I Used Debian 12 For 5 Months - Long Term Review

I'm so glad that debian has kept it's installer. It's not flashy but works and works well! Yes, LXDE is supported!

I tried Debian on an older laptop. My first foray into Debian. Took like 2 hours to install. Immediately had an issue with airplane mode being stuck on. The fix was to run RFkill - which wasnt installed. I rebooted and got passed that first issue temp. Tried to install some apps and got a error asking me to switch a CD. Learned VI and edited a file to fix that, took maybe 15 min. Started downloading some more software. During this time the laptop went into sleep mode. When it came back up it was stuck in airplane mode again.. I have had enough of Debian and will avoid in the future.

My first distro is D12. I've noticed that it's a good newbie distro, especially for those that are not comfortable using the terminal. But if you are comfortable using the terminal, it's a bit of a pain. Especially in regard to pip (installing python libraries) and some other admin related features. I also have an issue with bluetooth on D12, very similar to what you described in your video, so it's not just you.
Again, I don't see this is the go-to distro for developers, but it's perfect for the generic user.

I had some issues with Wayland, trying to use gnome with xorg

I can't use calamari because I am allergic to seafood :(

Debian stable = Debian stale 😄

Xfce is fine, sure it looks legacy but you can customise it, make it look better in about 5 minutes
Its perfect out the box as it is

You speak very well thank you

thank you for the long term review, I found this super helpful!

>using Vivaldi
wtf bro! not cool

i still sometimes use dpkg instead of apt for some packages

lxqt is better than xfce and with same memory usage

using debian + lxqt daily

Can you make a video talking about OnlyOffice on Linux?

I have finally come to appreciate debian stable. I do not need weekly updates. Im now using debian gnome and ungoogled chromium. Both clean source. I am coming off a long 4 years of kde plasma kick. If i was to use anything else it would be Arch and no derivatives. Im sure i will be putting it on boxes soon. I tested out ubuntu to see gnome 45 and i am content with 43.6 from debian, but as time goes on it will be tempting to move to TESTING.

Arch users can try Debian sid or even experimental.

Nice review, one nitpick is ABI stability is different from OS reliability, also try out Debian unstable/sid.

I did the reverse way: Long term OpenSUSE TW user, just moved my daily driver to Debian 12 + Plasma KDE. Yeah, it wasn't that good to expert install in order to put subvolumes ok, but I had zero issues after install and my full UX preserved using Plasma.

The problem with bluetooth connectivity is that devices are not supported by the kernel. Debian is very stable witch means that it also uses older kernel. I found about it the hard way. Connecting them on ubuntu of course worked because it used the newer kernel. I might be wrong about this. Will recheck this theory as I haven't checked that on latest debian release (After checking the kernel notes)

Btrfs is what you want? Heh make sure you have a good backup of your data because btrfs is one the most unreliable and unstable file system.

so that's what a nerd looks like

I also recently switched from windows to debian and had problems connecting my xbox controller. It turned out that I had to upgrade the firmware of the controller via windows. After that, I could immediately got it work in debian with the default bluetooth utility.

Debian is the best and on my msi katana only Debian gets me the best power saving. I use custom powertop, tlp and auto-cpu freq settings to get the best battery life. This is the best distro

Great video! Running debian for a long time as I prefer stability over latest packages and as you say single programs can be pinned or you can get them through flatpaks or even snaps. I changed however from Gnome to KDE as it supports better my workflow. I'm running also dual monitor and had issues with them going to sleep. I found hower that switching off source detection on the monitor solved that issue. Another thing I noticed that looking at sleep modes, that suspend to ram was not there only S2idle and Deep. By enabling deep sleep mode in the bios it works like a charm with the energy settings in KDE. It seems to me where it comes down to dual monitor setup that the scan takes place from both ends, the monitor and the system and conflict, however I'm not an expert on that.

I rly dont care package manager i not like pacman becouse i alweys forget what -S or -s or do what. Much i can use arch and i use it meny times but alweys back to fedora Debian or Puppy Bionic : )

Whenever i think of a Linux user, i think of this guy.
Man definitely looks like one.

Thank you for the awesome content. 😎

I recently install debain 12, and for some reason I don't see the option for 2560x1440p even when I tried customizing the boot loader.

I stayed with openSUSE Tumbleweed in the end. But I really thought about using Debian as my main system on my desktop. It failed due to a too old kernel that was not fully supporting my system. But as I wanted my Debian to work quite like openSUSE Leap, with auto snapshots system updates etc. and found it quite overwhelming how my manual steps were required to make that work and finally found an alternative: SpiralLinux
So, if you want all that, nice font anti-aliasing etc. then give that a try. It features the Calamares installer, so not only is the default install way better than the default Debian, it is even easier and looking great. Additionally, a big bonus, SpiralLinux has no custom or own repos, it stays plain Debian, only nicely preconfigured.

I've been using LMDE 6 for about the past week and love it. I am not big on always having to update my system so like the fact there is very little updates.

I also had the bluetooth problem with wireless controllers, but I use Manjaro Gnome. I don't know what fails, I have an A Power controller and sometimes I get it working sometimes can't. Same with Blueman, first it was functioning then some time later just stopped working.

Novice new linux user from windows.... I love mint, great video and look forward to a solid Mint LMDE but I might try Debian.

This is why on my potato laptop i use debian! For example ubuntu is bugged out of the box! a million and 1 issue! even on my main rig ubuntu is crap! almost any distro i tryed was this way really really bad and mostly steam did not work or had major issues even with linux native games! Only debian is stable and works as advertised all the rest is: it works if you invest 20 hours into each issue.

I used arch on and off between windows but Debian testing is always my favorite and I completely cut off from arch

I have always liked the old styling of Ubuntu like the 8.04 edition, early Firefox editions.. it’s just exciting to look at those interfaces. I find the recent designs are boring, flat, not inspiring at all, including the ugly windows.

debian is not a good choice for me like i used it but there are many down sides first of all it is not rolling which means i cannot have access to the latest linux kernels which is required by me since i am developing a system that requires linux kernel 6.5.7 , and if it is possible , it is really complicated to install too so i am not gonna choose this one since arch is not that much unstable i feel nothing stable in debian because it runs into an issue easily , windows well it is already stable and ubuntu is trash it is same as debian so not gonna use that either i have to use arch or gentoo now lol

Nice job!

thank you for that in-depth review

Man, You really hit the nail on the head with this one. You dispelled many Debian myths and misconceptions. By giving a clear and accurate overview of what to expect with SW availability, outdated versions and possible solutions (Flatpak, Distrobox). The extra attrition with BTRFS, bluetooth being finnicky I can confirm has been a Debian issue for quite a while.
Most important of all the target users for it. Great Job!

Boring is good. Debian stable is for people who just want to use their computer. Arch is for people who's main use of computer is tinkering with the said computer and fixing issues caused by the updates.

You are looking SO cute bro 😌

you want the wildside with bleeding edges ... go Debian experimental ;-)

When Debian 12 was released I installed using BTRFS as the fs and plasma as the de.
Rock solid stable with a boot up time of 10-12 sec.
Love it.

Instead of pinning unstable, you can also use backports as well. Not as many packages available, but it's less likely to cause issues and better supported

they got a dark theme installer that 1 is more eye comforting. no idea what u mean by modern or not modern.

use Debian for decades ... testing is the best mix of actuallity & stability

absolute gigachad

I use LMDE on BTRFS and it works fine like mint.