it's name, it's pretty solid. Apples and oranges of course, but it holds up also well compared to Windows (which tbf, has gotten more stable since Win98), or even compared to MacOS that also crashes at times even after version MacOS 9.x (which was when MacOS became usable in the sense of "stability").
- 12345ieee 1y ago
  Yeah, the distro for "Truly adventurous users" has never broken in a decade of use by myself and is essentially as bleeding edge as Arch. It's just old ideas that get repeated even once they stop being true.
  - hnarn 1y ago
    Just to be devil's advocate here, and pedantically point out that Debian Sid is not a "distro", I don't think it's correct to say that Debian unstable is "actually stable", because it's "unstable" from the perspective of Debian, not from a subjective, individual experience. Debian release cycles have a strong focus on stability, and for those situations where it matters, like running a production server, that is a pretty important feature. Just because your desktop never broke doesn't mean it's not "unstable", it's more of a disclaimer that if you put serious things on top of it and it breaks, that's much more on you because you chose to go against maintainer advice. For me personally, with exception of the Enterprise Linux family (Alma, Rocky etc.), there's no Linux distribution I'd rather run on a workhorse, production, long term deployment server than Debian.
- Nursie 1y ago
  Never been a Sid user (occasionally for specific packages) but I do find articles like these amusing - for me the transition from testing to stable is usually where I say goodbye to a Debian release. So farewell Trixie! Onto forky I go. I’ve had a few instances of X not starting, over the years. Nothing terrible, and that’s as much down to me using nvidia cards as anything.
ggm 1y ago
Does it have BBR3? Serious q. Have tried home-brew kernels for bookworm but want factory paint on the car.
- hnarn 1y ago
  As far as I know, BBR3 is not in the mainline Linux kernel, so obviously it will not be in Debian by default. From https://groups.google.com/g/bbr-dev/c/i-sZpfwPx-I/m/0jmNry0AAgAJ https://groups.google.com/g/bbr-dev/c/i-sZpfwPx-I/m/0jmNry0A... : > To make sure we're all on the same page: currently the TCP BBR code in Linux is BBRv1. We are working on getting BBRv3 upstream into Linux TCP. > BBRv1 is definitely not ready to be the default on any Linux distribution. Whether BBRv3 is ready to be a distribution default is arguable.
  - ggm 1y ago
    Wish it was a klm. The FreeBSD model is (in that regard) easier to work with, from the Netflix stuff. I'm running somebody's rebase tracking things. 6.13 I believe. Worked on one box, not on another. Oh well. Doubly irritating is that the sysctl only flags bbr not which version.
Unirely01 1y ago
[dead]
jychang 1y ago
The biggest problem with Debian 13 is not with Debian, it's with people like Google and Cloudflare. Come on guys, Debian 13 has been in testing for months, and you can't be arsed to update your apt repos from bookworm to trixie by release, or even weeks after release? That's embarrassing. ~ sudo apt update --audit [...] Hit:8 https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt google-compute-engine-bookworm-stable InRelease Hit:10 https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt cloud-sdk-bookworm InRelease Hit:11 https://pkg.cloudflareclient.com bookworm InRelease Hit:12 https://pkg.cloudflare.com/cloudflared bookworm InRelease [...] Fetched 407 kB in 2s (222 kB/s) 2 packages can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see them. Warning: https://pkg.cloudflare.com/cloudflared/dists/any/InRelease: Policy will reject signature within a year, see --audit for details Audit: https://pkg.cloudflare.com/cloudflared/dists/any/InRelease: Sub-process /usr/bin/sqv returned an error code (1), error message is: Signing key on FBA8C0EE63617C5EED695C43254B391D8CACCBF8 is not bound: No binding signature at time 2025-08-21T15:58:52Z because: Policy rejected non-revocation signature (PositiveCertification) requiring second pre-image resistance because: SHA1 is not considered secure since 2026-02-01T00:00:00Z These apt repos are still bookworm-only after the trixie release, and it's been weeks. And Cloudflare is still stuck on SHA1.
- iotku 1y ago
