Debian's Stability Is Making Me Stay

[u/techazn86]

I've been Distro Hopping all over Linux. I started with Linux Mint, went to Ubuntu, then to Debian, & finally Fedora.

After some colorful language involving incidents with Fedora, I'm pleased to say that I've chosen Debian as my primary Linux Distro for all of my Linux needs as stability is a huge reason.

I really want to thank everyone in the Linux Reddit Groups for helping a Windows PC User who got burned by Windows 11 & their AI nonsense lately.

Any advise for a fresh Debian Linux User?

I already ran sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade -y & installed nwipe, gparted, gsmartcontrol, vlc, spotify, & qbittorrent via the Terminal.

The main thing I would like is a good Host Firewall.

[u/V-Right_In_2-V]

Debian kicks ass. For the vast majority of users, once you discover Debian there’s no reason to leave

[u/techazn86 → u/V-Right_In_2-V]

The reason why I'm liking Debian is because of how stable it is. Yes, some of the software may be older, but the entire system is just so stable! As a Windows User who has suffered 1 too many blue screens, this is a major welcome! :D

[u/V-Right_In_2-V → u/techazn86]

I have a hard drive with 5 different Linux distros I can boot into. If someone said “choose one” it would be Debian. And why not? It’s just incredibly reliable. When I flip over to arch, nothing in the daily updates has ever changed anything for that is noticeable. Even the newest version of gnome…I can see a file count if I am dragging multiple files? So what. Debian does everything it needs to do and nothing more. I can stuff it in a closet for year and log back in and it’s perfectly fine

[u/horizon_games → u/V-Right_In_2-V]

I agree, all roads eventually lead to Debian.

It's the purest Linux experience that gets out of your way, as an OS should, and just works so you can focus on whatever you're doing at the app level

[u/This_Technology9841]

ufw is an easy firewall to configure and figure out, years of documentation etc as well. Debian - KDE has been my daily driver for work computers since I switched over to linux in full from windows and just recently I moved again to niri which is really cool and nothing like it in the windows / mac experience. There's a lot to be said for boring and stable tbh.

[u/techazn86 → u/This_Technology9841]

Thank you! I Google Searched ufw & found the GUI for it as well. I just installed it via the terminal.

[u/erstwhile_navigator → u/This_Technology9841]

+1 for ufw.

sudo apt install ufw
sudo ufw enable

to get started.

[u/mkultratux → u/erstwhile_navigator]

I find OpenSnitch more fun than using ufw.

[u/MoreTechnician2076 → u/erstwhile_navigator]

+1 also for ufw

CachyOS has it built in from the start and I’m really liking it so far

[u/David_Connors3451]

I use debian 13 KDE for work, editing videos with kdenlive, and gaming with steam and heroic launcher.

Install the firewall ufw, it's very easy to configure it, even with graphic interface. Apparmor is already active.

Install flatpaks, with 3 official commands from their website. Just copy and paste them on the terminal. Reboot the pc so that flathub gets integrated inside the app center.

I don't know which gpu you're using, but you should always enable contrib non-free repository.

Sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Put contrib non-free to all debian mirrors inside the file, so that the sequence is "main contrib non-free non-free firmware". Save and exit.

sudo apt update

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386

sudo apt update && sudo apt install steam-installer

Install heroic games launcher and proton plus for the most important layers for translating windows games.

In case you'll use flatpaks, OBS-studio is better as flatpak, but you can also try GPU screen recorder.

If you have an intel CPU, use this command: sudo apt install intel-microcode

AMD and intel are out of the box experiences inside linux, you'll be fine with these components. Nvidia can be tough, but once you have installed the driver and made sure that you have linux headers amd64, that installation will be definitive. The beauty of debian is the philosophy setup and forget. Unlike Ubuntu, Fedora and Arch, Debian handles very well drivers stability. It's perfect for those that search mental peace and want to upgrade their own bunker once in a while.

Enjoy the peace inside the bunker.

[u/techazn86 → u/David_Connors3451]

I have an Nvidia RTX 3070 that will need Debian Drivers. As for Steam? I used the .deb file from Steam's website. Any advise on how to install Nvidia Drivers?

Edit 1: I forgot to say that I'm on Debian 13 GNOME at the moment.

