I still don't understand how people can run Debian/Ubuntu. Every single time I have tried my environment in the span of a few months turns into a wet ball of mud with various levels of breakages. It's honestly astounding how bad it is. Once in a while I install a newly released version and naively think "Surely this problem is now fixed". But no, it's terrible.

▲ joe200 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I have used in my life many different Linux distributions: Slackware, Red Hat, Ubuntu, Debian (professionally or privately). My private choice is the only one not driven by marketing: Debian.

You have three main Debian releases:

  SID (if you need to be as close as possible to upstream versions)

  Testing (the same as above but a few days after SID)

  Stable (you sacrifice the latest software versions for insane stability)

Which one did you use ?

And please don't mix Debian and Ubuntu.

Canonical is commercial company driven by profit (and CEO's bonus).

Debian is driven by community and (mostly) engineers.

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rowanG077 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I used Stable and SID. The reason I mixed Debian and Ubuntu is because I perceive the root of shittiness to be apt and how it can, and often does, poison your system.

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joe200 3 hours ago | parent [-]

What do you mean by "poison" ? Be specific. Very specific.

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rowanG077 2 hours ago | parent [-]

running apt install can brick your system in both large ways, it just stops booting. Or small ways, breaking existing packages or a myriad of other ways. On the one hand this is the fault of apt itself. It allows package scripts to do way too much. And on the other hand package maintainers write honestly brain damaged scripts a lot of the time.

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joe200 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Sounds similar to my experience with other systems (like Red Hat). Amazing - you've just realised that IT systems don't always work. Welcome to IT world !

	▲	rowanG077 8 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		"welcome to IT world" is just dismissive and needlessly aggravating. Just because systems can break doesn’t mean we should throw up our hands and accept the terrible state Debian package management is in. Debian-style package management has specific architectural issues, combined with maintainers writing poor package scripts, that make breakage seem far more common than it should be.

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3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[deleted]

▲ nineteen999 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Back in the 1990's I was fond of it for the community spirit, the attention to detail, the way things "just worked" even it had a particular take on some things. Over time it felt like it became burderned with design-by-committee decisions, maintainers leaving and abandoning packages faster than they could replace them, and just a bit too political.

▲ marysol5 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I've lived on Debian since day dot, never really had an issue. Biggest gripe with Debian is that it's /too/ stable!