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 (by reinstalling). 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.
And that’s where my comment matches what the Avid Amoeba is going with, that Debian will make the hardware usable for so long that RISC V might be mainstream (and maybe even powerful enough compared to current x86_64) by the time I decide to change the system.
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.
Python without UV/Conda is always somewhat of a pain on Linux, well, if you need a specific version that is. It comes pre-installed on virtually all distros, because the distros use it themselves to script stuff in the OS. That also means, if you install a different Python version OS-wide, you can break those OS scripts.
Admittedly, it is somewhat of a larger pain on Debian, though, because it will stay behind on older Python versions for longer than most other distros. After the Python 2→3 transition, they also continued to alias python to python2 for quite some years (I’m actually not sure, if they alias to python3 by now)…
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 with Debian as a server and only ssh to it. I used Ubuntu with gnome at work for a couple of years (I could ignore it back then with the Ubuntu theme, which I liked more)
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…
I’ve been long time Debian fan, I use it on all my servers and my laptop, however on my gaming rig I had PopOS and recently switched to PikaOS which is based on Debian and I’m absolutely loving it
Currently running PopOS and thinking about switching to Mint but maybe Debian?
As a longtime Debian user I’m probably pretty biased, but Debian + KDE Plasma is goated
LMDE. Best of both worlds
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 (by reinstalling). 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.
Wait debían supports poop castles? I finally have a reason to switch from vista!
Keep Vista, get out to join the protest!
I can’t even say the initial setup was more annoying than Mint.
yeah ever since bookworm, they seemed to sort it out…
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
IIRC the x86_64 binaries won’t work, so you will require a reinstall.
Yes, but that’s always the case when you’re switching architectures. The x86 binaries won’t work on ARM, either.
And that’s where my comment matches what the Avid Amoeba is going with, that Debian will make the hardware usable for so long that RISC V might be mainstream (and maybe even powerful enough compared to current x86_64) by the time I decide to change the system.
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.
It is the way.
Oooooh
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
Switched tp CachyOS on my desktop a week ago. So far I’m liking 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 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.
Python without UV/Conda is always somewhat of a pain on Linux, well, if you need a specific version that is. It comes pre-installed on virtually all distros, because the distros use it themselves to script stuff in the OS. That also means, if you install a different Python version OS-wide, you can break those OS scripts.
Admittedly, it is somewhat of a larger pain on Debian, though, because it will stay behind on older Python versions for longer than most other distros. After the Python 2→3 transition, they also continued to alias
pythontopython2for quite some years (I’m actually not sure, if they alias topython3by now)…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’m fairly new to Linux and I’ve been using Kubuntu, and so far I really like KDE coming from a lifetime of using Windows.
I disabled the graphical interface as I use the mini PC with Debian as a server and only ssh to it. I used Ubuntu with gnome at work for a couple of years (I could ignore it back then with the Ubuntu theme, which I liked more)
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…
Yeah, I mean Cinnamon matches what Windows does really quite closely, down to even the default keyboard shortcuts being virtually the same.
KDE doesn’t match it quite as closely, but it’s just power-user heaven…
Oh yeah, that makes sense.
I’ve been long time Debian fan, I use it on all my servers and my laptop, however on my gaming rig I had PopOS and recently switched to PikaOS which is based on Debian and I’m absolutely loving it