There have been multiple accounts created with the sole purpose of posting advertisement posts or replies containing unsolicited advertising.

Accounts which solely post advertisements, or persistently post them may be terminated.

Debian used to be so good. What happened!?

Firefox on Debian stable is so old that websites yell at you to upgrade to a newer browser. And last time I tried installing Debian testing (or was it debian unstable?), the installer shat itself trying to make the bootloader. After I got it to boot, apt refused to work because of a missing symlink to busybox. Why on earth do they even need busybox if the base install already comes with full gnu coreutils? I remember Debian as the distro that Just Wroks™, when did it all go so wrong? Is anyone else here having similar issues, or am I doing something wrong?

iaMLoWiQ ,

Debian is a server OS. Running it on desktop is like having frying oil for dinner.

ultratiem ,
@ultratiem@lemmy.ca avatar

See that’s the thing, Debian was never good

westyvw ,

You misspelled Ubuntu.

ultratiem ,
@ultratiem@lemmy.ca avatar

Typical Debian user clinging onto their dementia.

MicrondeMMMMMMM ,
@MicrondeMMMMMMM@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I don’t have issues yet on stable 12.5 but I plan to switch to nixos eventually.

mariusafa ,

Debian testing is complelty okay. If you want to have the most up to date security use apt to grab sid security updates. wiki.debian.org/DebianTesting

lemmyvore ,

I mean they can still be broken, especially if you mix Sid into it.

debil ,

The fix comes to sid first. (Not counting experimental.) The right way to do it is to run mixed testing/unstable with apt-pinning so that nothing gets pulled from unstable unless spcifically requested.

That said, stable with Firefox from Mozilla’s site and Neovim built from sources and gpack’d into deb package runs perfectly fine with much less hassle.

rc__buggy , (edited )

Huh? Install testing or sid?

The Debian way is to install stable then change your sources.list to either testing or unstable.

I call shenanigans.

edit: what version was Stable using before 11Jun? 'cause it’s 115.12.0esr-1 right now.

possiblylinux127 ,

Thats not a good idea unless you do a proper upgrade (dist upgrade or similar)

It is easier to use the testing iso

rc__buggy ,

the wiki must be out of date then

Anonymo ,

You can try this:

siduction.org

Even has BTRFS setup with Snapper (or Timeshift maybe) and nala is an option.

www.theregister.com/2023/01/05/siduction_2022_1/ Overview.

Vilian ,

when i see a debian user i see a future fedora user

lemmy_nightmare ,
@lemmy_nightmare@sh.itjust.works avatar

When I see a Fedora user, I see a future Arch user btw

AdrianTheFrog ,
@AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.world avatar

This is funny because on a laptop I had I did this exact same progression - I started on Debian, but it didn’t have the right kernel version for my audio drivers, so I switched to Fedora, but it was running slowly (probably because of gnome, it lets you choose so this was my fault) so I moved to arch (with xfce) because it has a reputation for being relatively lightweight. It worked better, but it took longer to get working with the unusual chromebook hardware.

nexussapphire ,

Man a laptop new enough to require a newer kernel but slow enough for gnome to be slow. That’s an annoying spot to be man.

AdrianTheFrog ,
@AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.world avatar

It wasn’t that new (2017), it just had weird hardware which iirc only recently got supported without proprietary drivers by the new audio system.

nexussapphire ,

That makes a lot more sense. I remember living with $200 laptops for a while and that’s kinda what I was thinking initially.

Vilian ,

idk i can do everything that arch can do, with distrobox and having a immutable distro on top

iopq ,

When I see an Arch user, I see a future NixOS user FWIW

flop_leash_973 ,

These days I care a lot less that a package is outdated than I do it being unstable personally. If security concerns are getting patched and it is still doing what I want it to do, I couldn’t care less about UI elements getting moved around just to make some PM happy.

jabjoe ,
@jabjoe@feddit.uk avatar

I’ve been on Debian Testing for my own desktops for about 15 years now. Sometimes as a Frankendebian mixing in SID/unstable. Sometimes mainly unstable, but mostly just Testing.

It rarely breaks, but when it does, it’s a learning opportunity. Stable for servers and other people’s desktops. Maybe with backports. Flatpacks if this no other option.

You don’t get 100% solid and 100% new. Ever. With anything.

corsicanguppy ,

A someone who worked in OS security, I beg you dont use flatpaks.

jabjoe ,
@jabjoe@feddit.uk avatar

As I said, “if this no other option”. And to be honest, that was once, for a few weeks before the new KiCad hit Debian repos. And only because hardware team wouldn’t wait to switch, so to open stuff, I needed it too.

lightnegative ,

As someone who works, flatpak’s solve a bunch of problems, freeing me up to continue working.

