I'm somewhat concerned what my next Distribution of Linux should be, although I like Debian by the end of the release cycle its usually getting rather long in the tooth, and with Ubuntu making moves to drop (or at least sideline) Xorg in favour of Wayland and forcing their own gnome shell on users I'm wondering what choice I'm left with...

I've tried Debian SID out on a separate partition before now and been bitten by it - so I know I want stability, but having said that I'm also kinda spoilt by the freshness of Ubuntu's packages.

Yes in a years time I could install and reconfigure Ubuntu to work the way I want my computer to, rather than the way Canalonical want me to work, but I'd rather have the best of both worlds - freedom and up to date-ness

I've found rpm to be a sub optimal package manager so would prefer to avoid disros relying on that weak point.

Given those constrains - what distro would people suggest I have on my spare distro partition before migrating from Ubuntu.

Hello,

I'm currently running Linux Mint Debian Edition 64bit and am very pleased with it. It's a rolling release based on Debian testing. Been running it for a couple of months now and very pleased with it. Give it a try, I'm sure you'll like it.

Kind regards,

Eric

I did have a quick look at that when it first came out I'd forgotten ! I'm glad its still going! defiantly one to look out for, do you think its still experimental? or do you think it will get long term support?

Hello,

Since it's a rolling release based on Debian testing I doubt sincerely there will be long term support for it That wouldn't be logical. When it first came out there was only a 32bit version, now they have also a 64bit one. I don't consider it as experimental at all, it runs quite stable using the latest packages from testing.

Kind regards,

Eric

Arch Linux is the undisputed king of "rolling release" distros in my opinion, if you are looking for a distro that always gives you the latest applications as its primary goal (as opposed to the development branch for a stable distro such as Debian Testing/Unstable).

If you want to stay within the Debian family, and you think Stable is too stable and Unstable is too unstable, then the obvious choice is Testing (or a distro based on it). In addition to Debian Testing itself I would recommend giving Linux Mint Debian Edition and MEPIS a try. You might also give Aptosid a try if you're feeling adventurous; it is basically a "stabilized" version of Sid.

Another option is to stick with Debian Stable but learn how to update individual applications as needed for work/play, using tools such as backports, compiling from source, pinning from other repositories, etc. This is what I've personally chosen to work with these days--a stable base platform tweaked to my needs--the best of both worlds as far as I'm concerned.

Don't forget that you can search at Distrowatch for all distros based on Debian: 129 at the current count!

Slackware.

A couple of things need to be noted here.

Ubuntu isn't rushing into Wayland just yet, it is working towards it though. While Unity will be the Ubuntu default for 11.04 (Natty) you can easily swap to Gnome Panel if you so desire.

LMDE is just Debian Testing, sorry to all the LMDE users out there but when all but one repo is Debian then all it is is Debian with a couple of add-ons. I have used LMDE and while I think it has its little niche i.e. giving Mint users another option other than a fork of a fork (LM 9-10 etc being a modified Ubuntu which is a modified Debian), it is just Debian with a Live installer and some nifty Mint packages. Mint actually does not recommend updating to all available updates, kernel updates are not advisable according to Mint's philosophy so if your on the original LMDE you will be stuck with kernel 2.6.32 unless a kernel update is given a level 1 or 2 status which is highly unlikely. You can of course accept all update levels but why use LMDE then unless you like Green and a couple of nifty packages?

Debian Stable (currently Squeeze) can be kept up to date and actually more up to date than LMDE if you want simply by enabling the Backports repository. The only time it will be a bit slower on updates is when Testing (currently Wheezy) is in freeze. Just so you know LMDE also slows down updates at that point. So you can have your stability and up to date packages with Debian Stable just by enabling backports.