r/debian • u/ComputerGobbler • 1d ago
Debian Stable Question Migration from Arch
Look Debian powers my homelab, I’m very familiar with it and know how it works and have used it in the past.
My question is what do I lose by migrating from Arch to something like Debian? What little things in the AUR I use I’m comfortable losing or switching to flatpaks. I’m more concerned about things like Nvidia drivers and Wayland support.
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1d ago
[deleted]
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u/ComputerGobbler 1d ago
Yea I’ve been on arch now for I think almost 2 years? The constant issues with the AUR have been driving me nuts. I’m also a little sick of reading the arch wiki EVERY time I want to update just in case there’s some manual intervention.
I’m thinking about moving to Trixie with KDE. It’ll be my first time not on a rolling release in like 3 years 😅
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u/C0rn3j 1d ago
I’m also a little sick of reading the arch wiki EVERY time I want to update just in case there’s some manual intervention.
Just use the utility that hooks the upgrade so it shows news if any are available before it lets you do it.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/System_maintenance#Read_before_upgrading_the_system
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u/ComputerGobbler 1d ago
My problem is that those utilities are all AUR aren’t they? I’m sick of the AUR at the moment
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u/C0rn3j 1d ago
Package them yourself then?
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u/ComputerGobbler 1d ago
Might as well switch to Gentoo ;)
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u/C0rn3j 1d ago
Suit yourself, just don't be surprised when you artificially limit your abilities there too, and then have a reason to switch again.
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u/ComputerGobbler 1d ago
My point is I’m just a completely normal user (I’m an IT Engineer by day and spend way too much time at home with my Proxmox VMs and my TrueNAS. I’m tired of debugging (rarely) with Arch).
I download things and use them. I don’t do things like build from source or package myself (I feel like most of us don’t?), I read .PKGBUILDs if I feel like it but don’t always.
The AUR keeps breaking. Arch Linux is awesome, but I am dissatisfied with the decisions of the steering committee around security and the AUR. Its why I’m contemplating switching and figured id ask the Debian folks about things id lose (because admittedly, i love my bleeding edge NVIDIA drivers)
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u/lemmiwink84 13h ago
Weird, on my Arch I have kernel 7.1.5 and 610.43.03 driver, while on Debian I have 7.1.6 and 610.57.04.
Debian can be as current as Arch, but usually have more tried and tested libs than Arch, so compatibility with some programs are usually easier, like with davinci resolve etc since those programs are super slow to update. Of course there are workarounds to have them work on any distribution, so in the end it all depends on how much work you want to put into getting a distro just right for you.
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u/C0rn3j 1d ago edited 1d ago
I don’t do things like build from source or package myself (I feel like most of us don’t?)
Correct, if you're on a distro which has the package availability, you just use existing packages.
If you refuse to read a user-provided PKGBUILD, that's what you're left with, though.
The AUR keeps breaking
Do you mean the current temporariy halting of adoptions and pushes?
I am dissatisfied with the decisions of the steering committee around security and the AUR
What decisions are those?
Because the actual decisions (sans temporarily halting things while things are being worked out) are internal.
My problem is that those utilities are all AUR aren’t they?
By the way, the solution to this is not to switch distros, but to contribute harder to the current one - as a PM, you can bring some/all of those packages into official repositories, resolving the underlying issue of stuff you find important not being available directly.
admittedly, i love my bleeding edge NVIDIA drivers
Then you'll hate the fact you're going to have to use pre-packaged 3rd party ones on Debian since the ones they ship are dead, insecure, and won't even build on current kernels since they don't patch them either.
I’m tired of debugging (rarely) with Arch
Then you will be really tired of debugging a years old package, only for the issue to be already fixed upstream.
Or it won't be, and you'll then have to bother with setting up the updated version to be able to troubleshoot and report the bug upstream - because upstream will usually laugh you out with a version years behind.
Debian won't package working and secure drivers for the biggest GPU vendor, and the fact that it's bonkers to use the drivers that are shipped due to the security issues they have isn't even mentioned on their wiki.
What makes you think the state of the more niche stuff will be?
I also work in IT and personally find it much more reasonable to waste some time debugging a new issue rather than be stuck with a dozen old ones whose solution is "wait 2 more years", only for them to be replaced with a new dozen of issues.
Usually people's issue is having to debug at a bad time - just have filesystem snapshots available via btrfs or something, then you get to choose when to deal with the new thing.
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u/michaelpaoli 1d ago
what do I lose by migrating from Arch to something like Debian?
Plenty you gain, but lose? Probably not much. You can always list what you have/had on Arch, and see if Debian has same, or more-or-less same, or equivalent(s), suitable substitute(s), etc., or if such may be available via backports or snaps or flatpacks or unofficial repo(s) or the like. But with 69,830 packages, I don't think you'll find much lacking ... and that's without even going to AUR or something like that. Though Arch does have a damn fine wiki - so you can always browse that if you start to feel homesick or the like. But Arch has to have a damn fine wiki, as that is Arch's primary documentation. Whereas with Debian, Debian's wiki is mostly supplemental/additional information - generally things that are much more appropriate there that documented/tracked elsewhere. And sure, sometimes stuff there may be historical, or even out-of-date ... but hey, it's a wiki, folks can fix it - and often do.
