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Debian GNU/Linux
All
44
Experiences
Pros
29
Cons
14
Specs
Top
Pro
Wide choice in desktop environments
Debian offers stable and testing CD images specifically built for GNOME (the default), KDE Plasma Workspaces, Xfce and LXDE. Less common window managers such as Enlightenment, Openbox, Fluxbox, GNUstep, IceWM, Window Maker and others can also be installed.
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Top
Con
Stable release contains extremely outdated packages
If you want the newest packages, you'll have to do a minimal installation of Debian stable then upgrade to testing or you need to install testing directly.
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Top
Pro
Standard vanilla Linux desktop
Debian runs standard Gnome, XFCE, KDE - it doesn't use its own special desktop environment or debian specific modifications or customisations, which means that users benefit from the work of the whole Linux community, Debian developers can focus on the distribution itself, and any support for your desktop environment on other distributions should work on Debian as well.
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Top
Con
No default support for unfree drivers
Debian does not official support unfree software so if you have a wifi card or anything elese that requires an unfree driver you will need to download the unofficial/non-advertised non-free iso image which contains all unfree driver packages.
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Top
Pro
Wide choice of hardware platforms
Debian has the widest choice of hardware platforms, including: amd64, armel, armhf, i386, ia64, kfreebsd-i386, kfreebsd-amd64, mips, mipsel, powerpc, sparc, s390, s390x, source, multi-arch.
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Top
Con
Ridiculous package splitting
Even though it makes sense to split devel and the actual binary of an application, the splitting has become as mess in debian and its derivates: for example the nvidia driver is splitted into over 40 different packages.
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Pro
Very stable
Debian has a Stable branch, where packages are thoroughly tested before release. Furthermore Debian is know to be the definition of stable when it comes to production systems.
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Con
Internal quarrels harm the project
Instead of working all together to provide the best Operating System, some maintainers are just ignorant and aggressive to new ideas or new maintainers. That led to many crises and controversy in Debian's history.
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Pro
Install and forget
Once installed you can almost forget about it and start to use your desktop for your daily tasks.
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Con
Systemd is everywhere
Systemd is very hard to debug by itself, and can break in very strange ways (such as not being able to mount a single partition on bootup), but the increasing number of desktops that are relying on specific functionality provided only by systemd (policy kit, dbus, etc) makes the entire system more fragile and harder to debug.
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Pro
Easy to find help with any problem
Debian is one of the oldest and most popular distros out there. Debian's popularity means that you will always be able to find a solution for your problem just by searching on Google, or if by chance nobody has had the problem you are having it's very easy to ask the community and quickly get a solution.
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Top
Con
Outdated kernel of the live system
Since the LiveCD is based on Debian stable the kernel is old, outdated but stable.
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Pro
Comes with over 55.500 packages
Because of its popularity, Debian has a lot of applications available which range from productivity programs to business software, games and development tools. It comes with over 55.500 packages (software that is precompiled and ready to be installed on a local machine) -- all of them for free.
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Top
Con
Not designed for general desktop usage
By default, Debian Stable is not that great of a distro for general desktop usage, since the packages are very outdated. You'll have to spend a while configuring the system in order to make it work.
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Top
Pro
Highly secure system
Known for being consistent in maintaining a highly secure system. Several other popular distros use Debian as a base or core for their own Linux OS, the security being one of the main factors why it's so commonly used.
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Con
No choices
Debian basically doesn't give you any choices, even dpkg supports this feature with virtual packages: for example, it is very hard to use a different sound system than ALSA, like OSS4 or to use ALSA with pulse audio emulation, and the same goes for different init systems.
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Pro
Rolling or Release based
Every Debian Release can either use a Rolling or Release based model.
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Top
Con
Inconsistent init systems
While Linux uses systemd, non-Linux ports use the traditional sysvinit.
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Top
Pro
Well-working team
The developer works very well so the the code is one of the best written out there.
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Top
Con
Hard to learn
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Top
Pro
A lot of ways to install software
You can either use aptitude, apt or apt-build to install software from the Debian package archives.
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Top
Con
Breaks if you suspend/resume
Breaks when you resume the activity on the system if you use nvidia cards.
