Debian 11 "Bullseye" Cycle Prepares To Begin Long Journey

[Danielsan]

Every time a Debian stable is released the inevitable detractors are ready to fart their non-sense as usual... 🍿🍿🍿

[leech]

If Debian is so nice, how come I never have the patience to put up with it's finicky installer that craps itself in spectacular ways? Is it painful to spend 5 seconds typing in the name of an obscure piece of software I want to compile into a command for my AUR wrapper? Is spending 20 minutes looking for libraries and headers needed to compile it on Debian that much nicer?

Wait... you crap on Debian's installer... but Arch's lack of installer is great? Debian's installer is fine, it's one of the few that actually let you do some more custom things, vs trying to do something custom on Ubuntus or most other installers. Is it as 'cool' as using fdisk/parted/etc? Maybe, maybe not, but it's certainly simpler to set up LVM and Encryption with it. Also, if you're spending 20 minutes trying to find the dependencies / libraries. You're doing it wrong. Hell, most projects list the exact 'apt install <packages>' line you can just copy and paste to get the right ones. The benefit of being the grandaddy to the (arguably) most successful Linux distribution for end user use.

Edit: There is a little secret to Debian's installer. You can hit Alt+F4 (if I recall correctly) and drop out to a shell, edit the partition setup however you want, then continue on with the installation. So yeah, you can pretty much do it the same way you would in Arch.

[Guest]

Wait... you crap on Debian's installer... but Arch's lack of installer is great? Debian's installer is fine, it's one of the few that actually let you do some more custom things, vs trying to do something custom on Ubuntus or most other installers. Is it as 'cool' as using fdisk/parted/etc? Maybe, maybe not, but it's certainly simpler to set up LVM and Encryption with it. Also, if you're spending 20 minutes trying to find the dependencies / libraries. You're doing it wrong. Hell, most projects list the exact 'apt install <packages>' line you can just copy and paste to get the right ones. The benefit of being the grandaddy to the (arguably) most successful Linux distribution for end user use.

Edit: There is a little secret to Debian's installer. You can hit Alt+F4 (if I recall correctly) and drop out to a shell, edit the partition setup however you want, then continue on with the installation. So yeah, you can pretty much do it the same way you would in Arch.

Try installing software that hasn't been packaged yet. Chances are, the developer provided a PKGBUILD rather than creating their own repository for Debian. I've put up with the hell that's known as manually searching for header file packages on Ubuntu, and it took me WAY too much time.

[leech]

Try installing software that hasn't been packaged yet. Chances are, the developer provided a PKGBUILD rather than creating their own repository for Debian. I've put up with the hell that's known as manually searching for header file packages on Ubuntu, and it took me WAY too much time.

Oh, I have many times, and maybe you just know Debian well enough, or you don't really look at the git hubs of software or maybe you just assume that it's the developer of the software providing the PKGBUILD (in most cases it isn't and it's instead some random person doing it, which makes AUR not 'safe' by any standards.)
Even if the exact Debian -dev packages aren't mentioned, they're easy enough to track down.

Arch does have one nice thing going for it, unlike all other distributions, they'd decided they didn't want to bother with splitting up -dev / -devel packages out of the libraries. So you only have to install gtk3, instead of installing gtk3-devel (or whatever). Granted there are pros/cons to this, like on Servers, for security reasons, you wouldn't want to have development headers be present.

[Guest]

Oh, I have many times, and maybe you just know Debian well enough, or you don't really look at the git hubs of software or maybe you just assume that it's the developer of the software providing the PKGBUILD (in most cases it isn't and it's instead some random person doing it, which makes AUR not 'safe' by any standards.)
Even if the exact Debian -dev packages aren't mentioned, they're easy enough to track down.

Arch does have one nice thing going for it, unlike all other distributions, they'd decided they didn't want to bother with splitting up -dev / -devel packages out of the libraries. So you only have to install gtk3, instead of installing gtk3-devel (or whatever). Granted there are pros/cons to this, like on Servers, for security reasons, you wouldn't want to have development headers be present.

In the case I'm mentioning, the PKGBUILD was provided by the developer and mentioned in the README of the project.

[abracat]

Wasn't sure but seems this is much of a Debian 10 thread anyway. Just replaced Debian 10 with Arch and liking it. Need familiarise with new names. Like androd-tools-adb instead of just android-tools.

In the installer everything will notch and if you type one letter you get six. But that solves itself once you install the Nvidia driver.

I tried installing it a week ago with the classic gui installer but ended up having problems with establishing secure internet connections probably not mut related but that is what it will lead you to.

Anyways

Pros
1 Spotify is not out of date.
2 I no longer rely on Aur packages imposing a potential security threat.
3. The Nvidia background corruption is no longer an issue since I'm no longer running gnome 3.32 but gnome 3.30
4. With arch i ended up having more apps at my desktop. For instance cheese can be removed form Debian
5. Codecs are installed by default which makes you do less overkill
6. Better stability.


Cons
1. Takes a longer time to set up than something like arch where you strive to only install what you need.
2. Heavier at startup but otherwise works well
3. I can't find the Suse imagewriter anywhere here. (There's dd from the command line and multiwriter but i like the simple drag and drop tool)
4. less fancy than arch but then you have to add betteer stability in the pro section.

That's about it.

[abracat]

I reversed Debian and Arch... Coming from arch going to Debian.
Also if you install and run nvidia-xconfig for fan control it will return a bluescreen with no options under Debian. Otherwise everything works like a charm.

I know you can't compare the number of packages due to source and docs but I like both Arch and Debian. I've never had to ask for answers and the documentations is really good with the arch wiki

There's a workaround script for the https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php...roubleshooting but at least for me it didn't work all of the time. Making a change of wallpaper in effect and changing it back again if you are fond of your preferred wallpaper a viable option.

Most of the packages i rely upon are up to date in Debian 10. making it a different experience the last time I was on Debian was trying to install xorg and either xfce or gnome 2 manually in an effort not to get too many packages.

So all in all at this date it's a balanced modern distro for the desktop if that's your thing. seems most of the comments here are build upon prior experiences or already fixed experiences whether they are for or against Debian.

[IroLix]

Arch Testing > Debian Experimental
Arch Stable > Debian Unstable
Manjaro Testing > Debian Testing
Manjaro Stable > Debian Stable

In what ways?

[IroLix]

If Debian is so nice, how come I never have the patience to put up with it's finicky installer that craps itself in spectacular ways? Is it painful to spend 5 seconds typing in the name of an obscure piece of software I want to compile into a command for my AUR wrapper? Is spending 20 minutes looking for libraries and headers needed to compile it on Debian that much nicer?

I don't see how the Debian installer be crap or throw issues? It's super simple and just works. Everything is obvious. Just a bunch of clicks to install the OS. I mean, clicking is very easy if you haven't experienced it. ;P