Long live debian! Long live the king!
this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
611 points (98.9% liked)
Linux
48331 readers
400 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
Time for a discordant voice in this festival of consensus. Installing Debian is like climbing a mountain for anyone who is not an experienced Linux user. If you don't believe that, go try doing it while attempting very hard to imagine that you are a non-techie Windows user. You will not succeed.
Yes, other distros do manage this better. And yes, that is a problem, because, once up and running with the right defaults, Debian is just fine for non-techie users. Debian could quite easily be the FOSS alternative to Windows for ordinary people who care about privacy and freedom but don't have advanced technical skills. Instead they are stuck, de facto, with slightly-compromised alternatives like Ubuntu and Fedora.
So happy birthday to Debian, and congratulations. But I think we should all be more mindful of the bigger picture here: desktop personal computing is in a steep secular decline among everyone except techies and a few other groups of professionals. We need to think better about how to make all of this sustainable. The lowest-hanging fruit is an easy-peasy installation funnel, and Debian is failing at that.
UPDATE: People are misunderstanding the substance of my criticism, which admittedly was not very obvious. For a normie Windows user, the difficulty of getting Linux installed comes before the installer, it's the problem of making a boot medium. Debian's approach is to say "Here's a list of ISO files, bye!". That will not cut it for anyone but experienced Linux users. Some people here are saying "Tough luck to them". I think that's a shame.
UPDATE 2: What do people here hope to achieve by downvoting sincerely expressed opinions? There is no misinformation in my contributions to this thread, it's just my viewpoint, which I took time to express as best I could. Would you really prefer it if everyone had the same opinion, i.e. yours? Would that not make for a boring "discussion"? I don't get it. Personally I never, ever downvote anyone for expressing their opinion sincerely, no matter how much I disagree. I have not downvoted anyone in this discussion, indeed I have upvoted lots of them. I really hoped Lemmy would be more civilized than that Other Place, that it might have more of the FOSS spirit of exchange and tolerance. Disappointing. Have a nice day anyway.
I remember installing Debian in 2008 as a complete linux noob and only pressing the space bar to install it. Has the procesd changed in the meantime?
load more comments
(6 replies)
What? I installed Debian last week, and I think it took something like 4 clicks, and setting my username and passwords. I installed it because I couldn't get Ubuntu or OpenSuse to install (guessing because I have a 3090 GPU paired with an old intel 4770k/Z97 chipset).
load more comments
(5 replies)
Have people installed Debian since Debian 12? The installer is very straight forward, and Debian 12 also comes with all the firmware modules to make things "just work" for people.
I would like to know exactly what Debian does wrong other than a blanket statement of "it's hard".
As a supposed technical person, I am ashamed of myself of how long it took me to download the ISO for my VM. Its like 7clicks from homepage into increasingly more information rich site to get their full iso. Originally I browsed through a bunch of pages before realising where it was.
TBF their netinstall iso is available in just two clicks but I was too stuborn to get the full iso.
The netinstall is the recommended installer, why do people want the big iso? It's not going to save you any time. You'll be downloading less overall if you use the net installer.
Might be I am biased from past when i had very slow unreliable internet. Also since it was for a VM I would be installing it a few times so better to have the full iso.
I definitely agree their website needs work, it is very confusing to browse if you need anything other than the net installer! I find everything else by using search engines instead.
I just tried it myself, to get from the homepage to the amd64 installer file download link, it is exactly 7 clicks. This is a flaw in Debian that needs to be resolved, as not everyone has access to internet off the bat due to some wifi chip makers (COUGH realtek COUGH) not having very nice Linux support. A general re-design of the website to modernise it would be a good way for Debian to freshen itself up and attract new installers. Sadly, I am a systems programmer and not a web developer, so I am unable to personally contribute much :(
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(2 replies)
(Pure) Debian is almost never recommended for noobs, I don't understand the discussion. People would usually recommend Mint for Windows users.
Yeah but why is it not recommended for noobs? I was a noob once and I managed on Debian just fine - once past the ordeal of working out how to make the boot stick. That is what I really meant by "hard to install", but everyone took it to mean the installer software, which has been noob-friendly (if ugly) for years now. I should have been clearer about that.
Installing Debian is like climbing a mountain for anyone who is not an experienced Linux user.
Here's a more user-friendly workaround.
