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Tips for switching to Debian from Ubuntu?

Title pretty much says it all. I’ve been using ubuntu as my daily driver for the last 5 years or so and honestly, I’ve had a wonderful experience with it.

That said, with the way things are going, I feel like its only a matter of time before Canonical pulls the rug out so I’d like to at least get my feet wet with something other than Ubuntu and Debian seems like the logical choice.

I mainly use my machines for gaming, self hosting, programming, and weird networking projects/automation testing.

I’ve heard gaming on debian isnt as ‘out of the box’ as it is with Ubuntu. So I’m hoping somone with more experience can share some tips on what I should be looking out for or point me to some good guides. Thanks yall.

EDIT: I fucking love this community. Thank you all for your replies. I appreciate you taking the time to help me out.

dark_stang ,
@dark_stang@beehaw.org avatar

You may want to try pop_os if one of your main uses is gaming. But debian is very straight forward after you enable the non-free repos.

constantokra ,

I’m consistently amazed how intuitive and responsive the pop os interface is even on low end hardware. It is so polished and adds so much utility to using a GUI, or even using multiple terminals.

cygnus ,
@cygnus@lemmy.ca avatar

I’m glad someone already suggested this. I was going to do the same.

TCB13 ,
@TCB13@lemmy.world avatar

Install your base system and get every app you need using flatpak. That way you’ll get the latest versions without poluting your system. It even integrated with the GNOME Software “store” GUI: flatpak.org/setup/Debian

RvTV95XBeo ,

A bit out of the loop here (my only Linux system is a stripped down Debian server), but I thought one of the reasons people are moving away from Ubuntu was because they were forcing everyone to use flatpaks.

Genuinely asking - are they evil or not?

cerement ,
@cerement@slrpnk.net avatar

other way around – Ubuntu has pretty much abandoned Flatpak and is trying to get everyone to use Snap

RvTV95XBeo ,

Ahh got it, thank you!

rotopenguin ,
@rotopenguin@infosec.pub avatar

Oh, this is the first time I’ve heard of that. I use plasma-discover as my handy “search all 3 app sources at once” browser.

anamethatisnt ,

If you’re already into self hosting, programming, networking and automation then I don’t think you’ll have any trouble.
With that background you should be able to google the solutions.

Debian offers you 3 variants of Debian:

Debian stable (what you get by default from their homepage). wiki.debian.org/DebianStable
Debian testing (has newer packages than stable and breaks less often than Debian unstable). wiki.debian.org/DebianTesting
Debian unstable (has the most recent packages and is considered the most fragile of all). wiki.debian.org/DebianUnstable

varaki , (edited )

+1 for using debian with the testing repo, never had issues with it and it’s more up to date than debian stable.

Presi300 ,
@Presi300@lemmy.world avatar

Tips for switching from Ubuntu to debian: don’t… It’s literally just Ubuntu with older packages and extra steps

Nia , (edited )
@Nia@lemmy.ml avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    AProfessional ,

    Mesa is half the story, the kernel is outdated too.

    dontcarebear ,

    Could go rolling with sid, or get Xanmod kernel. I think there’s also some git-mesa repositories, but I’m less sure about the latter.

    dontcarebear ,

    To add - if you liked PPAs, they don’t exist on Debian. You’ll need to add repositories as seen by Nia’s comment. To be honest, it’s something you get past easily and quickly.

    Embrace thine sources.list.d!

    0v0 ,

    But you can do this.

    yote_zip ,
    @yote_zip@pawb.social avatar

    There are no backported kernels available for Debian 12 at the time of writing this

    Where are you looking? I see one here

    xilliah ,

    How did you get gog games to play? I tried game hub but it fails to install stuff.

    Nia , (edited )
    @Nia@lemmy.ml avatar

    deleted_by_author

    •
    xilliah ,

    Thanks. So you pronounce your name ni-a or njaaaaaaaa!?

    caseyweederman ,

    Same. I like it. Does Epic Games too.

    Dubious_Fart ,

    Lutris can let you log into your GOG account and install games no issue.

    I dont know how it handles updates, but thats only an issue if you’re playing a new game, if you’re just playing old games like Arcanum, its no issue.

    yote_zip ,
    @yote_zip@pawb.social avatar

    If you install Steam/Lutris/Bottles as a Flatpak it will use an updated Mesa stack when you run games through them. If you need a newer Linux kernel you can use the official backported version or something like Xanmod’s MAIN branch/Liquorix.

    That’s pretty much it, and you may not even need those changes depending on your hardware. I recently wrote a comment on how I use Debian Stable if you want some extra opinions on how to make Debian Stable a little more livable.

    somedude ,

    Tangential question for people browsing this post: would you recommend a different Linux distribution over Debian and Ubuntu for OP? If so, which one and why?

    Nia ,
    @Nia@lemmy.ml avatar

    deleted_by_author

    •
    drspod ,

    Debian is upstream from Ubuntu, so Canonical shenanigans will not affect Debian users.

    ProdigalFrog ,

    There’s also the Linux Mint Debian Edition, which gives all the Mint goodness without the Ubuntu base.

    abrasiveteapot ,

    LMDE is the backup plan the guy you replied to was referencing.

