The Sad State Of Web Browser Support Currently Within Debian

[perpetually high]

Well, Debian is primarily aimed at servers. For desktop, people usually run Debian-testing. Not a fan, personally, but there's room under the Sun for everyone.

I agree, I was one of those that was running vanilla Debian-testing back in 2014. It was great, but Ubuntu is the same but better. That's how I saw it, at least. Ubuntu makes for great servers too, again, because it's debian. All about if you need the extra overhead on servers.

Lastly, if someone is gonna go through the hurdles of trying to get debian-testing running smooth on desktop, why not just go latest Ubuntu and take out all the junk? It's the best option and I've yet to see any evidence of the contrary.

[RealNC]

Are there people these days who use Debian for anything other than as container images for CI build and testing purposes?

[arglebargle]

I'm starting to think that the way user & desktop environments are handled in Linux distros is a problem. The 'deep integration' of installing and running the entire desktop in-line with the OS release seems out of date. I'd like to see a distro use Snaps or something to move the entire desktop environment up into something portable. Think 'Ubuntu Server' and a bunch of layered snaps/containers that provided 'oldstable', 'stable', and 'edge' graphics stacks and desktop environments. Am I thinking too crazy?

+1, This is exactly how we should be using desktop apps these days. Sandboxed and regularly updated apps provided by the app developers rather than distro maintainers are absolutely the future. I wouldn't pick snap, personally, the sandboxing offered by flatpak is a much better choice for user-facing apps. Snap definitely could work for daemons though.

Unfortunately the sandbox systems aren't entirely mature yet so there are still pain points like electron apps refusing to work properly via flatpak.

[tunnelblick]

https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/ works just fine.

/thread

Lastly only idiots and those who love antiquated HW run Debian on the desktop. It's not a desktop distro.

Way to start a civil argument, calling other people idiots. What the hell is this forum...

[tunnelblick]

Are there people these days who use Debian for anything other than as container images for CI build and testing purposes?

Yes. And if you would read the thread you would know about it.

[avem]

Way to start a civil argument, calling other people idiots. What the hell is this forum...

I didn't call anyone specific an idiot

But I find it quite illogical and borderline idiotic to insist on running a distro which is so ill-equipped for anything related to the desktop.

You wanna run Debian? Fine, just stop whining about the choice of software or its versions. You made a conscious choice of running Debian. End of discussion. Period.

[bug77]

I agree, I was one of those that was running vanilla Debian-testing back in 2014. It was great, but Ubuntu is the same but better. That's how I saw it, at least. Ubuntu makes for great servers too, again, because it's debian. All about if you need the extra overhead on servers.

Lastly, if someone is gonna go through the hurdles of trying to get debian-testing running smooth on desktop, why not just go latest Ubuntu and take out all the junk? It's the best option and I've yet to see any evidence of the contrary.

I believe debian-testing is more up-to-date than Ubuntu. I've been on Ubuntu for probably more than 10 years, but I moved on because of old packages and getting tired to hunt for PPAs. I was on Kubuntu actually, packaging outdated Qt versions didn't do it any favors.

[Phil995511]

Are there people these days who use Debian for anything other than as container images for CI build and testing purposes?

Personally I love the fact that Debian only updates every 2 months, except for security issues. It's a perfect distro for a laptop or workstation.

[perpetually high]

I believe debian-testing is more up-to-date than Ubuntu. I've been on Ubuntu for probably more than 10 years, but I moved on because of old packages and getting tired to hunt for PPAs. I was on Kubuntu actually, packaging outdated Qt versions didn't do it any favors.

Ok we'll call the latest Ubuntu and debian-testing a wash then, because you can always use flatpak, snaps, AppImage, or simply compile from source to get the latest app/library you need. Very rarely am I finding the need to do this. Using barely any ppa's these days. Kisak PPA for Mesa and a few others.

Debian just has no character, no soul. I like it, just find it very boring. And I can make Ubuntu just as fast, so if speed is not an issue, I really have no reason to use debian over Ubuntu. One is the subset of another, but not vice versa.

[Brisse]

I believe debian-testing is more up-to-date than Ubuntu. I've been on Ubuntu for probably more than 10 years, but I moved on because of old packages and getting tired to hunt for PPAs. I was on Kubuntu actually, packaging outdated Qt versions didn't do it any favors.

It varies throughout the season. When Ubuntu starts development on a future release they base it on Debian testing if I recall correctly. Usually, when a fresh twice annual Ubuntu version is released, it's usually slightly ahead of Debian testing, but since it only receives security and bug fixes for the next six months, Debian testing tends to run past it. That is unless Debian is closing in on a new stable release which usually means freezing testing and unstable for half a year or so.