Um... Debian? I may be biased, but sometimes I think half the "which distro" questions I see are specifically designed to get me to say Debian. It's unclear why you think that more frequent updates would be an advantage.
More up-to-date packages can be an advantage. One, they may have features you need. Two, there may be compatibility issues. This is especially true of dev tools and the graphics stack. The packages in Debian Stable are not that old yet but they will be.
It’s unclear why you think that more frequent updates would be an advantage.
kernels: I forgot the command to compare both but ubuntu/canonical releases kernel upgrades more often than debian. To a newbie like me this means ubuntu/canonical reacts to security flaws and fixes stability bugs that get discovered faster than debian. Updated hardware support is also a plus.
Kernels shouldn’t be a problem if you have the backports repo enabled (you can enable it during install, otherwise add it to your sources.list).
You do first have to specify that you want the kernel from backports (or set up APT pinning preferences), but after that, it’ll keep that specific package updated whenever you run sudo apt upgrade and there’s a newer version.
If you installed the generic Linux image on installation (usually the default, I believe), the quick way to upgrade is basically just:
It should be noted that backports is not Sid or Testing, it’s stuff built specifically for current Stable that people might need newer versions of for various reasons (e.g. hardware, limited feature updates that don’t affect the base system, some development libraries, etc.), so it’s quite small in the amount of unique packages it has. Like, you can get newer LibreOffice packages, but you’re not going to get Plasma 6 or whatever.
Right now, the kernel is on 6.7 in backports, while Stable is on 6.1 and Sid is on 6.8. So you’ll get them a tiny bit later, but that’s in terms of days/weeks, rather than, you know, the usual two-ish years (not counting security updates).
Side note: if you want all this enabled by default, Spiral Linux is just straight up Debian Stable with a bunch of firmware packages preinstalled for easier installation on a variety of hardware and the kernel is updated via backports by default, so you could give that a shot as well.
It’s not like “a distro based on Debian”, it is Debian, but set up with conveniences for modern desktop users and also sets up btrfs + apt snapshotting by default, similar to OpenSUSE Tumbleweed’s process.
Honestly just do Debian again. It’s one of the most stable distros for a reason. If anything, it’d make more sense to use Debian for a backup computer.
(Edited for clarity) This was interesting. It gave me arandr to generate a script which is great for lazy me. That script “works” in that it doesn’t give any errors when I test it, but it actually doesn’t have any effect on the login screen. In fact with more digging i discovered that xrandr just doesn’t work at all. I tried setting the display to a lower resolution (default is 3440x1440 so I used 1920x1080) in the control panel to test the xrandr command but xrandr tells me the mode (3440x1440) is not found. I looked again in xrandr and saw that any resolution higher 1920x1080 is not listed any more. I reset the resolution back to 3440x1440 in the control panel then looked in xrandr again and all the expected resolutions are listed again.
xrandr errors when I try to set my display to anything other than the setting it is currently using. Either I’m don’t something stupid with the syntax (99.999% confident I’m doing it right), or xrandr is broken with my setup. Maybe kde plasma 6 and wayland is giving me grief here? My PC has an AMD 7900XT GPU, so maybe it just doesn’t like my GPU for some reason.
Here is the output from xrandr for my current settings:
<span style="color:#323232;">DP-1 connected primary 3440x1440+0+1080 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 800mm x 330mm
</span><span style="color:#323232;">HDMI-A-1 connected 1920x1080+758+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 520mm x 290mm
</span>
Here are the commands I’m using in the Xsetup script.
It is blank right now. I’m looking at xrandr right now, but a basic check into sddm.conf suggests I can’t set resolution in there, but can’t call scripts. Might come back to this though.
Simply install debian 12.5 again, the easiest choice.
Good choice.
Install linux mint, so I get ubuntu but without them throwing their subscription services down my throat. I’m unsure about other advantages, as ubuntu is debian based, maybe the more frequent program updates? Kernels are also updated more often than with debian as far as I know. Do you know of other advantages?
There’s LMDE, Linux Mint Debian version.
Go for FreeBSD: this might require a learning curve, because this is an OS I’ve never used. Are commands that different from debian?
Yes, commands are different (For example ifconfig and not ip. And watch on Linux is something different on FreeBSD) and you can expect several things to not work out of the box. Also, mounting removable devices is different. Documentation is very good though unless your reached a niche problem. I’d suggest to first toy around with FreeBSD in a VM (Qemu or VirtualBox) if you want to sneak preview it and learn more.
Unless you’re specifically wanting to play with a different OS then Debian again. Makes much more sense to be using the same version of Linux and all the software ypu use rather than potentially different versions.
Also it will be simpler to maintain as everything is the same.
If you do want to play / test another distro then Mint has a low learning curve. FreeBSD is more different but you could easily try it and switch to something else if you don’t like it. Its different but not so much that linux users would feel totally lost.
Probably the most confusing thing for linux user trying FreeBSD is that Bash is not installed, and BSD uses sh instead by default. Bash can be easily installed and set as the default shell which will give a lot more familiarity. But otherwise it’ll feel like a familiar modern complete system, and you can use the same desktop environments you’re familiar with already in linux.
EDIT: You did say “backup” in your title. If that’s the main use case then definitely Debian again. If your laptop breaks or is stolen it makes sense to have a familiar system to pick up. Also important to sync and backup your data so it can be picked up on the other laptop. If backup machine is your focus then I’d say same OS and look more into data retention and retrieval between the two laptops, and ensure your important data is continuously backed up.
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