Security issues are just a class of issue; no more or less important than other issues

akincisor ,

I have been using unstable on desktop for at least 15 years. Every time a new stable was released that would cause a month of just staying off updates till things stabilized. Recently it’s not even had that issue.

I’ve had to pin a package or two in that time, but unstable has been rock solid otherwise. I even run it on my server.

possiblylinux127 ,

TL;DR

You want Debian stable with either back ports or containers. On desktop flatpak is your friend. Also do not add extra repos.

Honestly there is little reason to not use flatpak for web browsers. If you want packages from Fedora or other distros you can use Distrobox with podman as the back end.

carlytm ,

OP when they try Debian and it’s exactly what it advertises itself as:

https://lemm.ee/pictrs/image/e34fb451-0057-4d28-8507-2564fec5e294.jpeg

kuneho ,
@kuneho@lemmy.world avatar

Debian was always like this.

Tundra ,

Debian Stable ± Flatpak gets best of both worlds

ipacialsection ,
@ipacialsection@startrek.website avatar

For me, the outdated packages in stable have actually gotten better over time, as DEs get closer to a place where I don’t need any major updates to enjoy using them, Flatpaks become more readily available, and on a subjective level, I get less and less invested in current Linux news. Before Debian became my “forever distro”, I’d hopped to it a few times, and often found myself wishing for a newer piece of software that wasn’t in backports or flathub, or simply being bored with how stable it is, but that’s been happening less and less. And I feel like Debian 12 in particular left me with software that I wouldn’t mind being stuck with for two years.

I’ve gotten warnings to upgrade my browser with Debian’s Firefox ESR, but they never affected a website’s usability in a way that a newer version would fix, and they do provide security updates and new ESR series when they come out; even if you must have the newest Firefox, you can use the Flatpak.

Additionally, I’m currently on testing in order to get better support for my GPU, and each time I’ve tried to use it, it’s worked for me for a longer time than the last as I get better at resolving or avoiding broken packages. If you do experience issues like the one you described, and can replicate them, and no one else has already reported them, you should report them to Debian’s bug tracker. The whole point of Testing is to find and squash all the critical bugs before the next stable releases.

iopq ,

You must not be using an Nvidia GPU on Wayland because KDE is pushing updates for this use case

ipacialsection ,
@ipacialsection@startrek.website avatar

I’m using an AMD Ryzen iGPU on Wayland. I switched to Testing because the support already existed, but the kernel and mesa versions in stable were buggy for my particular GPU and I didn’t want to make a FrankenDebian.

snekerpimp ,

Debian is working as intended. You are wanting to use Ubuntu or Mint if you want more up to date packages.

unwillingsomnambulist ,

If the user really wants a new browser, Flatpak is always an option.

snekerpimp ,

They also have a .deb you can manually update as well.

possiblylinux127 ,

They can just use Flatpak as it will be the newest outside of Arch. Alternatively they could run Distrobox with something like Fedora.

snekerpimp ,

I stopped using flatpak when I found out both I had to update outside of the package manager. Also using flatpak gave me some issues with my sound card, so I just run the .deb. To each their own though, which is why I love Linux.

possiblylinux127 ,

wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian

Installing outside packages is generally not a good idea. You can use Distrobox with a upstream distro like Fedora or you can use Debian Back ports.

backports.debian.org

snekerpimp ,

Had forgotten about backports. Need to get that set back up. Thank you for the reminder.

possiblylinux127 ,

It is fairly easy to use

Vilian ,

deleted_by_author

    •
    snekerpimp ,

    Again, not arguing against, just why I don’t…. You do you, I’m just talking about me. Just cause I don’t use something for some reason doesn’t make me anti that thing. Linux community can be so volatile sometimes

    Vilian ,

    fair, that i heard so much shit about people hating flatpak when it can be very helpful for newcomers that it got to my head, sorry

    snekerpimp ,

    It can be tough through words to understand intent sometimes, and I to write sarcastic and dry, so no problem.

    Flatpak is helpful, it’s how I ran several programs before my work forced me to windows, it does have its place in the toolbox.

    tritonium ,

    mxlinux is my goto, and if you need something current there us always flatpak for most popular apps

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • [email protected]
  • random
  • lifeLocal
  • goranko
  • All magazines
    •