    It’s rough around the edges compared to mint cinnamon but it works just fine, just needs a bit more customising attention after the install.

    vector_zero ,

    Depends on what you’re looking for.

    • Up to date packages: Arch or Fedora
    • Stable: Rocky or Mint

    I personally love Arch for its lightweight nature, its documentation, and the AUR, but I use Fedora on my desktop and server, and Debian on my HTPC. I also have Rocky on my laptop, but that was mostly just to play around with it.

    Fedora is nice because it’s fairly up to date and has a fairly robust, self maintaining package manager (i.e. it automatically removes unused deps and cleans up after itself).

    GustavoM ,
    @GustavoM@lemmy.world avatar

    Since you’ve been fiddling with Linux for a while… why not switch to Arch Linux instead? Even the official iso has an kISS installer that is really easy to get used to (archinstall).

    Sina ,

    I doubt you would need any tips, also right now Bookworm is closer to upstream than Ubuntu, so it’s better fit for gaming sans some niche missing package scenarios that won’t matter if you heavily rely on flatpaks.

    The only major thing Ubuntu has over Debian is the normie friendly graphical , but it’s not great so /shrug .

    Also Canonical is not going to pull the plug, that’s one thing you don’t really have to worry about, unless they sell the company.

    thepineapplejumped ,

    Maybe a bit naive, but what is the way that things that are going? What would Canonical pulling the rug out look like?

    AProfessional ,

    Canonical has been pushing their less portable Snap solution and moving away from traditional packages.

    This means:

    • They are the sole store host and decide what is allowed.
    • The apps can be less secure or totally broken on other distros.
    • The tooling to make snaps heavily incentivize only using Ubuntu as a base.
    FuckyWucky ,

    On server I found it to be basically the same except for some installed programs. Dunno about gaming doe.

    Why not try Mint? Also Debian based

    Tippon ,

    Standard Mint is based on Ubuntu, but they modify it to remove things they don’t like, and can hold back cutting edge changes that might break things. They also give you the option to not use the Snap Store.

    There’s a Mint Debian Edition that is forked directly from Debian. This might be better for OP, as it’s not going to get anything that Ubuntu has added. However, Ubuntu and Mint add their own fixes, so it might be missing those, depending on whether Debian decided to implement them.

    Sethayy ,

    *Ubuntu based

    Still shares the same debian root but doesn’t solve the not-wanting-to-use-ubuntu issue

    PseudoSpock ,
    @PseudoSpock@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    Don’t, unless you like snaps.

    lily33 ,

    I think you misread the OP.

    PseudoSpock ,
    @PseudoSpock@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    Worse than that, I didn’t read beyond the topic. The question itself creates like this automatic PTSD response. ;)

    tokyo ,

    There was an issue with Debian installs a few weeks ago where it broke due to some modules. It can be avoided by using the net installer.

    If you’re using an Nvidia card, you will need to download the appropriate drivers. The Debian docs explain the steps, just read carefully to make sure you don’t miss something small.

    If you want to make it as seamless as possible, use Debian with Gnome.

    Apart from that, there is virtually no difference. You can get and use all the same packages. Games on steam run without issue (or any more than reported by other distributions). I don’t use PPAs but between official debs and flatpak, I haven’t had any issues getting software that I needed.

    FWIW I ran: Apex Legends, Resident Evil 1+2, FFXIV, Gears 5, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk and plenty more without a single crash or glitch.

    I also switched to Debian from Ubuntu. It wasn’t perfectly smooth but once you get set up, it’s as stable as can be.

    gnuhaut ,

    Use the net installer. Leave the root password empty if you want sudo installed. There is probably no need for you to read the official installation manual, but maybe do so if you run into any trouble.

    There are wiki pages for the most common things you might want to setup, like how to install steam, nvidia driver, enable backports (good way to get (some) newer packages without breakage), and enable flatpak. Just google “debian wiki nvidia” etc.

    hemko ,

    Holy shit I never knew you could have sudo installed like that. Always done it post-install lmao

    lemann ,

    Same lol, I was confused at why some of my selfhosting boxes had sudo and some didn’t, despite being installed fresh from the same ISO

    gnuhaut ,

    Yeah it actually says that in the text on that root password screen. But nobody ever reads that, me included. Literally everybody I have told this to was surprised when they hear about it. It’s a total UI failure.

    Espi ,

    It says it? TIL

    I knew about that (kinda intuitively, openSUSE installer behaves the same way and I just assumed that Debian would be the same)

    finickydesert ,
    @finickydesert@lemmy.ml avatar

    Why not use doas instead of sudo?

    espi ,

    @finickydesert @gnuhaut The installer installs sudo.

    Also, what are the advantages of doas compared to sudo?

    legoraft ,
    @legoraft@reddthat.com avatar

    afaik, doas is a bit more minimal than sudo, so less bloatware. Sudo has a lot of CVE’s every year and because doas is way smaller, it has a lot less security issues.

    Cornelius ,

    Protip: for anyone in the fence, you can install doas then simply alias sudo for doas. Nothing changes in how you use your shell but it’s now more secure

    Frederic ,

    You should try MX Linux, with Xfce it works pretty well, it’s Debian based.

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