I’m your regular end user. I use my computers to edit text, audio and video, watch movies, listen to music, post and bank on the internet…

my main computer uses now debian 12.5 after abandoning xubuntu.

For my backup notebook I have several candidates:

  • Simply install debian 12.5 again, the easiest 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?

  • Go for FreeBSD: this might require a learning curve, because this is an OS I’ve never used. Are commands that different from debian?

other more niche linux OSs seem too much a hassle and I guess won’t be as supported as the main ones.

  • Eugenia@lemmy.mlEnglish
    7·
    2 months ago

    I’d go with Linux Mint Edge Edition (not the default Mint). Better support for hardware than either plain Mint, or Debian, and more optimizations for laptops and battery (ubuntu might be hated, but they have lots of kernel patches). Also, for some weird reason, Mint with Cinnamon uses less RAM than Debian with Cinnamon. Also, easier support for third party non-free drivers.

    I love BSD, but I wouldn’t want it on a laptop. They’re just not optimized for such usage with batteries etc.

    • merompetehla@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      Linux Mint Edge Edition

      is Edge a desktop environment or a system that lets you use other DEs later? I’m partial to xfce.

      I thought every DE gets the same kernel patches.

      • Eugenia@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        2 months ago

        Edge is Cinnamon with a newer kernel. So, since you like XFce, try install the XFce version of Mint, and see if it works with your system. If it mostly works and boots, but not completely, you can always install the newer kernel found on Edge using the Update app (there’s a menu option to install newer kernels after installation). But if it doesn’t install/boot, but you’re confident that Linux should support your laptop, then consider the Edge version with Cinnamon.

      • Chris L@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        2 months ago

        Edge has a much new kernel. The last time I checked, regular Mint was using a 5x kernel, and Edge had, if I remember correctly, a 6.5 kernel.

  • Fecundpossum@lemmy.worldEnglish
    15·
    2 months ago

    I would recommend Linux Mint. Yes it’s faster to update than Debian, but it doesn’t push the envelope nearly as fast as Fedora or Arch based distros.

    Linux mint is just super easy, user friendly, you could use Mint without ever touching a terminal if you wanted. BSD would be a great pet project to fiddle with, but if you’re looking for a rock solid backup machine with zero fuss, Mint is perfect for that.

  • HumanPerson@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    41·
    2 months ago

    I wouldn’t switch to mint from debian. Freebsd could be worth trying, but I would play with it in a VM first. I am not knowledgeable about BSD’s, but there are others if you were unaware. They have similar names but I think netBSD and freebsd exist. FYI, BSD isn’t linux if you were unaware. Your phrasing suggested that you might think it is so I wanted to let you know.

    Newer kernels are great if you need bleeding edge hardware or filesystems, but for your use case I really think debian is the way to go.

    I would like to suggest you throw Fedora into the mix, or even opensuse if you want to try an rpm based distro. Opensuse has a leap flavor which is stable like debian. Fedora is fairly stable, but has regular releases (2 a year) so you also get more current software.

    Sorry to throw more options into the mix, but those are fairly simple and mainstream options (fedora is more mainstream fyi) but they are worth considering.

  • kbal@fedia.io
    30·
    2 months ago

    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.

    • merompetehla@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      2·
      2 months ago

      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.

      • comicallycluttered@beehaw.org
        4·
        2 months ago

        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:

        sudo apt install -t bookworm-backports linux-image-amd64

        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.

    • LeFantome@programming.dev
      4·
      2 months ago

      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.

  • banazir@lemmy.ml
    81·
    2 months ago

    If you want Debian with more frequent updates, consider going Debian sid. Base Debian is also fine, maybe with Flatpaks for more up-to-date applications where needed.

    • 乇ㄥ乇¢ㄒ尺ㄖ@infosec.pub
      11·
      2 months ago

      From your experience is it really unstable ( annoyingly buggy ), or do they just call it that and it stable really ?