  The Nvidia CUDA repos are still on Debian 12 as well which was a blocker for me. (Some claim it works fine anyways, but not in my experience.) It's not like the Debian release schedule is a secret, I suspect there's just less corporate pressure to prioritize Debian.
  - brnt 1y ago
    NVidia bookworm repo worked fine on all my machines. What did not work for you? I deduced there wasn't really anything Debian-12 specific in there (it's still a Linux kernel with SystemD).
    - iotku 1y ago
      Just never managed to load the Nvidia module properly and fell back to the open drivers which don't work on my system. Didn't really feel like investigating further because the whole point of using Debian was going to be to setup and forget about it.
ThisNameIsTaken 1y ago
While being an avid Debian user on both server and desktop, I had never heard of the Extrepo[0] package mentioned in the article. It would be great if the repositories included in there would suggest this way of adding their repo. While it cannot guarantee the safety of added packages, it at least add an extra layer of checks. Another useful thing from the article for me was `apt modernize-sources` to update the existing sources.list to the new structure. Now I need to check if scripts like this run automatically on my auto-updating desktop from my parents. [0]: https://packages.debian.org/trixie/extrepo https://packages.debian.org/trixie/extrepo
- frumiousirc 1y ago
  > apt modernize-sources What I lack with the "modern" `sources.list.d/` file schema is a command to perform common types of edits. Something like `extrepo` but generic and with knowledge of Debian repos/dists. It's a small thing but I want to be able to type commands like apt-sources available # prints known dists, marked by their support status apt-sources list # prints all active dists apt-sources add trixie # or "testing", "unstable", "sid" apt-sources remove bookworm apt-sources dist-upgrade # combo of the previous two Perhaps `extrepo` would be extended to include Debian-proper or this hypothetical `apt-sources` would be kept Debian-repo-only or perhaps it would cover extrepo's scope.
  - wutwutwat 1y ago
    Feed your comment into a AI agent prompt and you’ll get back a bash script that does what you need.
    - frumiousirc 1y ago
      Right. I'm still adjusting to the new "make it so" paradigm. Gemini gives a decent first draft for this `apt-sources` script.
h43z 1y ago
Can someone explain why we are still using a umask of 022 in ubuntu and debian? Would it really be so hard to make that switch to a more privacy focused umask?
- JdeBP 1y ago
  Because in June 2005 the simple response to the Debian bug filed in September 2004 was to comment the global setting out of /etc/login.defs rather than change it to 0027. And after some back and forth there's now the explanation in /etc/login.defs that you can read today (q.v.). * https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=269583 https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=269583
  - h43z 1y ago
    Doesn't feel like much of an explanation to me. # UMASK is the default umask value for pam_umask and is used by # useradd and newusers to set the mode of the new home directories. # 022 is the "historical" value in Debian for UMASK # 027, or even 077, could be considered better for privacy # There is no One True Answer here : each sysadmin must make up his/her # mind.
    - IshKebab 1y ago
      Ah the classic "There is no One True Answer so it's ok to default to a bad answer".
    - 0x0dd 1y ago
      That comment was in Bullseye. In Trixie's /etc/login.defs the comment is gone. With Trixie, PAM's "User Private Groups" are by default enabled and default umask thus is 002 instead of 022. (Personally, I'm irritated by the rather silent way this invasive change got introduced -- it is mentioned in /usr/share/doc/libpam-modules/NEWS.Debian.gz together with instructions to restore the old behavior.)
  - eurg 1y ago
    And also, some tools still break when using the non-default umask. Yes, yes, we all run Postgres in containers, but if you don't, and you upgrade to a new Postgres major version, gladly using the Debian scripts that make it all more comfortable, while using umask 027, you will enjoy your day. Though I don't remember if those upgrade-scripts where from Debian proper or from Postgres. Since that experience I always wondered what other tools may have such bugs lurking around.
