Hi,

I've been using Ubuntu LTS for the last two years as my main driver, both at work and at home. I've been happy with this, but I'm somewhat annoyed of bugs interrupting me in my work now and then. Mainly issues with Gnome, Remmina, XFreeRDP, LibreOffice and Firefox. This happens most often after an update.

To save me the time (and procrastination) of troubleshooting, I'm considering Debian, which I hear is rock solid.

I've Googled this, but I'd like to hear your experience on this.
What are the biggest differences between these two distros?
Is it true that I have to tinker a lot to get Debian working on my PC (Thinkpad T480s)?

Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks! :-)

Debian comes in three varieties:
1) Stable is for servers and for cautious desktop users. It gets updated only for security issues and serious bugs.
2) Testing gets updated for all kinds of reasons including new functionality, but only after the change has been road-tested in Unstable.
3) Unstable gets updated continuously and is effectively a rolling release. You never need to upgrade it to a new release. But things may break and you are expected to know how to report bugs and help fix them.

Ubuntu is based on the Unstable branch of Debian but optimised for newbies. Debian is much more mainstream. I used both Stable and Testing for many years and found them both pretty good-tempered. I don't think you will need to do any serious tinkering.

2 members found this post helpful.

You can expect being bored. When you don't have to tinker or fix something regularly it's a snooze...

That it is, but the UX isn't as polished as on Ubuntu, and you may need to install or configure more stuff manually, depending on your needs.

This is not entirely true, and never was.
Ubuntu is based on all sorts of things, mostly Debian testing and unstable.
https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/how-s...le-branch/3316
https://askubuntu.com/questions/7013...ble-or-testing

From Debian handbook if I recall correctly:
"You as the system administrator are responsible for your system in the end. The long stability history of the Debian system is no guarantee by itself."

Some of the instability on Ubuntu is my own fault, adding ppas that make more changes to my system, introducing new functions and new bugs.
But some are not. Like issues with both Remmina, Gnome and Firefox. I'd like to have software that has undergone better testing.

I'll make wiser choices in the future and it starts with Debian.
Thanks for giving me the answers I needed. I wish you a nice weekend.

I'll give you a few more choices:

1) If you DO want a cutting edge distribution, are willing to endure occasional, but not frequent issues, are vigilant about backing up and testing the back-up so that you can actually restore a potentially broken system to a completely usable state, may I offer up a Debian Sid (unstable) alternative that, in practice, functions very well for me, and I've had very few issues with it over the years: siduction.

As long as you watch the updates and avoid updating in the most volatile times (right around major releases), siduction can and does work well for years, and it's also a very fast and efficient system.

2) A very stable implementation of Debian Stable that DOES offer backports and distribution specific updates, a clean interface and a helpful user community is MX Linux. While not quite as snappy as siduction, it's also a reasonably efficient system, compromising only a little bit of speed in the interest of appearance and stability features.

3) If you have very old hardware, a fantastic alternative for users of old computers is a family friend of MX Linux, the well-engineered, highly efficient, resource conservative implementation of antiX.

All three of these are high quality systems with plenty of common packages from Debian, but also some well-crafted engineering of their own to fine tune the features and provide three very distinctive, useful alternatives to Debian.

Debian has long been one of my two or three favorite distros. I think you can expect an excellent experience.

Keep in mind that, if you use Debian stable, you will not be bleeding edge, but I have not encountered a situation in which I was unable to get done what I needed to get done because I did not have the latest bleeding edge version of a bit of software.

I tend to prefer Debian Sid ("unstable"). I've used it off and on for over a decade and have had it break only one program through an update. That was PysolFC. I just found another solitaire game.

I used Debian for several years for my domestic stand-alone
'workhorse' after migrating from Ubuntu.
HOWEVER ...
Earlier this year (2022) I decided to upgrade a laptop and
also a desktop 'tower', both running Debian Buster, to
Bullseye stable. Various install methods were tried:
-- USB pendrive burned from an ISO using dd ;
-- DVD burned with Brasero from an ISO;
-- 'in-situ' upgrade (altering "buster" to "bullseye" in sources.list
ALL FAILED.
I rescued the situation with a command line installation of Arch Linux.
Good Luck...
D.

To be fair, Debian stable is also based on the Unstable branch of Debian, after it goes thru some testing, similar to Ubuntu.

I offer yet another alternative to Debian, and that is Linux Mint Debian Edition 5. Based directly on Debian Bullseye, with 3rd party and non-free repos. I moved over from Mint 20.x (based on Ubuntu) when it was released, and have nothing but positive things to say about LMDE5.

I still remember the person that sort of "pushed" me into Debian said something similar to this:
"If you break your system you'll get to keep both halves"

Thanks for some very useful tips!
I've not made the jump yet, but I'm getting there .
I'm currently making a config script to change to either Debian or MX Linux .

I did take a look at MX Linux. It's beautiful.
Just wanted to try and install KDE-desktop after downloading the XFCE-edition. It didn't seem to me like it had the same repos as Debian, though. Am I wrong about this?

MX has it's own, plus debian repos if you like.
Check out: https://mxlinux.org/uncategorized/repos-mx-21/

Although this has mostly played through...
Debian Unstable/Sid, from what I had understood, the "unstable" in it's name refers to the library or repository, since it's constantly changing.
It's not the distribution that is necessarily unstable it's self. Though it is not to be considered stable compared to Debian stable ...but generally reliable.
Note, it's not a release since it's never released.