      Sid exclusively gets security updates through its package maintainers. The Debian Security Team only maintains security updates for the current “stable” release.

      Is this a good thing ?

      • gnuhaut@lemmy.ml
        3·
        2 months ago

        I used unstable for years (don’t anymore). It broke itself in minor and major ways every couple of months. Maybe it wouldn’t boot or X wouldn’t start, or the package dependencies were broken and I couldn’t install certain packages for a couple of days. Stuff like that.

        You will have manually to fix these things from time to time, or do a workaround (like manually downgrading certain packages), or wait a week so stuff gets sorted. Most of the time it works fine though. I imagine the experience is somewhat similar to running arch.

        You do not get security fixes, but it’s not a massive problem usually, since you’ll get the newest version of most software after a couple of days (occasionally longer) after it is released.

        Anyway do not recommend unless you want to be a beta tester. I did report bugs sometimes, but almost always by the time I encountered an issue, it was already reported and a fix was already in the works.

          • jcarax@beehaw.org
            3·
            2 months ago

            Same here. I feel like Sid is there to catch problems, so devs and maintainers use it as such. Arch aims to be stable, though obviously not to the degree of Debian Stable, and so devs and maintainers aim for that. If one wants the Arch equivalent to Sid, there’s the testing repo, but there’s much less of a delta between stable and testing in Arch, so there isn’t much point unless you actually want to help test.

      • c10l@lemmy.world
        6·
        2 months ago

        The main “instability” I’ve found with testing or sid is just that because new packages are added quickly, sometimes you’ll have dependency clashes.

        Pretty much every time the package manager will take care of keeping things sane and not upgrading a package that will cause any incompatibility.

        The main issue is if at some point you decide to install something that has conflicting dependencies with something you already have installed. Those are usually solvable with a little aptitude-fu as long as there are versions available to sort things out neatly.

        A better first step to newer packages is probably stable with backports though.

        https://backports.debian.org/

      • ik5pvx@lemmy.world
        4·
        2 months ago

        It is very usable, provided you pay attention to major upcoming changes. To give you a very recent example, during May they switched the time libraries to use 64 bits, and like others said, it was dependency hell until the tide of all the packages being recompiled passed. In those cases, unless you know EXACTLY what to do, it’s better to wait for updates to come in, let apt sort out what could be updated and what had to wait, and just make sure it doesn’t propose you to delete things. After 2 weeks it was all business as usual. Side note: aptitude (my package manager of choice) was unusable, while apt threaded on and pulled me out of the tangle.

  • Pacmanlives@lemmy.world
    3·
    2 months ago

    OpenSuse Tumbleweed, gets you on the bleeding edge and I have had 1 issue like 5 years ago where I got a broken xorg driver. Rolled back the patch using snapper/btrfs and was back in business. Upgraded like a week later and everything was fine. System is still chugging all these years later.

    Also nothing wrong with running Debian Sid another distro I never ran into that many problems.

  • lemmyreader@lemmy.mlEnglish
    6·
    2 months ago

    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.

  • hyperobject@lemmy.ml
    14·
    2 months ago

    is there anything which actually bothers you about Debian? what impedes your workflow? what edge cases with hardware and updating affect you?

    is there really a reason to switch? do you care about unburdening developers from dealing with systemD?

      • hyperobject@lemmy.ml
        3·
        2 months ago

        That’s valid. I want to know the reasons why people go to the lengths they do with some distros. I have just settled in.

  • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
    11·
    2 months ago

    I use Debian and rhel. That’s basically the two things you’ll see in the world and the two toolsets that familiarity with is useful.

    There’s some little computers running weird shit like 9front or gentoo but if you wanna branch out from Debian stable but not get weird I recommend learning rhel.

    Of course, if your backup laptop is really a backup, install stable on it and be done.

      • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
        3·
        2 months ago

        Yeah I haven’t run into suse because I live in a place that gets lots of good ol boy deals from red hat but that would be the other good choice!

        E: actually, you’re right I should learn suse! The time is now!