pja 1y ago
No mention of backports in this article as an alternative to tracking testing if you want (some) newer packages. The Libreoffice 5.8 (which was just released very recently) is already packaged in backports for trixie for instance. Did things like updated KDE desktops make it to backports for bookworm?
- genpfault 1y ago
  > Did things like updated KDE desktops make it to backports for bookworm? If only :( https://packages.debian.org/bookworm-backports/kde/ https://packages.debian.org/bookworm-backports/kde/
olavgg 1y ago
I love Debian, but it does have some weaknesses. For example with virtualization, when you enable SR-IOV, apparmor goes bananas. With AlmaLinux + SELinux there are no problems. I use both Debian and AlmaLinux on my servers, and with that combo I feel I get the best of the best. But I think AlmaLinux is more polished and that SELinux is superior to apparmor.
- mixmastamyk 1y ago
  Anyone happen to have a good primer on these? Have been around a decade or two but I know almost nothing about them.
theandrewbailey 1y ago
> Even better, there is a little-advertised utility called extrepo that has a curated list of external repositories users might want to enable for Debian. To enable the Mozilla repository, for example, a user only needs to install extrepo, run "extrepo enable mozilla" as root (or with sudo), update the package cache, and look for the regular Firefox package. In all, extrepo includes more than 160 external repositories for applications like Docker CE, Signal, and Syncthing. Unfortunately, the extrepo utility does not have a separate "list" command to show the available repositories, though running "extrepo search" with no search parameter will return all of its DEB822-formatted repository entries. TIL. What a superpower!
- hk1337 1y ago
  Does it enable access to software-properties-common?
- animesh 1y ago
  I learned about extrepo when trying out LibreWolf. Then I realized theres plenty of stuff on extrepo I could install. No more curl installs or third-party package sources for me mostly. This repo has a list of extrepo stuff - https://salsa.debian.org/extrepo-team/extrepo-data/-/tree/master/repos/debian https://salsa.debian.org/extrepo-team/extrepo-data/-/tree/ma...
- geokon 1y ago
  what's the difference with PPAs? the main reason i always fall back to Ubuntu is bc everyone has a PPA for it. Sometimes the PPA also works for Debian, but its 50/50 (from what i understand its not an official thing under Debian?) AppImages have aleviated this.. but appimagelauncher is broken under Ubuntu and theyre annoying to integrate manually
  - jjice 1y ago
    I've only used AppImages for software I didn't care about every being updated - can they do updates without having to manually redownload the AppImage?
sorrythanks 1y ago
It's so cool that there's now a major Linux distro that has RISC-V as a target on their stable release.
_JamesA_ 1y ago
Trixie has been great except for the proprietary nvidia driver. The upgraded 550 driver has known problems with 4k @ 120hz that causes crazy flickering [1]. I tried the 580 bundle with the same problem. I had to revert to the 535 bundle. [1]: https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/nvidia-555-58-4k-120hz-causes-flickering-artifacting-on-x-and-wayland-with-arch/298187 https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/nvidia-555-58-4k-120hz...
smjburton 1y ago
I've been running trixie for a few weeks now and it's been solid, great release so far. One of the features I'm most excited about is access to Podman 5.4.2, and the ability to use Podman Quadlets. It'll be nice to start transitioning my systemd service units over to the new format for my containers.
AceJohnny2 1y ago
Offtopic: > Truly adventurous users may take their chances with the unstable ("sid") release. It's been years since I've run Linux as a daily driver, but when I did it was Sid, and it didn't feel particularly adventurous. Over a 10-15 years timespan, I think there were 2 breakages, one of them being the difficult KDE 3.x transition. I've long meant to try Fedora, but apt/dpkg is in my muscle memory, and I never got the handle of dnf/rpm.