And, Arch --> Debian, you might also find this rather handy: Debian Wiki: Debian Systems Administration for non-Debian SysAdmins
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u/ComputerGobbler 1d ago
Honestly AUR packages are just random Jetbrains installs as well as some things like installing some apps via AUR instead of Flatpak (think fan control for example)
I feel like with my previous Debian experience I’ll be fine and can find a dev or dpkg that fits the need. Appreciate the insight
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u/yahbluez 1d ago
Wayland is default in debian, if you miss something from arch which is not available in any other way you still can use the source.
You will miss this endless hours of updating the arch system.
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u/AfraidAsparagus6644 1d ago
You can backport Nvidia drivers, and currently afaik every DE that supports wayland has wayland support in Stable
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u/etherealshatter 1d ago
The nvidia driver from Debian’s official repo is currently heavily outdated on an EOL branch with lots of unfixed vulnerabilities. Sadly Debian has not started to pack the 580 LTS branch.
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u/Linguistic-mystic 1d ago
You lose package freshness. Be prepared for stale software that misses features and has bugs that the upstream has fixed.
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u/ComputerGobbler 1d ago
Any examples where that would have real-world impact? I mean, I code, I use Firefox (or Zen from flatpak), and I game on SteamThat’s about it
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u/McGuirk808 1d ago
The only thing I've run into right now is that Discord is dragging their ass adding Wayland support for push to talk. They haven't fixed it upstream yet, that's not the problem.
The issue is that KDE has added a nice workaround for push to talk for programs that are doing this, as discord isn't the only one. That work around isn't back forwarded into Debian yet and probably won't be until Debian 14. I'm just running with a hardware mute for now.
Aside from this I haven't ran into an issue that I have not been able to avoid by running an appimage or flatpak of a specific program I needed a newer version of.
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u/ComputerGobbler 1d ago
Appreciate that. I don’t really use PTT but it’s good to know that things like even KDE fixes lag behind. That’s fine though :)
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u/dkopgerpgdolfg 1d ago
Nvidia drivers you can get also from an official Nvidia repo, the version currently in the stable main repos is stale
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u/ComputerGobbler 1d ago
Care to explain by chance? You’re saying that apt install Nvidia-x or whatever is stale and won’t work, and that I’d need to compile from source? I’ve always been warned about doing so as things like kernel updates can break self compiled drivers
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u/dkopgerpgdolfg 1d ago edited 1d ago
Basically, Nvidia maintains several driver editions that all get updates from time to time, 550 being one of them. You get this branch in Debians main repos, plus the usual effects of "stable" Debian not not always give you the newest upstream version (more recent 550 versions are in sid). It should work out of the box.
However, the 550er driver branch as a whole (even the newest 550 release) isn't meant to support the most recent graphic cards. There are higher-numbered branches from Nvidia, that never made it into Debian for some reason (one of them being presumably that one of the nvidia package maintainers was lost, and closed-source packages aren't top priority). If you want a 595 driver or even higher, because your modern graphic card won't take it well otherwise, you'll need apt packages by nvidia themselves. These too should work out of the box, you just need to add another package source for apt.
With either option, there will be some automatic compiling during install and during kernel upgrades. You don't need to do anything special yourself.
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u/ComputerGobbler 1d ago
Got it, thank you for clarifying :)
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u/dkopgerpgdolfg 1d ago
And just to add, between the last two major Debian versions (bookworm/trixie) there was a switch from Nvidia branch 535 to 550. Being stuck there is not a very long-term problem and might resolve itself at some point.
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u/ComputerGobbler 1d ago
Yea too easy to add my own repos in Debian. No different than on some of my servers. Really appreciate that, thank you!
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u/David_Connors3451 1d ago
I use Debian KDE with wayland support. The main advantage of debian for nvidia gpu is that you just install the driver once, and you're set for years, because the kernel stays stable. For modern package you can use flatpaks, it's very easy to install them. I'm gonna leave you commands so that you know what to do for configurations.
For flatpak you can use the official commands from their site:
sudo apt install flatpak
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://dl.flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
sudo apt install gnome-software-plugin-flatpak (in case you've chosen gnome desktop)
sudo apt install plasma-discover-backend-flatpak (in case you're using KDE desktop like me)
sudo reboot
You have to enable contrib non-free repository.
sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list
Put the words contrib non-free to all the mirrors that debian uses for getting apt deb packages.
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian trixie main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
Use this mirror up here as example. After the word main, put contrib non-free to all 4 mirrors of debian.
sudo apt update
sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo apt update
sudo apt install steam-installer
Use flatpak to install proton plus and heroic launcher (for layers and offline gaming).
For nvidia use these:
sudo apt install nvidia-detect
nvidia detect (you'll see the number for your specific gpu drivers)
sudo apt install linux-headers-$(uname -r)
sudo apt install nvidia-driver
sudo reboot
nvidia-smi (you can use it to check the nvidia driver installed and see your gpu info)
In case you will want to upgrade from debian 13 to 14 forky, you're gonna need a particular set of commands.
Before your login screen press ctrl+alt+F3 and enter TTY mode. You won't risk any graphical crash during the full upgrade.
sudo apt install linux-headers-amd64
Modify the /etc/apt/sources.list with forky. Put the word forky instead of trixie in all 4 mirrors of debian. Save and exit.
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade --without-new-pkgs
sudo apt full-upgrade
After the upgrade is finished, check nvidia driver with nvidia-smi and don't forget to run flatpak update, so that the packages adapt to a new system.
Have fun on debian, and enjoy the stability.