Taking this opportunity to personally thank you for making a good logo, I absolutely love the Debian swirl! There are so many boring geometric or single-letter logos out there, the details and texture of the swirl is just so good.
Simple and recognizable. Exactly what a logo is supposed to be. I think it's the best logo in all of OSS. Basically the Nike swoosh of OSS, everyone else has to put the name of the software on the logo so people will know what it is. But you see the swirl, and you instantly know it's Debian without any explanation.
It was tied to magic smoke! But a different of kind. The original requirements called for two logos, one for restricted use, and one for general use. The one that’s being used for general use now was meant to be only for restricted use. The original had a genie bottle from which the swirl came out, the concept was that something very powerful had been unleashed onto the world, free of charge, that stood to change the world. I was inspired by Neil Stephenson’s story The Hole Hawg of Operating Systems - Unix.
Mint has so far been the only distro that had 100% of my laptop working. There are other systems that come close, even past 99, but there's always that one little annoyance. Not with Mint.
Yes, I'm an Nvidia user on Ubuntu (soon to switch to something else I think). The issue is the drivers on Wayland suck. Routine screen tearing with dual monitors (even if the second one is disabled in GNOME Settings). It also gives me issues with hardware acceleration for OBS captures. Had I been planning ahead I would've gone with AMD, but I got the 3070 for a great price during the shortages so ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Edit: to be clear, it's fine and usable with one monitor, but still annoying. Switching to X11 gives me a whole different set of issues that just isn't worth the tradeoffs. I still play games with no fuss with one monitor, it just sucks that I have framerate issues running OBS at 1080p30 capture with a 3070
And most importantly you have options. Once I had issues after updating the driver, but Mint makes it so easy to just go back.
I use Debian now, but that driver thing I am jealous of.
Nvidia drivers are the exact reason why I switched back to Windows a decade ago (from Fedora 20 or something, can't remember). Granted it was another era. But back then, it simply didn't work. I never tried again
tried it but I quite like how mint looks so I tried it with cinnamon and god default cinnamon is ugly and I dunno how to get all the mint theming so that was a deal breaker for me
Apparently you didnt read about the update process.
What you do in debian is simply beautiful:
You rock stable and once a newer package is required, you install from backports.
When a the package goes to a next stable version, you can remove the backports. It will transition automagically.
I started my whole Linux experience with Ubuntu 6.10. IIRC Compiz Fusion or Beryl was the shit back then with the 3D cube effect and the windows going off in flames when you close something.
Ubuntu was a fantastic distribution to start early on. Especially in the pre-10.x days there weren't many beginner friendly ones. Your alternatives were Debian with very outdated software, SuSE which was kind of OK, Fedora which was also quite unstable and lacking packages (remember hunting RPMs on the old RPMfusion?) or Ubuntu. At some point I'd outgrown Ubuntu and moved on to greener pastures. Nowadays I'm not sure I'd be recommending Ubuntu to new users, Fedora is quite good and without all the snap store shenanigans. Even Debian installation experience is not too bad and it's not lacking too much in software.
I also feel less worry about System76 trying to capture market share and then do a heel turn to monetize on that market share. We all know exactly where the money comes from for System76, and it's not selling support contracts
The other distro I tried out was openSuSE, but idk which version. It was shipped with KDE3 or 3.5, and man, I loved it. RPMs and YaST was something to get used to, especially after Ubuntu and I was like... 15-16 yeara old, barely just into Linux land so broke the shit out of them pretty regularly. But I learned a lot.
Then KDE4 and Plasma came out and I hated every pixel of it.
Honestly, I'm starting to appreciate the "Just works" mentality a little more as I start to shy away from ricing. I'm going to stick with non-systemd distributions, but my DE will likely be cinnamon next, since it's easy to use and I don't care about making it look pretty.
I feel Void + a simple DE is an amazing combination for people who want to get work done without paying too much of attention to the OS, except the part of the OS they are using actively (tooling + applications)
Why non-systemd distros? I have heard of not-systemd distros like Artix and Devaun (I think that's how you spell them), but I never bothered looking into why some people prefer them.