235 points by signa11 1y ago

I was hoping for a review from a server perspective. That's where Debian shines in my opinion. I feel like the desktop part is a secondary priority for them. That's not a criticism, there's no other distribution I would use in production if it where my choice. On the desktop though they are a bit too stable. Even if one uses testing or unstable the focus on long term versions is still there.

goku12 1y ago
> On the desktop though they are a bit too stable. You're obviously correct here. But perhaps there are users who prefer stable packages on the desktop too. Corporate users most likely (yes, there are such users too). It helps with their security strategy and a development environment similar to their server. To be very honest, I think the stable security-oriented approach is better than that of a rapid update distro. You should probably use an overlay package manager like flatpak, mise (for dev tools) or even Nix/Guix for anything modern. Preferably something with minimal installs and good sandboxing features. Please let us know if anybody has better suggestions to offer.
- scorpioxy 1y ago
  In my experience, corporate users have moved on to using containers(or VMs) for their development environments. It's a tricky thing to solve. One the one hand, you don't want your system to stop working due to an update but also want to keep the software you use updated, both in terms of security and functionality. Mark Shuttleworth talked about this many years ago before snaps were introduced as a solution to this. The idea at the time was that a rolling release distro is too much of a hassle to maintain and even the 6-month cycle was getting to be too much. So he talked about having a stable core with a long release cycle and rolling releases for software that need to be frequently updated, both desktop and server software. The idea was great but the details of the execution left a bitter taste for many users.
  - skydhash 1y ago
    Atomic distribution can be a nice solution for that. But the current portal ecosystem is a bit poor for integration between flatpack.
- scbrg 1y ago
  I'm such a user. Been mostly running on debian/stable since the 90-ies. At work and privately. I cheated when I got a new computer in the beginning of August this year and installed Trixie a couple of weeks before release. My reasoning is quite simple: I really don't need the latest versions of everything. Were computers useful two years ago? Yeah? OK then, then a computer is obviously useful today with software that is two years old. I'll get the new software eventually, with most of the kinks ironed out. And I've had time to read up on the changes before they just hit me in the face. Sure, it was a bit painful with hardware support some twenty years ago or so, but I can barely remember the last time that was an issue. For the very few select pieces of software where stable doesn't quite cut it there's backports, fasttrack and other side channels.
- pmontra 1y ago
  I'm one of those users, but only because I don't need the be on the bleeding edge. The only problem I had on Debian 11 desktop was related to the new openssh libraries. I could not install the latest nodes and rubies because 11 had older libraries. However there are workarounds related to providing some environment variables (from memory: some legacy_providers_*) so after a little googling I made them work on my dev machine (and on some old server from a customer of mine.) I'm installing Debian 13 in these days so no more workarounds, for a few years. Everything else worked fine. I don't install much on this machine: no flatpacks, no appimages, no snaps (I left Ubuntu because of them.) Only debs and docker images. I install languages through their language manager, never through the OS: I could have only one version of them, which is useless. Same about databases. There are hardly two projects on the same language and db version. I could be using LibreOffice and GIMP from 20 years ago: they already had all the features I need.
  - skydhash 1y ago
    I use incus for my dev needs. But for work computers, I’ve mostly needed one version of everything.
- hnarn 1y ago
  > On the desktop though they are a bit too stable. >> You're obviously correct here. It's neither obvious nor correct, the "stability vs. features" expected is completely subjective. I run Debian Stable on my desktop because I've almost never encountered needing newer versions of anything, and when I did I could usually jump to testing (i.e. the upcoming release) rather than unstable, and even then the next release usually wasn't that far away, so it was still very stable. As other commenters have pointed out, you can run Debian Sid (unstable), but I'll also agree that if that is what you want long-term then maybe running something like Arch makes more sense anyway.
- extraisland 1y ago
  I use Debian Stable on my laptop and workstation. Most packages you don't need newer versions. I don't need the latest version of Gnome or Gedit or whatever. I don't understand why people like the rigmarole of constantly updating their systems. The only things that come down the wire are security updates. Installer newer software can be managed. I use the following strategy: - For Discord / Slack / <something that needs to be the newest>. I can normally use Flatpak. - Use a third party repo. For Brave, Node and some other things. I use their repository. - Open source stuff. For smaller stuff that is easy to compile from source e.g. vim / neo-vim I just compile from source so I have the newest versions. - Python Apps / NPM tooling. I install them in my local user directory. - Docker is installed in rootless mode.
- eadmund 1y ago
  I prefer stable packages on my desktop and laptop, both for professional and for personal use. I hate the current Javascript/Python/Rust bleeding-edge, left-pad, if you haven updated to yesterday’s latest version which breaks compatibility with everything culture. I like to build things which last. I like to craft a software system and then use it for decades, moving it from machine to machine and intentionally upgrading the components at my pace.
  - skydhash 1y ago
    Same opinion. I tried Fedora and I really liked it. But the constant cache updating frustrated me quickly. I just want something that worked that I can update without doing more than running the command.
fh973 1y ago
Indeed, with the tmpfs move (tmp in RAM) however it sounds like they have more Desktops in mind. You don't want to use RAM for tmp files for which you probably can't do capacity planning, and you don't to enable swap on server either.
- Dunedan 1y ago
  I honestly don't understand that change, as most desktops are RAM limited as well, especially as Debian is regularly used for older machines, which aren't supported by Windows 11 anymore.
  - Mashimo 1y ago
    Is it common for scripts to download multiple gigabytes to /tmp? I sometimes manually changed the /tmp to be in memory, or used /dev/shm which by default is in memory. Did not run into any problems just yet, but then again it's just a home server.
    - Dunedan 1y ago
      Not sure about scripts, but I download and store everything I know I'll only need until the next reboot in /tmp and naturally that tends to be quite a lot from time to time. That worked fine for decades, so I'm not sure what's the benefit if storing the contents of /tmp in memory instead.
      - Mashimo 1y ago
        Now you can use /var/tmp I think.
jillesvangurp 1y ago
Long term usually equates to a bit stale/out of date with distributions that only release every few years. Appropriate for stuff you don't really care about. That's why I use rolling release distributions on my Desktop. For Debian, people recommend Debian testing usually. And that's fine. Maybe they should just call it Debian rolling releases and rename stable to Debian LTS. I think it's more appropriate to how people actually use these things. Manjaro is not without issues but I've had it on one of my laptops for the last four years and it's nice to have the latest driver updates, kernels, etc. working together. It also helps that the community is just focused on current versions of stuff and fixing minor integrations with released packages rather than working around issues in some long forgotten release with distribution specific patches, etc. You find relatively little of that in Arch (which underlies Manjaro). For production servers, the server just needs to boot my docker containers and get out of the way. IMHO There's no need to support > 10K packages for god knows what there. Most of that stuff probably has no business being installed on a server. I'm actually leaning towards immutable distributions and servers for that reason. The business of manually fiddling with servers in a production environment is something I'm trying to avoid/do less off. They shouldn't need a package manager if they are properly immutable.

