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Debian Testing as a daily driver - can anyone share their experience? (piefed.ca)

submitted 2 days ago by ZombieCyborgFromOuterSpace@piefed.ca to c/linux@programming.dev

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I'm ditching Ubuntu for Debian. But I'm wondering if I shouldn't use Debian Testing instead of Stable to get more updated software.

Tuxedo OS is going to rebase their distro on Debian Testing, and I've heard that it's actually pretty stable for a non-stable distro, which is why I'm considering it. But, I want your hear about your experience. What kind of trouble do you frequently run into? Any traps I should look out for?

I really want something that's going to be no-fuss, solid as a rock and that's simply going to get out of my way. I don't have time to troubleshoot my PC after a whole ass day of troubleshooting some company's software shit.

Before you tell me to switch to whatever other distro, I'm not interested. I want to use Debian. I'm used to it's packaging system and how it's set up and I know it's a super stable distro. And I fully support the people behind it and their social contract.

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[–] Scoopta@programming.dev 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

As others have said I wouldn't recommend testing as it doesn't get security updates, however I personally run sid (unstable) and have for a long time now. At least since 2020 if I recall, it does occasionally break, albeit anecdotally less than my friends arch system, can't comment on if that's the distro or just our individual setups. The main reason I run it is because I like debian, I'm very familiar with apt, with its initramfs tools, with all of the debianisms but I wanted something rolling. I tried arch but it just wasn't as comfy for me personally. That being said it is a bit like hard mode, there is no arch wiki, if you don't do heavy customization that might be ok, sometimes I've wanted to tweak my initramfs and while I know the debian generator better than arch, there's far less easily accessible documentation on it. In general it's been such a good experience that I basically stopped distro hopping, it's been my home now for a long time but I know I'm in the minority with that so take it as you will.

[–] ZombieCyborgFromOuterSpace@piefed.ca 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

>anecdotally less than my friends arch system

LOL!!!

Yeah sid looks like a good alternative but quite unstable. Maybe too bleeding edge for me.

And yeah, testing is a bad idea apparently. So I'll stick with stable.

[–] sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 day ago

Just a reminder for those that don't know, "unstable" is pretty damn stable. The term just means that things are updated, similar to a rolling release. I've been running unstable for decades, and although I do remember having to fix it a few times, I can't remember how many years ago the last time happened. Run listbugs when upgrading and read the warnings. If they apply, hold off for a day or two. That happens 3-4 times a year. That's it.