I need newer software. I’m using Debian stable. It’s safe and kind of comfortable, but I’ve come to realize that I actually need newer packages. Debian Jessie on my server were running an ancient version of nginx, which cause me quite a bit of trouble. Had problems applying IPv6 firewall rules in ufw because it wasn’t supported in the ancient version that Debian shipped with. For my laptop, I just want more up to date software. It ain’t cool running a two-year old rebranded version of Firefox. Nor running KDE 4 when Plasma 5 looks so damned sexy. Even Gnome releases fairly often and with interesting new enhancements these days. Using Debian testing only slightly improves things, but I’d still be stuck on KDE 4 and lag behind major versions of most software. I’d really appreciate being able to use the same distro on my laptop, towers, and servers (at home and on DigitalOcean droplets). Keeping Steam would be fun, but I guess that means I’m stuck on Debian.

I’m intrigued by the FreeBSD model where they have a long-term stable base system and userland packages being updated much more frequently through their ports system. As I can’t get the proprietary driver I need (WiFi, Intel graphics, even Ethernet, and others) on FreeBSD, it’s not really a viable option.

Is there a Linux distro following the FreeBSD model? I’m worried about Arch and Gentoo because of the enormous maintenance upkeep these distros bring along. With Debian I can run apt-get update && apt-get upgrade and never fear for the life of my laptop, server, or the rest of my weekend. Which is something that should be cherished and don’t match my two-months experience on Arch at all.

I’ve tried compiling things like KDE 5 and Gnome myself on top of Debian, but the instructions are outdated by three years for both projects and Debian’s packages are too old to be used as build-dependencies. find no blog posts when searching for “how do you compile, install, and maintain upstream kde on debian” which doesn’t give me a whole lot of confidence in the feasibility of such a project.

Is there a distro for me? Can one use the Linux software of today or are regular-but-advanced-users forever stuck with years-old software versions?

This question was first asked on the Linux Voice Forums, but I’m asking here too because of the potential broader reach.

There are two good options:

1. switch to Debian Testing, since you're used to Debian

2. install Kubuntu, which is a little friendlier than Testing, and even a little more up-to-date.

I used the search feature at Distrowatch to find distros with Plasma 5: other KDE distros (OpenSUSE, PCLinuxOS) don't ship with it, but it could be installed. PCLinuxOS is rolling release like Arch, but not quite so bleeding-edge and nowhere near as time consuming.

The packages in testing are still really old. Like, i wouldn’t get KDE 5 or . really any of the packages i want. i’m cherrypicking a few packages from Testing like the graphics drivers; but my experiences with running Testing all the time is that software disappear and remain unavailable for months at a time. Last summer, VirtualBox disappeared for a few months — some weeks later I lost other everyday software too.

While KDE is more up to date than KUbuntu than in Debian or Ubuntu, everything else is as old as with the other distros. Choosing a distro only based on the desktop environment kind of locks you in to one environment too. What if I’d like to use GNOME for a few days?

I think a distro with a stable longterm core Linux system (base system) with a rolling userland would be what fits my desires the best, but have’t found anything resembling it. My experiences with Arch two-years back were a total catastrophe.

Version 5 of the Plasma desktop is in Testing.

Been there, done that! If you got lost during installation, you can always get ArchBang or Bridge, which are simply installers for a full graphical Arch.

If you're using Kubuntu, you can install Gnome from the Ubuntu repo and select it at log-in.

Other possibilities are Debian Unstable or OpenSUSE's new Tumblbeweed version. But remember the old saying about bleeding-edge distros: the only guarantee is that when it breaks you get to keep all the pieces. Double booting with one experimental distro and another stable one as a backup is probably the best solution.

Yeah, Testing + Experimental has Plasma 5.4.1 with Iceweasel 41.0 from experimental and if I recall correctly Libreoffice 5.0.2 in experimental (shortly to be in testing proper where 5.0.1 is currently). I will say, I prefer KDE4 to 5 by a massive amount. Stock vs. Stock, 5 is probably better looking, but there were so many better themes for 4 than there are yet for 5 IMO.