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Top
Pro
Great for gaming
As Debian is the base for SteamOS and because Ubuntu is based on it, it's almost certain that all Linux games will run properly and require no hacks like creating symbolic links because of some hardcoded paths.
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Top
Con
Buggy and non-user friendly
You need to know almost as much as Arch and deal with documentation not as good as the Arch wiki in order for Debian to work.
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Top
Pro
Big open-source project
The Debian project is one of the biggest open source projects with over 5000 active contributors.
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Top
Con
No good choices of fresh desktop environments
GNOME is quite outdated and buggy; KDE is too old, even in Sid it is at 5.14 branch (at Jun 13 2019 Plasma 5.16 is available in many rolling/fresh distros); XFCE behaves like crooked, visual artifacts at the taskbar and so on; Cinnamon as far as I know works better in Linux Mint compared to (almost) any other distro; For other desktop environments (e.g. MATE) can't say - these are too new (as projects) and possibly incomplete, thus might have many bugs.
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Top
Pro
Supports SecureBoot
You don't have to disable SecureBoot if you use it, which is useful for LiveUSB or dualboot setups.
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Top
Con
Old software is not useful, but is stable
Certainly for the stable and old stable versions. But the testing version has quite up to date software.
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Top
Pro
The Debian Social Contract
Guaranteed commitment to adherence to values, principles, priorities, requirements and guidelines by the Debian project.
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Top
Pro
A real installer
Unlike other distributions that just extract their Live image, Debian offers a real traditional and modular installer to customize the installation.
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Top
Pro
Strict separation of non-free software
Debian is one of the few distros that let the user choose if he wants a free system or not.
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Top
Pro
Debconf
Depending how it is configured debconf does the most of the hard work for you and only asks you with configuration /file conflicts.
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Top
Pro
Widely supported
Almost any software that is available for Linux provides a Debian package.
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Top
Pro
Many ports
Debian supports almost any Kernel maintained CPU instructions set. It has also a few non Linux Ports.
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Top
Pro
Apt-build
It is possible to rebuild the entire system and optimize it for your hardware (of course, it is not as detailed as Gentoo's USE flags).
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Top
Pro
Unique release cycle
The most Linux distros have one or two stages before a release, but Debian has five before a new stable version is released (experimental > unstable > testing > code-freeze/bug hunting > stable).
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Top
Pro
TUI installer
The Debian installer can still be launched as text/curses-like installer which is more compatible and keyboard-friendly than the graphical version.
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Top
Pro
Standard archives
Debs are normal ar and tar archives with shell scripting and additional gz, bz, lzma or xz compression.
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Top
Pro
Live install images for CDs, DVDs and USB thumb drives
Debian releases live install images for CDs, DVDs and USB thumb drives, for the i386 and amd64 architectures, and with a choice of desktop environments. These Debian Live images allow the user to boot from a removable media and run Debian without affecting the contents of their computer.
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Top
Pro
Wise release model
Debian stable does not update a lot and instead provides stability and well tested softwares. You don't get distracted by every shiny new stuff that comes out, and focus on what matters: productivity and reliability of your system.
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Top
Pro
Debian Fast Track for stable
Stable gets backported software from here.
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Top
Pro
Great choice for returning Linux users
If you haven't used Linux for a long time, say 5-10 years, it's a great distro in which you can quickly get in the boat again. You don't have to worry about falling back. Everything is in its place.
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Top
Pro
Has small amount of today's bugs (e.g. no duplicate web cameras in Skype - likely not Skype's fault)
But has quite a few bugs from 2016-2017, apparently for long term.
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Specs
Based On:
NONE
Default Desktop Environment:
GNOME
Init-System:
Systemd
Package Manager:
dpkg with apt, aptitude or apt-build
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Experiences
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Trisquel GNU/Linux
All
5
Experiences
Pros
3
Cons
1
Specs
Top
Pro
Polished look and feel
Fresh installation looks great.
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Top
Con
Avoid proprietary-only GPU drivers
GPUs without libre drivers are a problem (not fault of Trisquel, of course). Also Wi-Fi cards in the same vein.