scorpioxy 1y ago

Installed trixie a few days ago and test driving it and it's been going very well. Coming from Ubuntu so it wasn't a big change but initially I went with Ubuntu many years ago due to its reputation in making Debian a more user-friendly distribution. I can say that my experience with trixie was quite friendly. This may have been the case for a few releases but I was invested in the Ubuntu platform so didn't see the need to switch. Was bummed to see firefox at version 128 as I've been missing features from the more recent versions. I don't know how I'm going to address that yet as I prefer not to add external apt sources, if I can. This is on a desktop system so somewhat recent versions of software is desirable. What do other people do for desktop systems? Go with testing/unstable or just another distro for desktops?

cricalix 1y ago
I've been happy with Fedora for my personal systems, and it's the only blessed distro at work for those who don't want Windows or Mac. Heck, I use Fedora Server as my homelab OS to run Incus. Works For Me.
- scorpioxy 1y ago
  Nothing against Fedora and the rpm-based platforms but I prefer the debian-derived distros. My preference is due to Debian feeling like a community project rather than being driven by corporate interests. Ubuntu was doing for a while but that started changing a few years ago.
- hnarn 1y ago
  > Heck, I use Fedora Server as my homelab OS to run Incus. Works For Me. In your case I guess it makes sense since you have to run Fedora at work, but I was under the impression that the support for Incus (i.e. official packaging etc) was better on Debian.
  - cricalix 1y ago
    It might be better on Debian, but it's absolutely fine on Fedora too - in that I've hit zero snags. Maybe there are problems somewhere, but I've not encountered them yet (with a mix of all three supported ways to run things).

