Do you want to live the boring stable life, where you can just build and build and build your personal poop castle on top of that solid OS for years and years? If yes, switch to Debian. You won’t be reinstalling till you get so bored that you get the urge to self-harm. We can’t afford new hardware anyways, but even if we do, the same install will work on the new system with few tweaks. 😆
The initial setup is a bit more annoying than Pop/Mint/Ubuntu but not too much more. Upgrades are also a bit more annoying but not too much more. There’s good documentation for both of those procedures.
It’s just the matter of defaults, especially since Mint has Debian edition too. Personally I just cut off the “middleman” and go straight to Debian. Unless you really like Cinnamon, because you’ll obviously have better experience on Mint with it.
I’ve got two computers. My gaming pc is running CachyOS, and my other computer which is basically for messing around with and watching movies, used to be running Mint, but I just today switched over to Debian with XFCE as the DE and I’m liking it so far. Super bare bones but that’s what I wanted for this computer anyway so it works great for me.
I run Mint with Cinnamon on my Desktop PC and Debian with Gnome on a mini PC. I use the latter as a server and disabled the GUI, but Gnome was hard to get used to. I use my PC for casual gaming, browsing, and casual Python development. I am not a Linux power user but pretty familiar with the terminal. Setting up native Python without relying on UV/conda on Debian was a nightmare, but I guess that’s an edge case. I really love Linux Mint, and I also really like Cinnamon.
If you’re used to Windows then maybe give KDE a shot. Similar concepts to Windows (like a taskbar at the bottom of the screen) but extremely customizable. You can install KDE on Debian - on an existing system, the easiest way is to run tasksel and select KDE Plasma.
I disabled the graphical interface as I use the mini PC as a server and only ssh to it. I used Ubuntu with gnome at work for a couple of years.
Never tried out KDE, I know it is very popular. But I am super happy with Cinnamon and I don’t see a reason to switch on my main PC. Of course I grew up with Windows, that may explain why I get along with Cinnamon so well…
Currently running PopOS and thinking about switching to Mint but maybe Debian?
Do you want to live the boring stable life, where you can just build and build and build your personal poop castle on top of that solid OS for years and years? If yes, switch to Debian. You won’t be reinstalling till you get so bored that you get the urge to self-harm. We can’t afford new hardware anyways, but even if we do, the same install will work on the new system with few tweaks. 😆
The initial setup is a bit more annoying than Pop/Mint/Ubuntu but not too much more. Upgrades are also a bit more annoying but not too much more. There’s good documentation for both of those procedures.
I can’t even say the initial setup was more annoying than Mint.
Awesome,thanks!
What if my new hardware ends up being RISC V?
RISCV, potato, unprocessed sand…it’s all hardware anyway
IIRC Debian supports RISC V
It’s just the matter of defaults, especially since Mint has Debian edition too. Personally I just cut off the “middleman” and go straight to Debian. Unless you really like Cinnamon, because you’ll obviously have better experience on Mint with it.
LMDE, best of both worlds
++ Came here to say this.
I run Linux mint debian edition. Best of both worlds.
Oooooh
It is the way.
I’ve got two computers. My gaming pc is running CachyOS, and my other computer which is basically for messing around with and watching movies, used to be running Mint, but I just today switched over to Debian with XFCE as the DE and I’m liking it so far. Super bare bones but that’s what I wanted for this computer anyway so it works great for me.
The ultimate solution is to have 3 notebooks with 3 different distros.
Obviously
Or two notebooks, a desktop, and a server 😆
My vote is on CachyOS
its pretty good
I just did this as a complete noob. Well, PopOS is still on my gaming rig, but my secondary PC is now Debian.
I expected it to be way more barebones, but it turns out that my experience has been like 90% identical.
Nice. Thanks
I run Mint with Cinnamon on my Desktop PC and Debian with Gnome on a mini PC. I use the latter as a server and disabled the GUI, but Gnome was hard to get used to. I use my PC for casual gaming, browsing, and casual Python development. I am not a Linux power user but pretty familiar with the terminal. Setting up native Python without relying on UV/conda on Debian was a nightmare, but I guess that’s an edge case. I really love Linux Mint, and I also really like Cinnamon.
If you’re used to Windows then maybe give KDE a shot. Similar concepts to Windows (like a taskbar at the bottom of the screen) but extremely customizable. You can install KDE on Debian - on an existing system, the easiest way is to run tasksel and select KDE Plasma.
I disabled the graphical interface as I use the mini PC as a server and only ssh to it. I used Ubuntu with gnome at work for a couple of years.
Never tried out KDE, I know it is very popular. But I am super happy with Cinnamon and I don’t see a reason to switch on my main PC. Of course I grew up with Windows, that may explain why I get along with Cinnamon so well…