As far as what you're asking for, Arch, Slackware-Current both fit the bill. Linux From Scratch too, if you don't mind doing the footwork. Gentoo/sorcerer/sourcemage can all be kept super up to date, again, if you don't mind how long they take to update.

The reason you can't find what you're looking for in a "stable" distro is because stable distro's test their packages thoroughly before releasing them, which means time passes and they won't have super up to date software. The "bleeding edge" distro's push out the latest and greatest, and generally have a lot of breakage due to this. If you're smart about it, you can run Debian testing/sid without a single issue. You just need to make sure to not blindly go dist-upgrading without checking the warnings first, and sometimes hold packages, or hold off on upgrades entirely for a week or 2. This is going to be the general thing that happens with ANY bleeding edge distro, you need to pay more attention when upgrading, because the distro maintainers don't have the time to do all the testing for possible breaks, so they rely upon the people using it to report breaks. It's the trade-off for running bleeding edge.

You can get some NEWER software using the backports, Iceweasel 38.3, kernel 4.1, and a bunch of other common desktop software that's MORE up to date than basic stable, although not as new as stretch/sid.

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If you want fairly bleeding edge, try Funtoo with the Experimental tree. Most of the packages are git/svn/cvs/mercurial pulls. It won't exactly be stable, but it will be as new as you can get it.

Yep!

/etc/apt/sources.list

then...

btw: its called Debian UNSTABLE

I never recommend Debian Testing, unless you really want to test software. If you want new and shiny, run Sid. It can break, but it's fixed more quickly than Testing, and has the newest and shiniest, and is updated almost daily.

try suse tumbleweed, it's fairly up to date and more noob friendly / hands off than arch. generally speaking, a more up to date distro is a more hands on, intermediate audience distro so you'll need to find the right balance for you. another option I just thought of might be fedora rawhide, similar sort of principle as suse tumbleweed.

Judging by your desires and requirements, your best, or only, option is to use different systems for your different computers. Personally, I would never so much as think of putting a testing system on a server. Nor would I use a high-maintenance system, such as a rolling release. The laptop and desktop are better places for shiny new s**t.

Actually, this thread is a rarity. I usually stop reading when someone calls two-year old software ancient.

Your understanding of the BSD model is not completely accurate.

I doubt you will find one. It is "difficult" to continuously update userland packages and install them on a stable base. It will work for some packages, but what happens when a package requires a newer version of a core library, like glibc?

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I'd recommend him KAOS...

or

http://nixos.org/

After carefully banging my head repeatedly against walls and various hard objects, Ive decided to give Fedora Workstation and Fedora Server a serious chance. I tried installing older versions, f*ing things up, and had no issues upgrading in-place to the most recent stable version. I take that as a good omen. Fedora 22 has more or less all the popular software in recent versions. Looking at the changelogs for many of the packages that interest me, I've found nothing but consistently fast updates and even faster security patch-updates. Ill run it on my workstations uhm, I mean PCs for a week or two and then start migrating my servers.

It should be noted that Im seriously impressed with dnf over apt. It gives better feedback, its commands are more intuitive, and its "Save me Obi-Wan Kanobi, you're my only hope!" options for "I've screwed up, haaalp!" worked remarkably well.

I have heard good things about DNF. I've never used it, but that's because of the underlying OS. While I'm actually certified by Red Hat, I hate it. Their usage of mega-packages instead of meta-packages infuriates me, so that I can't install 1 piece of a group without the entire group. At some point, I need to check if they still do that (I think the one that really irritated me was kdepim, I wanted 1 piece of software, but I despite Konversation, Kmail, and some of the other stuff and didn't want to be saddled with it as well), as I'd really like to run a machine with Fedora just to keep up with managing a red-hattish rpm machine (since Mageia is nothing like Red Hat anymore, nor is OpenSuse).

As far as I understand it you can now choose components using `dnf install` versus `dnf groupinstall`. Maybe I’m misunderstanding the problem, but at my first attempt I installed a … lets say incomplete Plasma Destop because I used `dnf install` to only install a handful of packages.

So I did move from Debian to Fedora and I’m much happier with Fedora as my desktop than I ever were with Debian. I wrote up my experiences with the new technologies introduced to me by Fedora for anyone trying to decide between the two distros.