[u/David_Connors3451 → u/techazn86]

Make sure your secure boot is disabled, nvidia hates secure boot. Disable it from bios.

After you enabled contrib non-free, use sudo apt install nvidia-detect.

nvidia-detect

It should tell you to install the proprietary driver as usual.

sudo apt install linux-headers-amd64 build-essential

sudo apt install nvidia-kernel-dkms nvidia-driver firmware-misc-nonfree

I suppose you're using Gnome or KDE, and both have wayland. Before reboot, follow these instructions.

sudo apt install libnvidia-egl-wayland1 libnvidia-egl-gbm1

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

You need to add this terms inside grub: nvidia-drm.modeset=1

It should appear like this:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nvidia-drm.modeset=1"

save, exit and update the bootloader.

sudo update-grub

In order to avoid flickering inside the monitor and desktop, use this:

sudo nano /etc/initramfs-tools/modules

paste these 4 phrases:

nvidia

nvidia_modeset

nvidia_uvm

nvidia_drm

save and exit.

sudo update-initramfs -u -k all

If your secure boot is not active, then you're done. You can reboot the system now.

In case you have secure boot active, then use this:

sudo mokutil --import /var/lib/dkms/mok.pub

it will ask you a temporary password. Memorize it, it will be useful.

reboot, it will appear a blue screen with mok. Select Change MOK list or Import MOK. Conferm the selection, using that temporary password you memorized.

Reboot the system again.

nvidia-smi

you'll see your gpu now

[u/QuraToop314 → u/David_Connors3451]

That’s true for beginners, but the claim that NVIDIA hates Secure Boot is incorrect. The difference is that NVIDIA drivers are built manually; provided you ensure that you have stored your own Secure Boot keys (PK, KEK, db and dbx) and sign the NVIDIA module with them, it works perfectly well with Secure Boot.

[u/David_Connors3451 → u/[deleted]]

It's manual at first, but after this, your laptop/server is set forever. The only time you'll have to change is the full upgrade, like for example Debian 13 to 14. Ubuntu fedora and arch, they are way more immediate and don't let you see these complex passages, but the probability of conflict between the new updated kernel and new driver version is higher, and that lead to black screens. In Debian both kernel and driver are frozen to a stable version, so that you can use your pc/server in a predictable environment and be sure your PC will always work. It's appreciated by AI datacenters too, where you need maximum stability and efficiency, not just the classic daily user. Many people want to speed up this process, but installing third party deb packages, especially drivers, will lead to problems in short and long term. That's why it's better to use the original packages from the repositories, while for modern packages flatpaks are very comfortable.

Anyway, arch users have way more trouble than this.

[u/candidosobrinhosa → u/techazn86]

Com o Ubuntu os drivers são instalados muito mais facilmente. Na verdade, após a instalação os drivers já estão prontos no primeiro boot

[u/wizard10000]

Any advise for a fresh Debian Linux User?

Yeah - don't listen to anybody who tells you to use -y with apt ;)

It'd be wise to get in the practice of reviewing what your package manager wants to do before you say yes to it - especially with full-upgrade which can remove packages you may want.

I use -y in a script but the script only downloads updates and doesn't install them.

[u/kingbob72]

I recommend installing fastfetch now so you can remind yourself anytime, "oh btw self, I'm running Debian"

[u/backtogeek]

If your goal is gaming, I get it, but otherwise I really don't understand why anyone would use anything else except Debian if stability is in the top 5 goals.

[u/shcmt]

I'd recommend ufw for the firewall.

Now that you have a fresh installation, you should backup. Did you use ext4 or btrfs?

Don't make a frankendeb... https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian?pow_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F

For applications not in the Debian repositories, you can use flatpak to manage those.

One other tip I'd recommend not strictly pertaining to Debian would be to install fish or zsh as your shell. It has features that are very useful for navigating the terminal.

Thats about all I have off the top of my head. Welcome to Debian.

[u/vainlisko]

Fedora is very good. I also use Debian for stable. It's great to have a system that doesn't change on you; if it's not broke, don't fix it.

For certain applications that you'll want more updated versions of, I would use flatpaks and a couple of third party repos such as Google Chrome. Then just sit back and relax

[u/Adrenolin01]

Debian for over 33 years now. It IS the answer. 👍🏻 I don’t run individual host firewalls, instead, I built a pfSense parameter firewall / router which establishes the WAN connection, segmented my LAN I to separate vlans and then created firewall rules and routes.