DyslexicAtheist 1y ago

> Truly adventurous users may take their chances with the unstable ("sid") release. been running "unstable" since 2007 as my daily driver, work-horse, dev-machine, ... Not once faced a "problem" I couldn't recover from. Not once a restore from backup of the main OS due to something the upgrade or OS had caused, no booting from a rescue-image. For something that comes without warranty and has "unstable" in it's name, it's pretty solid. Apples and oranges of course, but it holds up also well compared to Windows (which tbf, has gotten more stable since Win98), or even compared to MacOS that also crashes at times even after version MacOS 9.x (which was when MacOS became usable in the sense of "stability").

12345ieee 1y ago
Yeah, the distro for "Truly adventurous users" has never broken in a decade of use by myself and is essentially as bleeding edge as Arch. It's just old ideas that get repeated even once they stop being true.
- hnarn 1y ago
  Just to be devil's advocate here, and pedantically point out that Debian Sid is not a "distro", I don't think it's correct to say that Debian unstable is "actually stable", because it's "unstable" from the perspective of Debian, not from a subjective, individual experience. Debian release cycles have a strong focus on stability, and for those situations where it matters, like running a production server, that is a pretty important feature. Just because your desktop never broke doesn't mean it's not "unstable", it's more of a disclaimer that if you put serious things on top of it and it breaks, that's much more on you because you chose to go against maintainer advice. For me personally, with exception of the Enterprise Linux family (Alma, Rocky etc.), there's no Linux distribution I'd rather run on a workhorse, production, long term deployment server than Debian.
Nursie 1y ago
Never been a Sid user (occasionally for specific packages) but I do find articles like these amusing - for me the transition from testing to stable is usually where I say goodbye to a Debian release. So farewell Trixie! Onto forky I go. I’ve had a few instances of X not starting, over the years. Nothing terrible, and that’s as much down to me using nvidia cards as anything.

ggm 1y ago

Does it have BBR3? Serious q. Have tried home-brew kernels for bookworm but want factory paint on the car.

hnarn 1y ago
As far as I know, BBR3 is not in the mainline Linux kernel, so obviously it will not be in Debian by default. From https://groups.google.com/g/bbr-dev/c/i-sZpfwPx-I/m/0jmNry0AAgAJ https://groups.google.com/g/bbr-dev/c/i-sZpfwPx-I/m/0jmNry0A... : > To make sure we're all on the same page: currently the TCP BBR code in Linux is BBRv1. We are working on getting BBRv3 upstream into Linux TCP. > BBRv1 is definitely not ready to be the default on any Linux distribution. Whether BBRv3 is ready to be a distribution default is arguable.
- ggm 1y ago
  Wish it was a klm. The FreeBSD model is (in that regard) easier to work with, from the Netflix stuff. I'm running somebody's rebase tracking things. 6.13 I believe. Worked on one box, not on another. Oh well. Doubly irritating is that the sysctl only flags bbr not which version.

Unirely01 1y ago

[dead]

jychang 1y ago

The biggest problem with Debian 13 is not with Debian, it's with people like Google and Cloudflare. Come on guys, Debian 13 has been in testing for months, and you can't be arsed to update your apt repos from bookworm to trixie by release, or even weeks after release? That's embarrassing. ~ sudo apt update --audit [...] Hit:8 https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt google-compute-engine-bookworm-stable InRelease Hit:10 https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt cloud-sdk-bookworm InRelease Hit:11 https://pkg.cloudflareclient.com bookworm InRelease Hit:12 https://pkg.cloudflare.com/cloudflared bookworm InRelease [...] Fetched 407 kB in 2s (222 kB/s) 2 packages can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see them. Warning: https://pkg.cloudflare.com/cloudflared/dists/any/InRelease: Policy will reject signature within a year, see --audit for details Audit: https://pkg.cloudflare.com/cloudflared/dists/any/InRelease: Sub-process /usr/bin/sqv returned an error code (1), error message is: Signing key on FBA8C0EE63617C5EED695C43254B391D8CACCBF8 is not bound: No binding signature at time 2025-08-21T15:58:52Z because: Policy rejected non-revocation signature (PositiveCertification) requiring second pre-image resistance because: SHA1 is not considered secure since 2026-02-01T00:00:00Z These apt repos are still bookworm-only after the trixie release, and it's been weeks. And Cloudflare is still stuck on SHA1.

