I distro hopped for a bit before finally settling in Debian (because Debian was always mentioned as a distro good for servers, or stable machines that are ok with outdated software)

And while I get that Debian does have software that isn’t as up to date, I’ve never felt that the software was that outdated. Before landing on Debian, I always ran into small hiccups that caused me issues as a new Linux user - but when I finally switched over to Debian, everything just worked! Especially now with Debian 13.

So my question is: why does Debian always get dismissed as inferior for everyday drivers, and instead mint, Ubuntu, or even Zorin get recommended? Is there something I am missing, or does it really just come down to people not wanting software that isn’t “cutting edge” release?

  • oscardejarjayes [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    32·
    2 days ago

    It’s not user-oriented the way the distros based on it are. apt is mediocre and slow compared to a lot of other distros package managers.

    The out of date software is really important for new users for one big reason, and that’s hardware compatibility. Arch Linux, especially with AUR DKMS, can work with basically anything supported by Linux. Debian will struggle with anything sorta new. Having on old kernel, like Debian does, is one of the worst things a distro can do, for performance, for compatibility, and more.

    Their software is also actually super duper out of date, too. To the point where KDE on Debian and Kubuntu is several versions out of being supported. A lot of software developers are sick of people reporting fixed issues because the user is using Debian, so they tell them to use a more up to date distro.

    • Ephera@lemmy.mlEnglish
      2·
      1 day ago

      Also has to be said that KDE on those slower-moving distros is actually buggier than on up-to-date distros. I have to use Kubuntu LTS at work and it has so many more glitches and crashes compared to openSUSE Tumbleweed and NixOS on my personal laptop.

    • oscardejarjayes [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      1·
      2 days ago

      Stuff based on Debian, like Mint or whatnot, generally also “just works” just like Debian would, while also having more up to date software with their own repositories, and more user friendly software to automatically do stuff with GUI’s.