In the world of Linux distros, there's always brash young newcomers who get a ton of attention.
But then you have the classics. And few distros are more classic than Debian,
the great grandparent of so many popular distributions today.
Some might even call Debian boring, but is it?
[chiptune intro music, big guitar hit at the end, followed by paper tearing sound]
Greetings, and welcome to another exciting episode of Veronica Explains!
I'm Veronica, and today I'd like to talk about Debian,
one of the most influential Linux distributions available today.
Debian is one of the oldest Linux distributions on the market today, with an initial release in 1993.
Really? 1993?
That means Debian is 30 this year. [Aging Millennial Sigh]
Wow. I'll give Debian the same advice my friends gave me when I turned 30.
Listen, here Buster. Get into the habit of Stretch-ing now. You might
feel like a Bookworm today, but if you act like a Potato
all decade long you might Slink into a Wheezy funk by your 40s.
Hamm it up if you want to, but whatever you do,
don't just Buzz along hoping to Squeeze out a Bullseye.
Anyway, as far as Linux distros are concerned,
Debian tends to be on the conservative side of things.
Far from a rolling release, Debian releases a new major version about every two years.
They number each major release, and then assign it a name based on Toy Story characters.
I suppose Disney’s going to have to pump out some more Toy Story
movies at some point just to keep Debian afloat!
As a result of the conservative approach in Debian, you can typically expect the software
to be a version or two behind what you might find in a rolling release such as Arch or Tumbleweed.
Take KDE Plasma for instance. At the time I’m recording this,
KDE Plasma is on version 5.26. But in the current supported Debian, they’re still using 5.20.
That’s an over two year old version of the desktop environment.
You might be thinking “this is bad”. But, is it?
I mean, sure, we tend to want recent programs on our machines, so, on the surface, this sounds bad.
But considering that Debian backports major security and bug fixes back through the supported
versions of the distro, in practice, this ends up being less of an issue than it might seem.
If you’ve ever been a sysadmin, a dev, or an Arch user, you know that sometimes it
can be a real challenge to be running the latest version of everything, all at once.
They call it “bleeding edge” for a reason. And let’s face it, not everyone wants that.
I manage servers for a living, and I find Debian’s package release cycle to
be generally fast enough for most of my needs- it might work for you too.
Even on desktop, if you’re not into chasing the latest shiny objects in your distro,
you might be just fine with Debian’s conservative release cycle.
Especially since Flatpak versions of software have come so far.
For those who don’t know, Flatpak is a fancy new software package manager
which can run apps in isolation from the system applications themselves.
In practice, that means dependencies are much easier to resolve, which is
a nice way to get around the older packages sometimes found in Debian.
Installing Flathub on recent versions of Debian is a breeze, and once you’re there,
you can benefit from the vastly newer packages when you need them.
Generally speaking, even though I’m a sysadmin and know my way around apt,
I think that Flatpak is a fine way to get desktop software. It’s probably the
best hope for a “unified” Desktop Linux experience.
And of course, let's not forget, if you don’t want to use Flatpak, in Debian, you don’t have to.
Apt is a fantastic package manager for experts and soon-to-be-experts alike.
Folks who complain online about Debian might not
be aware of just how powerful apt is as a package manager.
You can specify repos, pin packages, and dial in your system just the way you like it.
Of course, that means you'll need to learn how to use apt, but
come on. We learn complicated things all the time.
If you want to take the time to learn apt, you can build out exactly the
system you want. Maybe that’s why so many distros are based on Debian?
Anyway, if there’s a package you need from a backport or an unstable branch,
you can just pin it and deal with it that way. It works at least as well as Arch in my experience.
And, speaking of unstable…
Debian maintains an "unstable" branch named "Sid". This is the development distribution,
and as the name implies, things are going to get weird.
Now, I don't know if folks should use Sid,
if they're trying to get active work done on their machines.
Remember the "Year of Hell" episodes of Star Trek Voyager? That's kinda what Sid
is like- things can rapidly change through no actions that you yourself have taken,
and you could end up in a very different place than you intended to be.
Now, I'm sure you'll all let me know how you personally love Sid in the comments, but still-
I don't recommend it for production work, unless you enjoy spending time repairing broken systems.
Of course, using Sid to learn about package management is a great idea.
Running a Sid system is a great way to get a handle on how Debian works.
I've run Sid on devices for years, just as a way to keep up with what's happening and
to challenge myself every now and again. It gets pretty close to Arch in "package newness",
but it's not a real "rolling release", and shouldn't be taken like one.
You see, in true rolling releases like Arch or Tumbleweed,
the rolling release *is* the product. But in Debian, Sid is *not* the product,
it's more of a workspace; a preview of things which may or may not come to pass.
Right now I'm running Sid on my media center NUC, and it's fine. Things break
every now and again, but oh well- it gives me an excuse to watch less TV.
And we haven't even talked about package security.
Sid does not get security updates from the Debian
security team in the same way the other Debian repos do.
If security is important to you, and it probably should be,
my recommendation is to look elsewhere for your "rolling Linux" fix.
But, if you don't mind fixing your system when it breaks, and you're comfortable with
the security implications of the "unstable" repos, by all means, try out Sid for yourself!
And of course, you don't have to try Sid- I mean, I'm not telling you "stop using Arch, use
Sid instead" or anything like that. I know that's what YouTube wants me to do, but I'm just... not.
Debian's obviously not going to be for everyone, but,
who is Debian even for? And is it right for you?
Well, if you want a rock stable distro,
and don't mind older packages, yes- Debian is absolutely worth a shot.
And, if you want a customizable modern experience,
and you don't mind getting your hands dirty in the terminal, yes, Debian is a great thing to try.
If you want a plug and play distro that
pumps out all new software every few months, Debian might not be for you.
But that's fine!
One of the best things about Linux is that we have so many options at our
disposal. But that shouldn't be surprising at all, because Linux is awesome, and so are you!
It's time once again for "Ask Veronica",
where I answer a question from one of the supporters of my channel.
Today's question is: "what distro do you use on web servers?"
[child counting in a punk song] "1, 2, 3, 4!"
This is a complicated question, as a lot of these are.
Because it really varies from use to use and from place to place, from business to business.
What I'm going to recommend really depends on your own personal needs.
I tend to use Debian for most WordPress sites,
just because I've learned a good workflow for that, and I think it works out for me.
For most other PHP stuff, I tend to use Ubuntu.
Updating to newer versions of PHP tends to be pretty easy for Ubuntu.
Not that you can't do it with Debian, but again, Debian tends to package older stuff.
And Ubuntu tends to make that a little bit simpler for basic PHP stuff.
Plus, a lot of the PHP applications that you find out there, they're written for Ubuntu,
so if I'm installing something for somebody, I tend to use what they want you to use.
Another one that's got my attention for web servers is Rocky Linux,
and really the whole Enterprise Linux family.
I like what I see here, for me personally I don't end
up using EPEL all that well... the extra repos for Enterprise Linux.
My customers tend to be a little bit averse to modifying Enterprise Linux that way.
Whereas Ubuntu tends to make this a little bit easier.
I tend towards Debian and Ubuntu side for most web servers, but (eh) that could change.
And if you want me to answer a question on the air,
head on over to support.linux.mom to become a member. Yes that's a website.