Systemd is easier but also slower, it dose a lot more than just a init system and many dislike that. I have used both and it's cool to see E.g. PostmarketOS boot but systemd works really well nowdays too and the actual backlash is mostly from it's early days.
It's philosophical: I want an init system, not a gargantuan binary blob that does who knows what and apparently removing it breaks completely unrelated parts of my system just because this little shit seems to have a hand in its operation
Ubuntu is based on Debian Testing (their beta pipeline) and run by a for profit corporation. Ubuntu makes significant changes to Debian to get it to where its easy to use for end users. It has in the past made choices that were extremely unpopular in the open source community, and will make those decisions again in the future.
Never much liked ubuntu but admittedly, they did a lot for userfriendliness in the Linux space and a lot of great beginner (or people who don’t want to deal with stuff not working) friendly distros like mint, pop, etc are based on it, oftentimes debullshittet (e.g. neither use snap by default)
Yeah I don't want to take away from that Ubuntu's installers completely changed the Linux game. I just feel like the rest of the space caught up on the ease of use, and I'm not actually sure Ubuntu offers up that much these days
I would liken it to more like if Debian was a shot of whiskey, Ubuntu is like a whiskey sour. It still has whiskey as a base but enough ingredients have been added and changes have been made that it's its own thing.
Yeah, snaps are truly bloat. I always stayed away from Ubuntu, mainly because of Canonical. Debian is amazing stability wise. Definitely a good choice. I like to live a little more on the edge though, so I use NixOS (it’s great, I can update without ever worrying about breaking my system).
Same, I tried Menjaro and Ubuntu before I discovered Mint and actually stuck with Linux but Debian is a fantastic Distro too, I really like Fedora nowdays tho!
Debian is one of the best Distros ever and a pillar of the Linux world both for desktop and server users but I probably wouldn't have managed to use it as my first distro ether.
Non of cannonical's bullshit, more barebones then mint, the only distro i know of where you can almost seemlessly move from stable release to rolling release and back without re-installing, very big software support due to proximity to ubuntu, big repositories, stable is stable AF, you know it will keep being supported for many more years, much more flexible then the DE based distroa like ElementryOS and DeepinOS.
What? Its super stable, super easy to install, and makes it easy to run purely free software, and contributing to it contributes to all downstream distros
A quick run through of some popular distros and reasons you might pick Debian instead of them
Ubuntu - directed fully by a for profit corporation, might at any time go the way of RHEL (Linux Mint already has a mint spin based on Debian in case Canonical shits the bed). Narrower impact on downstream code bases than Debian (though only barely). Ships by default with non free blobs that you must opt out of.
Linux mint - very narrow downstream impact. Not as flexible for how you can set it up as Debian (switching desktop environments is strictly unrecommended, and there's no real reason to run it as a server)
Fedora - relationship with RedHat is concerning, stability is not there at all
RHEL-alikes (Rocky, Alma, etc) - uncertain future, though it does look like SUSE is going to help stabilize them. Downstream impact is relatively narrow, though you'd be surprised
Arch - harder to install, not as suitable for production environments for stability reasons
Manjaro - horrible stability (worse than arch), not as flexible (like linux mint), holds security patches back, almost no downstream impact
Slack - harder to install, package management is annoying
Kali - not for installing on your machine
Gentoo - see arch
MX Linux - a little more flexible than Mint, but otherwise, see mint
I'm just now migrating to Debian after years and years mostly using Mint. I like apt and I want to get away from Ubuntu based distros. Why not go to the source? It's definitely a little rough around the edges compared to Mint, and I may well end up using LMDE once they update to Bookworm.
That's cool. I think I'm going to do it. I'm so comfortable in Mint having used it forever. It's a bit of a chore configuring Debian to where I want it. I don't use a touchscreen, so that Cinnamon issue you have wouldn't bother me.