iotku 1y ago
The Nvidia CUDA repos are still on Debian 12 as well which was a blocker for me. (Some claim it works fine anyways, but not in my experience.) It's not like the Debian release schedule is a secret, I suspect there's just less corporate pressure to prioritize Debian.
- brnt 1y ago
  NVidia bookworm repo worked fine on all my machines. What did not work for you? I deduced there wasn't really anything Debian-12 specific in there (it's still a Linux kernel with SystemD).
  - iotku 1y ago
    Just never managed to load the Nvidia module properly and fell back to the open drivers which don't work on my system. Didn't really feel like investigating further because the whole point of using Debian was going to be to setup and forget about it.

ThisNameIsTaken 1y ago

While being an avid Debian user on both server and desktop, I had never heard of the Extrepo[0] package mentioned in the article. It would be great if the repositories included in there would suggest this way of adding their repo. While it cannot guarantee the safety of added packages, it at least add an extra layer of checks. Another useful thing from the article for me was `apt modernize-sources` to update the existing sources.list to the new structure. Now I need to check if scripts like this run automatically on my auto-updating desktop from my parents. [0]: https://packages.debian.org/trixie/extrepo https://packages.debian.org/trixie/extrepo

frumiousirc 1y ago
> apt modernize-sources What I lack with the "modern" `sources.list.d/` file schema is a command to perform common types of edits. Something like `extrepo` but generic and with knowledge of Debian repos/dists. It's a small thing but I want to be able to type commands like apt-sources available # prints known dists, marked by their support status apt-sources list # prints all active dists apt-sources add trixie # or "testing", "unstable", "sid" apt-sources remove bookworm apt-sources dist-upgrade # combo of the previous two Perhaps `extrepo` would be extended to include Debian-proper or this hypothetical `apt-sources` would be kept Debian-repo-only or perhaps it would cover extrepo's scope.
- wutwutwat 1y ago
  Feed your comment into a AI agent prompt and you’ll get back a bash script that does what you need.
  - frumiousirc 1y ago
    Right. I'm still adjusting to the new "make it so" paradigm. Gemini gives a decent first draft for this `apt-sources` script.

h43z 1y ago

Can someone explain why we are still using a umask of 022 in ubuntu and debian? Would it really be so hard to make that switch to a more privacy focused umask?

JdeBP 1y ago
Because in June 2005 the simple response to the Debian bug filed in September 2004 was to comment the global setting out of /etc/login.defs rather than change it to 0027. And after some back and forth there's now the explanation in /etc/login.defs that you can read today (q.v.). * https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=269583 https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=269583
- h43z 1y ago
  Doesn't feel like much of an explanation to me. # UMASK is the default umask value for pam_umask and is used by # useradd and newusers to set the mode of the new home directories. # 022 is the "historical" value in Debian for UMASK # 027, or even 077, could be considered better for privacy # There is no One True Answer here : each sysadmin must make up his/her # mind.
  - IshKebab 1y ago
    Ah the classic "There is no One True Answer so it's ok to default to a bad answer".
  - 0x0dd 1y ago
    That comment was in Bullseye. In Trixie's /etc/login.defs the comment is gone. With Trixie, PAM's "User Private Groups" are by default enabled and default umask thus is 002 instead of 022. (Personally, I'm irritated by the rather silent way this invasive change got introduced -- it is mentioned in /usr/share/doc/libpam-modules/NEWS.Debian.gz together with instructions to restore the old behavior.)
- eurg 1y ago
  And also, some tools still break when using the non-default umask. Yes, yes, we all run Postgres in containers, but if you don't, and you upgrade to a new Postgres major version, gladly using the Debian scripts that make it all more comfortable, while using umask 027, you will enjoy your day. Though I don't remember if those upgrade-scripts where from Debian proper or from Postgres. Since that experience I always wondered what other tools may have such bugs lurking around.