I'd rather install Arch. It's crazy.
This happened to me, literally. Ex-Windows user, tried Debian, settled on Arch.
100% THIS. Ex-Windows, came for those reasons, tried those distros, didn't like those compromises, went to Debian, everything was so hard I settled on Arch.
Another thing: I get the reasons why not, but I would love if Debian SID was more arch-like to use it as a daily driver. Docker is unsupported on it, for example. It makes sense, because of it's purpose. But personally, I would love to always have the latest kernel, packages, and on the most popular base, and also because I would love to wear the flag of THE bastion community distro.
IMHO it is really hard to talk about installers.
I 100% agree that the Debian installer has a lot of room for improvements, just from the top of my head
- Make default installations much easier
- Collect needed information before installation starts (instead of the a little information, a little installation process at the moment)...
OTOH, and that is the main selling point: The installer is very flexible, if you know what you are doing and my specific needs are therefore easier served with the Debian installer than that of other mainstream distributions.
In the end, I would happily see a username-password-one-click default option for the Debian installer while not taking anything away from the current one. (Just move all the input to the front.)
My point should have been clearer. Wasn't talking about the installer, which AFAIK is now pretty much as simple as Ubuntu, only uglier. I was referring mainly to the real obstacle of getting Linux up and running: making the boot medium. I mean, really, expecting noobs to know how to do that, or else just hinting vaguely about what 3rd-party tools to use, or how to use dd etc - come on, that is just not realistic. Others disagree but IMO this very much is Debian's problem to fix.
load more comments
(13 replies)
It's a great base for general desktop use as well as server. Been using it on my PC for years now, and aside from a few 3rd party repositories it has everything I need. It just works and continues to work.
debian is the goat if I want something that just works
Nice! I started using it just this week. I built a computer to serve as NAS with Debian and ZFS.
I'm also considering moving my Ubuntu based server to Debian; it gets too many package updates that I frankly don't care about, plus even Ubuntu server feels a bit bloated.
I moved from Gentoo to Ubuntu a few years ago precisely to reduce my workload; I just wanted it to work... and now I'm considering Debian for the same reason.
I'm in a similar boat. I've been using Ubuntu on my servers for years but all the crap around snaps and paid sec updates has worn me down. I'm actively in the process of switching it all to Debian.
Snaps seemed like such a time-saver until I tried installing some and they just didn’t work at all, or needed some workarounds and janky weird solutions to even function.
Specifically I’m talking about microk8s. What a god-awful snap, I never got it working and it’s completely broken out of the box. Ugh, I’m eyeballing a move to Debian for my headless servers too.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(4 replies)
Debian will run on every server I will ever set up and for good reason!
Here I am regretting my decision to move from CentOS to rocky on my servers
load more comments
(3 replies)
I've been happily running Debian for over a decade. Stable for servers, Testing or SID for laptops and desktops. The original installs not still running and upgrading are ones on hardware too obsolete to be useful (SheevaPlug). Still probably supported by Debian though!
Including one install that started as Mint Debian Edition, was upgrading to Testing, then cross graded from 32bit to 64bit, been through 3 motherboards and is now Stable for it's final days before the disk is scrapped.
I love the pacakaging, the philosophy and all the platforms supported (including really old ones).
I literally count it among the proof humans are not irredeemable.
Edit: Expand about "obsolete".
load more comments
(2 replies)
I really enjoy Debian. I have no need for bleeding edge software releases, what I need is stability. I even run Firefox ESR 😀 It's quite hard to brick a Debian stable installation (if not doing any extraordinary that is).
Yep. People are always in shock when you tell them you're using an older version.
The truth is - I don't like sudden changes in apps I use on daily basis 😌 debian is truly perfect for me
Same here. I use Debian on everything for years and it never broke my workflow and I never experienced a breaking update. Since Firefox-ESR also finally works with hardware acceleration OOTB for me, I am very happy.
HAPPY BDAY DEBIAN!!!!
EVEN THO I CANT UAE U I WISH U ALL THE BEST
Debian is my "Ol Reliable". Love it.
Apt-Get HappyAnniversaryParty
Never felt the need to pick Debian since it has very old packages but it's good with choice.
If you want a rolling release then testing or Sid is where it's at. They are usually ahead of Ubuntu.
stable and new stuff on unstable.
Debian <3
view more: next ›