Debian for everything.
this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2026
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Yes ! I don't get why debian always seems to be forgotten outside of its server use. I have been running it for 2 years now (homelab, laptop and desktop).
Beyond none of its branches actually satisfying my preferences, I feel like the way it handles major version upgrades is way too involved. I suppose it makes sense; it's paying back the accumulated debt of a couple years worth of bliss...
Having said that, my experience on Fedora Atomic is (almost) equally blissful without requiring any of that whenever a major version update strikes.
Don't get me wrong; I definitely do believe Debian has its uses on desktop Linux. But I can't shake off the feeling that they're definitely more niche compared to say Fedora.
The upgrade issue is exactly why I don’t like Debian-based distros for my desktop
I love Debian, I use it as desktop and it's installed in all my machines, but it has some problems/quirks that makes it hard to recommend it for desktop usage.
First one is that it doesn't have sensible defaults, the OS expects an user that is an admin, one that will configure things to his liking. I would consider this to be a feature, if it wasn't for the second problem, the documentation. The documentation is wayy too dated, lots of pages in the wiki haven't been updated since Debian Buster days!
A better recommendation would be probably a Debian derivative like MX-Linux. They are more opinionated, but as far as i know it, it comes with better defaults and offer newer guides, documentation, etc.
Debian is nice & boring, but I have had issues with how old its kernel and software versions are. 6.12 isn't too bad for Trixie, but previously it was really terrible. When I was running Bookworm, I ran into plenty of situations where software I was compiling or getting from outside the repos (for niche software), wasn't backwards compatible to the library versions Debian provided.
No hate for Debian, but it just doesn't work for a lot of people. However, these days I would go for Debian over Ubuntu 10 times out of 10.
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Debian for everything I need to not fall over, CachyOS for computers I want to fiddle with.
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I did the same thing. Settled om Baazite
Me too, on all my desktop PCs. Aurora on my work laptop. Ublue rocks.
Bazzite is just right for my daily driver. I was hopping around different arch distros for a while, but I had some really weird encounters with btrfs and not being able to recover after kernel upgrades. Happened to me 3 times in the span of 2 years.
I have been on this Linux jam since 1996 with a CD copy of Red Hat that came with a magazine (Byte, maybe?). In 2018 I made the jump to Debian based distros specifically because I got tired of the surprises. Now my lab runs LMDE. The only thing more stable and boring is Debian Stable itself.
Like you said, I want to focus on my projects, not have the OS be my project.
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Debian for servers and fedora for desktop for me.
Some people I will put on Mint for desktop use, if they are super non-technical.
I love mint and I'm at least a little technical. Although I'm still mad I couldn't get fedora working on my laptop.
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I fell for the Arch/AUR trap for a while, but I got tired of spending my weekends debugging file manager crashes instead of maintaining my home lab.
What sort of file manager crashes were you having?
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I also settled on fedora with kde but the fans in my laptop keep spinning up every few seconds, even when locked. It’s very annoying.
Is your computer Lenovo by chance? I experience the same with a Lenovo laptop. I could figure out some twewks to calm it down a little bit, but it's still running quite often despite a minimal load.
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What is it with everyone going to Fedora? New Ubuntu apparently.
Fedora is solid these days, well the last few years. It's been so easy and everything is up to date, not lagging behind lke Ubuntu.
Ubuntu been awful since the beginning, always buggy always needing to be rinstalled at some point.
It lives on hype alone. I would choose anything over Ubuntu.
Fedora recently provided some exciting developments in the Linux world, and it's genuinely interesting to follow.
It's also reasonably new and reasonably stable, which is often so much of a pain point to balance.
Also, I mean, it is the distro Linus himself prefers.
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I don't get it, but I also haven't used Fedora since like 2007. I settled on Ubuntu for a while then jumped ship to Arch, and maybe for the first time I haven't been wondering where I'd go to next because something frustrated me with the os lol
You know? Like, there's zero friction with Arch, I feel like. It's just out of your way.
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I just swapped over yesterday to Fedora from Ubuntu. It’s been a good experience so far! Except for installing nvidia drivers, still working on that
Shouldn't be difficult. Add the rpmfusion repo and install drivers (with akmods that handles everything when the driver / kernel updates). Instructions on the rpmfusion web site. After that, setup dnf-automatic and you're done.
Why do distros make that so difficult?
# pacman -S nvidia
# systemctl reboot
Good to go. 🚀
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Don't get comfy, I used to be fedora, then debian, then arch. Mint + Cinnamon is my final resting place.
Fedora (Silverblue in particular) was the end of my distro hopping journey too. It’s just so pleasant to use and it’s comfortably up to date. I also like its tendency to push newer technologies.
I've stuck with Debian on my server and EndeavourOS (Arch, btw) on my PC. Both have been rock solid.
This is the way.
Luckily for me, I switched from Cachy to Fedora kde right before the AUR attacks started happening. Fedora honestly feels like home to me now. I customized it to have a very Gnome like workflow, and its working flawlessly for me.
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Selinux
Rootless podman networking
These things are awful on their own to comprehends for those of us without comp-sci degrees, but fedora has me boxing with them more than I expected and fuck everyone involved with that!
Agreed. Fedora is great. Although I do prefer gnome.
What makes you prefer Gnome? To me, it always felt too simple, as if they're treating the user like a child learning how a computer works. I have the same issue with MacOS too
same reasons as OP. I want my desktop OS to be simple, and I focus on my homelab
I could make any de do what I want, but gnome is closest to what I’d build out of the box. And that’s a very simple interface. I particularly like the finger gestures on my laptop touchpad. Once you train your brain, you zoom between desktops and programs on a single screen laptop equivalent to multiple monitors.
Additionally, I’ve found a few simple extensions that I’m sure have kde equivalents, but I’m a creature of habit. Grid is awesome, makes window tiling and snapping awesome. Caffeine for keeping things alive. And a few others. Mostly though it’s just speed of use - especially on the laptop.
One thing though I hate about gnome though is its high dpi monitor scaling support with Wayland when gaming. There’s four or five really dumb things it does. Sometimes it’s easiest to just change the resolution to what you want prior to launching the game.
Isn't gnome the default DE on Fedora?
Yes, in one of their two main releases. The other default KDE plasma.
I'm on bazzite
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