As the designer of the Debian logo I approve of this :-)
No way, it's like I just walked past a celebrity
Can you imagine being the one person who downvoted them?
The username does align, but that is not proof in itself and could explain the downvote. For the purposes of this thread, I believe!
Ha! Tell that to my kids!
This is all the validation I need
Taking this opportunity to personally thank you for making a good logo, I absolutely love the Debian swirl! There are so many boring geometric or single-letter logos out there, the details and texture of the swirl is just so good.
Thank you. I really appreciate all the compliments!
It's a beautiful shade of red, and the intricate little details across the swirl. It's a nice change to the bland, corporate logos we're used to.
🫡Thank you for your service
Wow I'm starstruck! Unsurprised to find the Debian gang here, but still very happy about it!
We are everywhere! So glad to see Debian going on strong after all these years.
I miss the days when I was more involved (even though I was always on the side lines)
It's an honor
Thank you
and they say we don't have celebrities or important people on Lemmy
Maybe they are all just hiding in plain sight or something.
I've admired this logo for 20 years. Debian has the best logo.
Thank you! That made my day!
Thanks for your work, it's an awesome logo.
Simple and recognizable. Exactly what a logo is supposed to be. I think it's the best logo in all of OSS. Basically the Nike swoosh of OSS, everyone else has to put the name of the software on the logo so people will know what it is. But you see the swirl, and you instantly know it's Debian without any explanation.
Thank you! I am very proud of it and that it’s attached to a project and a community that has stood the test of time.
Thanks for the kind words good fellow!
It's an honor to meet you
Likewise!
That's cool. Got any proof of that?
https://www.debian.org/logos/
That’s me mentioned at the bottom. You can contact me at the link!
https://www.reddit.com/r/debianinrandomplaces/comments/ok5ui4/hi_all_i_am_the_guy_who_designed_the_debian_logo/
Wait, so the swirl wasn't related to the "magic smoke" leaving electronics components when they get fried? Somebody lied to me.
It was tied to magic smoke! But a different of kind. The original requirements called for two logos, one for restricted use, and one for general use. The one that’s being used for general use now was meant to be only for restricted use. The original had a genie bottle from which the swirl came out, the concept was that something very powerful had been unleashed onto the world, free of charge, that stood to change the world. I was inspired by Neil Stephenson’s story The Hole Hawg of Operating Systems - Unix.
Here is a link to the article:
http://www.team.net/mjb/hawg.html
And here is a link to the two original designs:
https://www.debian.org/logos/
Cheers!
Do firefox next. They need it.
You’re a legend!
Mint has so far been the only distro that had 100% of my laptop working. There are other systems that come close, even past 99, but there's always that one little annoyance. Not with Mint.
Its just so simple. I see people complaining about getting Nvidia drivers to work on Linux, with Mint it takes like two clicks.
Yes, I'm an Nvidia user on Ubuntu (soon to switch to something else I think). The issue is the drivers on Wayland suck. Routine screen tearing with dual monitors (even if the second one is disabled in GNOME Settings). It also gives me issues with hardware acceleration for OBS captures. Had I been planning ahead I would've gone with AMD, but I got the 3070 for a great price during the shortages so ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Edit: to be clear, it's fine and usable with one monitor, but still annoying. Switching to X11 gives me a whole different set of issues that just isn't worth the tradeoffs. I still play games with no fuss with one monitor, it just sucks that I have framerate issues running OBS at 1080p30 capture with a 3070
And most importantly you have options. Once I had issues after updating the driver, but Mint makes it so easy to just go back.
I use Debian now, but that driver thing I am jealous of.
Nvidia drivers are the exact reason why I switched back to Windows a decade ago (from Fedora 20 or something, can't remember). Granted it was another era. But back then, it simply didn't work. I never tried again
It Just Works. I started with it and have never felt any need to switch.
I feel like pretty much every beginner has used Linux Mint. It's like getting a handheld tour where you can ask anything and nobody will judge you.