pja 1y ago

No mention of backports in this article as an alternative to tracking testing if you want (some) newer packages. The Libreoffice 5.8 (which was just released very recently) is already packaged in backports for trixie for instance. Did things like updated KDE desktops make it to backports for bookworm?

genpfault 1y ago
> Did things like updated KDE desktops make it to backports for bookworm? If only :( https://packages.debian.org/bookworm-backports/kde/ https://packages.debian.org/bookworm-backports/kde/

olavgg 1y ago

I love Debian, but it does have some weaknesses. For example with virtualization, when you enable SR-IOV, apparmor goes bananas. With AlmaLinux + SELinux there are no problems. I use both Debian and AlmaLinux on my servers, and with that combo I feel I get the best of the best. But I think AlmaLinux is more polished and that SELinux is superior to apparmor.

mixmastamyk 1y ago
Anyone happen to have a good primer on these? Have been around a decade or two but I know almost nothing about them.

theandrewbailey 1y ago

> Even better, there is a little-advertised utility called extrepo that has a curated list of external repositories users might want to enable for Debian. To enable the Mozilla repository, for example, a user only needs to install extrepo, run "extrepo enable mozilla" as root (or with sudo), update the package cache, and look for the regular Firefox package. In all, extrepo includes more than 160 external repositories for applications like Docker CE, Signal, and Syncthing. Unfortunately, the extrepo utility does not have a separate "list" command to show the available repositories, though running "extrepo search" with no search parameter will return all of its DEB822-formatted repository entries. TIL. What a superpower!

hk1337 1y ago
Does it enable access to software-properties-common?
animesh 1y ago
I learned about extrepo when trying out LibreWolf. Then I realized theres plenty of stuff on extrepo I could install. No more curl installs or third-party package sources for me mostly. This repo has a list of extrepo stuff - https://salsa.debian.org/extrepo-team/extrepo-data/-/tree/master/repos/debian https://salsa.debian.org/extrepo-team/extrepo-data/-/tree/ma...
geokon 1y ago
what's the difference with PPAs? the main reason i always fall back to Ubuntu is bc everyone has a PPA for it. Sometimes the PPA also works for Debian, but its 50/50 (from what i understand its not an official thing under Debian?) AppImages have aleviated this.. but appimagelauncher is broken under Ubuntu and theyre annoying to integrate manually
- jjice 1y ago
  I've only used AppImages for software I didn't care about every being updated - can they do updates without having to manually redownload the AppImage?

sorrythanks 1y ago

It's so cool that there's now a major Linux distro that has RISC-V as a target on their stable release.

_JamesA_ 1y ago

Trixie has been great except for the proprietary nvidia driver. The upgraded 550 driver has known problems with 4k @ 120hz that causes crazy flickering [1]. I tried the 580 bundle with the same problem. I had to revert to the 535 bundle. [1]: https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/nvidia-555-58-4k-120hz-causes-flickering-artifacting-on-x-and-wayland-with-arch/298187 https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/nvidia-555-58-4k-120hz...

smjburton 1y ago

I've been running trixie for a few weeks now and it's been solid, great release so far. One of the features I'm most excited about is access to Podman 5.4.2, and the ability to use Podman Quadlets. It'll be nice to start transitioning my systemd service units over to the new format for my containers.

AceJohnny2 1y ago

Offtopic: > Truly adventurous users may take their chances with the unstable ("sid") release. It's been years since I've run Linux as a daily driver, but when I did it was Sid, and it didn't feel particularly adventurous. Over a 10-15 years timespan, I think there were 2 breakages, one of them being the difficult KDE 3.x transition. I've long meant to try Fedora, but apt/dpkg is in my muscle memory, and I never got the handle of dnf/rpm.