 Okay Fediverse, here's your time to shine. I am provisioning a new dev laptop and can pick whatever Debian-flavored Linux distro I want. I'm eyeing Mint because I had a good experience with it 10 years ago and I hate snap. Any other recommendations for interesting distros? I have been mostly-Ubuntu for a decade, in part because it was required by my workplace. 27 comments
@brennen plain-Debian was my first linux distro back in 2001, it would be an interesting trip down memory lane  @darius @brennen I agree here, I still run plain Debian on most stuff and find it a very reasonable Linux. I have been running it continuously since around 1997. It's easier than ever since they finally allowed firmware blobs on the default install media in Debian 12, so you don't have to go hunting down a special unofficial installer for the WiFi to work.  @darius there are caveats, as with anything - some stuff is pretty stale on stable (i know a lot of people run testing or unstable instead for this reason), some stuff needs to be grabbed from outside the main apt sources or installed/built from whatever lang-specific package manager - but it's really predictable, i know everything super well, and i find the slow update cycle a good way to manage the rate of change.  @darius my laptop still runs @elementary, though i haven't upgraded it in many years (no in-place upgrades). even that older version of their DE is quite pleasant and their general UX focus is commendable! @darius i've been using pop os for the last three years because I game+dev, works well outof the box.    @darius Mint's a good choice. I personally like #EndeavourOS since it has all the pros of #Arch without the convoluted setup process. The only gripe I've had with Mint is its desktop env. being buggy with lower-end graphics cards. I love EndeavourOS since I never have to add a PPA for extra packages. @darius was in a similar situation a few months ago. landed on Debian stable, no regrets at all so far.  @darius @darius I wonβt evangelize for one in particular, but itβs always worth noting (once) that I too was Debian-based until Something Happened that put me on a different distro family. I now run Debian-based systems on everything *except* my dev rigs, which can enjoy newer software than Mint offers, and much newer than Debian-stable. I thought the stability Debian offered was the main thing, but with a snapshot-based FS, the main thing is access to current releases, and Iβm a happier programmer. @darius Simply plain Debian stable with flatpak for selected applications or even some container based solutions for other stuff, e.g. apptainer or docker just in case. It is more than enough for any practical use. @darius I am using Debian since 2000. Before I had SuSE. I use Debian stable. Over years with XFCE, which also runs well on older machines.     |
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@darius in some ways i use it for reasons of being almost anti-interesting, but i always feel kind of obligated to plug the "debian stable is actually a pretty great desktop" POV, having pretty well migrated everything back to it after some years of ubuntu on laptops.