I wonder if that's changed much recently with relatively beginner friendly distros like EndeavorOS and Garuda.
Debian is light, debian is fast, and debian just works. Debian 🔥
Best of all debian is stable.
tried it but I quite like how mint looks so I tried it with cinnamon and god default cinnamon is ugly and I dunno how to get all the mint theming so that was a deal breaker for me
Is it possible do downgrade a central package without apt asking if you want to uninstall your entire system yet?
Apparently you didnt read about the update process.
What you do in debian is simply beautiful:
You rock stable and once a newer package is required, you install from backports. When a the package goes to a next stable version, you can remove the backports. It will transition automagically.
Take this and put it in your pipe!
This is the kind of meme that makes me both happy and sad.
Happy becuase it's so funny, but sad because nobody I know personally would get it lol.
Is that a live action version of the Incredibles?
Yes, it is!
Oh no...^^
I started my whole Linux experience with Ubuntu 6.10. IIRC Compiz Fusion or Beryl was the shit back then with the 3D cube effect and the windows going off in flames when you close something.
Ubuntu was a fantastic distribution to start early on. Especially in the pre-10.x days there weren't many beginner friendly ones. Your alternatives were Debian with very outdated software, SuSE which was kind of OK, Fedora which was also quite unstable and lacking packages (remember hunting RPMs on the old RPMfusion?) or Ubuntu. At some point I'd outgrown Ubuntu and moved on to greener pastures. Nowadays I'm not sure I'd be recommending Ubuntu to new users, Fedora is quite good and without all the snap store shenanigans. Even Debian installation experience is not too bad and it's not lacking too much in software.
I think PopOS is the new beginner friendly, just works, distribution. It's what Ubuntu should have been.
I also feel less worry about System76 trying to capture market share and then do a heel turn to monetize on that market share. We all know exactly where the money comes from for System76, and it's not selling support contracts
The other distro I tried out was openSuSE, but idk which version. It was shipped with KDE3 or 3.5, and man, I loved it. RPMs and YaST was something to get used to, especially after Ubuntu and I was like... 15-16 yeara old, barely just into Linux land so broke the shit out of them pretty regularly. But I learned a lot.
Then KDE4 and Plasma came out and I hated every pixel of it.
Honestly, I'm starting to appreciate the "Just works" mentality a little more as I start to shy away from ricing. I'm going to stick with non-systemd distributions, but my DE will likely be cinnamon next, since it's easy to use and I don't care about making it look pretty.
I feel Void + a simple DE is an amazing combination for people who want to get work done without paying too much of attention to the OS, except the part of the OS they are using actively (tooling + applications)
Why non-systemd distros? I have heard of not-systemd distros like Artix and Devaun (I think that's how you spell them), but I never bothered looking into why some people prefer them.
Systemd is easier but also slower, it dose a lot more than just a init system and many dislike that. I have used both and it's cool to see E.g. PostmarketOS boot but systemd works really well nowdays too and the actual backlash is mostly from it's early days.
It's philosophical: I want an init system, not a gargantuan binary blob that does who knows what and apparently removing it breaks completely unrelated parts of my system just because this little shit seems to have a hand in its operation
Because SystemD seems to be intertwined in the workings of many, seemingly unrelated components, especially since it was supposed to be an init system
Boots up fast tho.
Don't know why I should care about what happens at boot up other than how long it takes.
As I said, it's philosophical. Most people don't need to care since it works. I care because I hate systemd and like simplicity
I use void now with xfce and i3. But I'll be honest. I still like Ricing.
Ah, slackware.
Glad to see that debian does get some love over here...I always felt like a pariah in linux reddit comunities
Debian is bestian
As a Debian user, I agree. :)
Jo I don't know much about Linux distros, but isn't Ubuntu just Debian with some extra features?
Ubuntu is based on Debian Testing (their beta pipeline) and run by a for profit corporation. Ubuntu makes significant changes to Debian to get it to where its easy to use for end users. It has in the past made choices that were extremely unpopular in the open source community, and will make those decisions again in the future.
