Hello Debian users
 

I have been using Linux long enough to have some personal preferences,
and Debian is my linux system of choice. I'm not sure why it took me so long to get to Debian, maybe I just assumed that since I was familiar with Ubuntu and Mint, Debian was just another of the same. (wrong)
I can honestly say that Debian is the only Linux system, which the more I use it, the better I like it. I spent about a year learning Slackware,
it's okay but for me it reminded me of doing things the hard way.
Ubuntu was okay, if you can stomach the 'we know better than you'
attitude. Mint was nice but the trolls over at the Mint forum soured
me on everthing Mint.
I really like the everything works aspect of Debian, plus the availability of the root account, which a lot of distro's have disabled.
Other than the initial install questions regarding the non-free firmware
and setting up a local mirror, there has been no need to ask a lot of questions as everything works very well.
Unlike many linux users, I do not hate windows and use it regularly
as I have a lot of Windows specific software. But Debian rivals Windows with the ease of which you can configure your printer and surpasses Windows in the area of media playing as it comes with a
DVD player and Windows 10 does not. (another $14.99 please). Yeah I know you can get some free ones but I haven't found any that I want to
use. Anyway I'm here, using Debian and enjoying it. Some 20 some years
after it's inception.

Welcome! Hope you to continue to enjoy Debian. I've been using it quite some time, and while I have tried to get my feet wet with other distros have always come back to Debian full time. For me, it's APT. As far as I'm concerned, there is no better package manager. Although after dabbling with Fedora 25 I kind of liked some of dnfs features (some which even wajig lacks), you'd still have to pry the A, P and T keys from my cold, dead hands.

I knew GNU / Linux by Debian. From the beginning I chose a distribution that was not easy to handle and out of the primitives. Today Debian is simple if I compare APT, for example, with the package management that Slackware does. Currently I use it with Slackware without graphics environments but having them available and in them I have installed third party software that I need to use, only the necessary ones. Debian is a big distribution, I think of the most beautiful. I have also tried Ubuntu but it is too tender for my personality, so at the first hour I left it. Additionally, I have reserved some 120GB to install Windows 10 and only use it for two purposes: play on Steam and perform tasks that need some software from Microsoft or another owner. GNU / Linux is like the beautiful bride that everyone wants to have but this time, also intelligent.

:v :)

Slackware and Debian are my two favorite distros. I like stability.

I do like Mint--it's Ubuntu done right, but haven't visited the Mint forums, so I haven't the same experience that you report.

I agree with OP about accessibility to the root login. I have never quite understood the *buntus' sudo fetish and have not seen a rationale for it that I would consider convincing.

One of the things I particularly like about Debian is that it allows the user to determine the exposure level to new and possibly buggy software. If you want bleeding edge, you can use Sid. If you want stability, use Stable. It's three distros for the price of one.

I have access to hundreds of distros for the price of one :cool:
I've poked around with others, but dazzle don't do it for me so I've been hard core Debian for a long time, it's easier to control and get what you want.

Thank you all for the comments, it's nice to hear the 'why's and whatfor's' of what people like about
Debian.

Hello guitarguy -- hope you learn from and have fun using this site :).
Another Debian fan here who took a similar route, via Ubuntu and Mint. I, too, got fed up with the "we know best" and when things like the graphical non-free driver installation tool didn't work properly (before I learned to ignore things like that and just use apt).
I recently reinstalled Sid in an attempt to fix an issue I then found to be caused by dependency problems in the repositories. I'll admit I was frustrated at the time but on reinstalling I remembered how easy it is to install Debian even with the few little quirks in my setup. Having to use Windows 10 for a while until the issues were worked out also helped me realise how much I miss just being able to apt-get install something when I spent ages trying to find safe sources of applications for Windows (still don't know whether they were safe or not).
I don't completely hate Windows either (well, perhaps 8) but it feels so restricted compared to Debian or, indeed, any other Linux.
I'm another who's toyed with Slackware and now and again I'll try to install but then I get impatient and don't want to spend ages getting things like Steam installed so give up for a while. I think I'm just too lazy but Maybe one day....

Sudo is actually a wonderful tool that I hope to learn to configure correctly.

This should give you fine tuned elevated privileges specifically to individual users. One may need to add users to a system,for instance, but nothing else. Users could add packages but not remove packages.

The problem with sudo is that in the default configuration is that you are doing nothing but getting full root level access. There is no point to that at all using your user password. It is neither safer for the user nor anywhere near as secure as using a root account with a strong password.

As configured out of the box sudo, to me, is nothing but a tool for the lazy and deminishes security.

Linux is a multi user system and should be managed as such even though there may only be one user.

There was an article I had found on the web and thought I had bookmarked it, but apparently I had not. It went through sudo in detail for setting up fine grained control of the system. I hope I can find it again, and I'll share it - and hope that if you should come across it first you'll do the same.

Was it this?

It was not a PDF, however in scanning it, the content looks similar. Saved. Thank you.

Just out of interest, and with no disrespect to the Linux Mint forum, what do you mean by the "trolls" there.

I just did a Debian Stretch Netinstall with parts of LXDE components, over the weekend. Using Openbox as my WM & Docky. I think you can't go wrong with Debian and it's not as hard to install as some would say.

Having done several Debian installs, I now find it very straightforward. But my first attempts encountered
some issues, not difficult,just different than the other distros I was familiar with. Now I know what to expect.
I would recommend first timers to read some documentation first, they may avoid some frustration.:)