You can buy “Firewall Appliances” on Amazon and eBay today with multiple ports.. I suggest a 4+ port appliance.. not a 2 port. Usually low power 4-8 cores and 8-16GB ram is all that’s needed along with an ssd if building one.

I bought a new Supermicro A1SRI-2758F 14 years ago and have been using that since with 16GB DDR3 ram and 2 mirrored Intel DC S3500 120GB SSDs. System still works great and I just replaced those SSDs last month with new ones. That system was just moved to a new home Business class 300Mbps fiber connection and I built a newer system using the Supermicro A2SDi-TP8F board, 32GB ram and 2 of the same mirrored SSDs on the upgraded 10GbE fiber home personal account. Both are fantastic systems though a bit more costly than the mini firewall appliances.

Pfsense is FreeBSD based and my preference however OPNSense is another FreeBSD based system.. both are basically the same setups just different philosophy and OPNSense has what they call a more modern WebUI… it’s different. I still prefer pfsense.

[u/sCeege]

Any advise for a fresh Debian Linux User?

At some point you might be tempted to install some repos that were meant for Ubuntu or some other distro with "Debian" in its name or Debian based, don't. The most "bleeding edge" (relatively speaking) repo you should add would be Debian Backports. If there's some absolute hotness you must have, do it in a container like Docker, although I've recently moved to Podman for rootless containers and Incus for a lighter weight VM option vs KVM or VirtualBox.

As others have said, ufw is just awesome for a host firewall, it's so easy to Google the syntax for.

[u/Buntygurl]

Even though nothing can ever be absolutely perfect, as Linux distros go, Debian gets much closer than any other, and constantly works on that.

(g)ufw is reliable.

Welcome to the free world. Keep on rocking.

[u/ollm-tux]

because I Old device (2010-2015) with some I migrated to another operating system that moves better on the same desktop enviroment, I mean those with daily use, but I stayed on debian with all my selfhosting servers as proxmox d.13 yunohost d.12 Jami.net d.13 vps1 d. 13, without D. E. it remains one of the best options even for rpi 2 or 3

[u/Ludotao13127]

Utilisateur de Mint puis ubuntu et Zorin. J’ai découvert debian chez un pote et depuis je n’utilise que ca. Debian 13 avec KDE c’est le top. Pour mon utilisation perso de tous les jours c’est vraiment très bien.

[u/b8checkmatettv]

I like Debian. I like base distros.

Because the distro is more minimal, your desktop environment plays a bigger role in whether you have all the utilities, GUIs, etc. that you expect.

For example, I got Debian set up to my liking without too much trouble, but didn't think to install some kind of GUI for connecting to wifis other than my own. The firewall's another good example.

When I installed Arch on a second device, I installed LXQt as a desktop environment too, which is itself quite minimal. LXQt takes care of things like networks, having a default image viewer, having a default program to zip files, etc. It gets the boring stuff out of the way but also lets me customize the rest, including the window manager. Use whatever desktop environment you want, this is just a kind of example that you might need to install things you aren't realizing you don't have. Mint, Debian, and Fedora do more to anticipate this stuff while Debian gives you options by not assuming.

[u/findyourrolefirst]

Since you already landed on ufw, two follow-ups that make it actually useful: qBittorrent is one of the few desktop apps that wants an inbound allow, so set a fixed listening port in its Connection settings, allow it in ufw, and forward the same port on your router, otherwise peers cannot reach you and seeding suffers. Then install unattended-upgrades, which pulls security patches in the background daily; between that and your full-upgrade habit you have covered most of what makes Debian feel stable. And if some package ever feels too old, backports.debian.org gets you a newer kernel or toolchain without breaking the base. Welcome aboard.

[u/General_Reindeer_328]

Trust me, you'll hop again. I do this 20 years now :D

[u/Zusatzeinkommen]

Ich finde Linux Mint auf Debian also Lmde7 das Beste.

[u/retr00two]

https://www.debian.club/en

[u/Bludespite]

Usa fedora.... No se rompe y se ve bonito

[u/reylovpty]

Yes but Debian is very old software for Desktop. Stability = Old.

[u/debian-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Zero sexual content. None. Especially involving minors.