Never much liked ubuntu but admittedly, they did a lot for userfriendliness in the Linux space and a lot of great beginner (or people who don’t want to deal with stuff not working) friendly distros like mint, pop, etc are based on it, oftentimes debullshittet (e.g. neither use snap by default)
Yeah I don't want to take away from that Ubuntu's installers completely changed the Linux game. I just feel like the rest of the space caught up on the ease of use, and I'm not actually sure Ubuntu offers up that much these days
I would liken it to more like if Debian was a shot of whiskey, Ubuntu is like a whiskey sour. It still has whiskey as a base but enough ingredients have been added and changes have been made that it's its own thing.
I love this description
Exactly. Leaves a sour taste in your mouth ruining a perfectly good whiskey.
Isn't Debian just GNU/Linux with some extra features?
A distro's a distro. You could rip dnf out of Fedora, install apt if you like.
It basically comes down to the default settings/packages shipped, and philosophy.
Ubuntu adds a much different install experience, snaps, and some features good for enterprise out of the box.
I've not had a good experience with snaps tbh. Made me switch from Ubuntu to Debian for server stuff.
Yeah, snaps are truly bloat. I always stayed away from Ubuntu, mainly because of Canonical. Debian is amazing stability wise. Definitely a good choice. I like to live a little more on the edge though, so I use NixOS (it’s great, I can update without ever worrying about breaking my system).
Ubuntu is just Debian with snap.
My first was red hat... Like 23 years ago
Me too. I think I probably still have the CDs it came on somewhere.
POP! OS has got it going on man.
I absolutely cannot disagree.
Danny devito in a Sia wig, love it
That is clearly Ongo Gablogian, the famous art collector.
Charmed, I'm sure.
Let's all do the Lindows Rock! And now that I have dated myself, i'll see myself out.
Debian ftw
If Debian would've been my first contact with Linux distros, I don't know if Linux would still be my main OS nowadays.
Same, I tried Menjaro and Ubuntu before I discovered Mint and actually stuck with Linux but Debian is a fantastic Distro too, I really like Fedora nowdays tho!
Debian is not bad per se, it's just less accessible than other distros.
Debian is one of the best Distros ever and a pillar of the Linux world both for desktop and server users but I probably wouldn't have managed to use it as my first distro ether.
yeah manjaro ain't bad at all
Has anyone ever used Xandros?
I have not sorry
That's a trash can...
Air conditioner.
Take away nostalgia and there's little reason to pick Debian over other distros
Non of cannonical's bullshit, more barebones then mint, the only distro i know of where you can almost seemlessly move from stable release to rolling release and back without re-installing, very big software support due to proximity to ubuntu, big repositories, stable is stable AF, you know it will keep being supported for many more years, much more flexible then the DE based distroa like ElementryOS and DeepinOS.
I dont use debian nowadays but its frickin great.
What? Its super stable, super easy to install, and makes it easy to run purely free software, and contributing to it contributes to all downstream distros
You can sorta say that about most popular distros though
Only sort of and not fully though.
A quick run through of some popular distros and reasons you might pick Debian instead of them
What about openSUSE???
And automatic QA testing insuring a higher level of stability compared to arch. Good defaults with byrfs and snapper out of the box too.
What are your thoughts on PopOS?
I'm just now migrating to Debian after years and years mostly using Mint. I like apt and I want to get away from Ubuntu based distros. Why not go to the source? It's definitely a little rough around the edges compared to Mint, and I may well end up using LMDE once they update to Bookworm.
I'm on LMDE right now. Its pretty great. My only complaint is with Cinnamon being 2 minor versions behind I don't get meaningful touch gestures
That's cool. I think I'm going to do it. I'm so comfortable in Mint having used it forever. It's a bit of a chore configuring Debian to where I want it. I don't use a touchscreen, so that Cinnamon issue you have wouldn't bother me.