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Top
Pro
Reliable and working great out-of-the-box
It works on many machines. Really good.
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Top
Pro
Good but not so good
There's been a lot of effort put in this project through the years, there is no question about it. It's 100% free and it's very user-friendly, but it being based on Ubuntu 16.04 isn't the best thing, as you are working with software that still is actual but the versions are not the newest.
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Specs
Based On:
Debian>Ubuntu
Default Desktop Environment:
GNOME, LXDE, MATE, Openbox
Init-System:
Systemd
Package Manager:
Debian Package Manager
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Free
144
28
Devuan GNU+Linux
All
9
Experiences
Pros
5
Cons
3
Specs
Top
Pro
Stability
It is stable like Debian.
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Top
Con
Difficult to install on non-free hardware
Unlike Debian, Devuan offers no unfree netinstall media, so if your system needs unfree drivers (e.g a laptop or a tablet), you'll have to download the Debian firmware on a separate USB.
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Top
Pro
It's Debian
Devuan is Debian just without systemd, it just mirrors the the Debian archive and repacks packages that have hard dependencies on systemd.
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Top
Con
No systemd
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Top
Pro
Excellent for normal people
It is easy to use and is a good choice for beginners.
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Top
Con
Fragmentation
Forked distributions like Devuan and Artix fragment the Linux community and hurt the original project. Debian users who do not want systemd should use Slackware or BSD instead.
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Top
Pro
No Systemd
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Top
Pro
Most decent look amongst other XFCE distros
Default XFCE theme is unique of all the XFCE distos including MXLinux, Xubuntu etc.
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Specs
Based On:
Debian
Default Desktop Environment:
XFCE
Init-System:
SysVinit, runit or OpenRC
Package Manager:
dpkg with apt, aptitude or apt-build
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Experiences
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105
PureOS
All
6
Experiences
Pros
3
Cons
2
Specs
Top
Con
No mobile installation
You cant install pure os on a android phone.
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Top
Pro
PureBrowser and TOR
PureBrowser is a modified version of Firefox that comes with security focused plugins. There is also a copy of TOR installed in the OS by default.
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Top
Con
Slower updates
Updates are slower than an unmodified Debian.
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Top
Pro
You can download and install it, without the need to purchase their laptop
PureOS is available from their site for free for anyone to use, no need to purchase any of their laptops in order to check out the OS which is a tweaked build of the Trisquel distro.
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Top
Pro
Default install on a free, open source laptop
PureOS is the default OS installed on the Purism Librem laptops.
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Specs
Based On:
Debian Testing
Default Desktop Environment:
GNOME
Init-System:
systemd
Main Usage:
Desktop
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124
29
Parabola GNU/Linux-libre
All
15
Experiences
Pros
7
Cons
7
Specs
Top
Pro
Protects your freedom, certified free by the FSF
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Top
Con
Won't work out-of-the-box on the most PC's
Almost all PCs need non-free drivers but Parabola has none to offer.
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Top
Pro
Option to use OpenRC or Systemd
Parabola has an OpenRC edition and a Systemd edition, so users can choose which init system they want.
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Top
Con
Not compatible with AUR
Unlike other Arch-based distros, this free distro doesn't support AUR.
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Top
Pro
All the benefits of Arch Linux, only 100% certified free software
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Top
Con
Same cons that apply to Arch Linux
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Top
Pro
Very Secure
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Top
Con
Small repositories
Since Parabola is a completely free distro, there is no non-free software available and the community repositories are small compared to the AUR.
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Top
Pro
Has its own repos
Parabola has its own repos (which are almost as large as Arch Linux) and the IceCat browser is included.
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Top
Con
Incompetent developers
They only care about removing "non-free" software, rather than making a properly working OS.
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Top
Pro
Can be migrated from Arch Linux without a CD/USB
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Top
Con
Serves no purpose
It's just Arch without non-free software and is basically a niche OS with few users.
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Top
Pro
Based on Arch Linux
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Top
Con
Not really free
People have to pay hundreds to maintain this distro.
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Specs
Based On:
Arch Linux
Default Desktop Environment:
LXDE
Init-System:
Systemd or OpenRC
Package Manager:
Pacman
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