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Debian is fine.
Folks like to complain that the packages are too old, but Flatpak makes that not even a thing anymore for most of us.
You know what I like? That I can pull out a laptop I haven't touched in three weeks and there's little that needs updating.
Debian? It's fine. If you like it, you're fine too.
I just grow tired of comment after comment on my videos picking on Debian for being stable.
"How do you like running Plasma 5.27?"
Just fine. Have you seen Plasma 5? It's still pretty awesome!
@vkc It's wonderfully boring.
@vkc I'm annoyed with every distro's quirks, but I'm the most comfortable with my annoyance at Debian's quirks. Sympathetic to the ideology of the DFSG even when it's burning me, etc.
The main draw for me is something I don't often see in distro discussions: it's very *predictable*. I care more that it's consistent than I do whether it's "good" or "bad"
@vkc Whenever I feel bored I run pacman -Syu and most of the time nothing changes. A bit like playing the lottery but for free! 
(sometimes something breaks. Then I get to invent a solution. Not exactly like winning the lottery but at least it creates ... erm ... emotions?)
@vkc I wrote a post here some times ago explaining that, if I were doing things over, I would install Debian on my father computer rather than Xubuntu. The fact that there is few updates is a pro for him, not a con.
@vkc they did fix the really big problems. the linux ecosystem broadly came a long way toward making customization and experimentation easier.
@vkc Agreed. Debian pisses people off for the weirdest reasons but it just freaking works when I need it.
@vkc Not only is there little that needs updating; but when you do update things, unless you're moving from one major release to the next, it's *extremely* rare that you need to do anything more than just a quick reboot.
@vkc I agree, and personally I absolutely love Linux Mint Debian Edition, because you have a whole selection in the Mint repos that keep commonly used desktop packages like Firefox fairly recent, but all the system packages are based on Debian Stable, so you also don’t drown in updates. It’s the best of both worlds for a secondary/emergency computer for me
@vkc@linuxmom.net use Debian on all my servers
@vkc indeed, this is the way.
@vkc Debian is my jam 
@vkc Preach! It's perfectly fine for 99.9% of use cases.
@vkc stable is a good thing!!
@vkc the part where I get problems with debian (and even ubuntu previously) is when I need software that I need to compile because it's not on flathub, such as scrcpy.
I've previously not been able to build OBS Studio on Kubuntu due to not having access to newer versions of libraries and was getting compilation errors with the older versions.
(aside: I then discovered the OBS Studio build on flatpak eliminates the need for custom compilation and switched to that, loved flatpak ever since)
@vkc I really wanna try Debian Testing with Flatpak and Homebrew.
@vkc How does one manage getting latest development environments on Debian? Like let's say if I needed the latest version of Node.
@stinerman @vkc That's good to know.
@cbleslie there's a few ways to get there, I personally use containers when I need something I can't easily install on my machine. LXC's a reasonable place to start: https://wiki.debian.org/LXC
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@vkc It's funny how subtly/insidiously hostile aggressively updating distros are. New, novel ways you can invest lots of time just to get back to a working computer. If you're into it, cool, but way too many people run a bleeding edge setup who just want a straightforward workstation for ... working.
@vkc
There's no excitement, but also my computer works just the same as last month, which is really all I want from it.
@vkc I had problems running screen recorder flatpaks and audio issues in apps in distrobox because the system pipewire was too old. I had to install pipewire from back ports to fix it.
@that_leaflet good thing Backports exists then! :)
@vkc Sure, but discovering pipewire was the issue and actually installing the backport was a pain (first way I tried wanted to remove imporant packages). And while newer pipewire did fix the OBS flatpak, it didn't fix the GPU Screen Recorder flatpak.
That being said, I also just remembered that I tried the OBS flatpak on Ubuntu 22.04 and it worked there with no tweaks, so it's strange it didn't work on the Debian 12, which is newer than that.
@vkc I remember reading a Linux magazine about 20 years ago or so. There was a column by a guy who was talking about upgrading his kernel to a new major version, 2.4, even though 2.6 was out, because what he wanted from things was stability.
I think about that a fair bit, because knowing what you want and how to get it is a good thing. Stability is a good thing. Not having an application change on you suddenly because you run nightlies... Good thing, IMO.
@vkc been running debian for over 20 years. If they can't figure out how to grab something from testing, sid, or experimental or compile their own if they really need something newer they probably shouldn't be running anything more bleeding edge anyway.
@vkc Yeah, if people like leading or bleeding edge, there are other options. I see Debian stable as an equivalent to AlmaLinux, Rocky or another LTS distribution. For my laptop, I'm fine with being on the leading edge but want/love the stability and consistency of Debian on servers and workstations that I don't want to break-fix often.
@vkc Patience is a rewarding technological habit—in hardware, too. Being one, two years behind the average consumer lets depreciation work in your favor and get the same fancy things cheaper, later.
Super good point about flatpak ^^
@vkc Yup, this is a show of someone who has done very little in the space of it not "just working" and never having had to depend on dependencies to be not an ugly mess. They have strong Dunning Kruger when it comes these things.
@vkc on the subject of stable. After the GNOME bug that has been crashing systems for the past year I have been looking at XFCE.
@vkc
I don't get the mentality of detractors who look at videos (or just the titles) of something they don't run then make a comment to the effect of "because I don't use that then it's no good for anyone else either".
Also I can use mostly GNOME without hating KDE and I can use Ubuntu without hating Arch or whatever.
Perhaps because I was dual-booting for so many years - sure I had preferences without being a "it's this way or nothing".
@vkc Arguments would be packages which have bugs that don't get updated (which is a person by person issue, if you aren't affected, who cares), or people who personally want bleeding edge (which... uh, very person by person).
How dare someone have different opinions or requirements than me!
But sometimes they ship a package that is old and people report bugs to the project directly, and the bugs are already fixed, in a version Debian hasn't shipped yet. And that's annoying for other reasons.
@bisby That's why bugs in software versions packaged by the distribution should always be reported through the distribution's bug tracker first. Let the *package* maintainer decide whether to upstream the report, backport a fix or move to a newer version.
Bringing in a newer version of a package also comes with risks. (After all, it's true that all software likely *has* bugs but only newer versions can introduce *new* bugs. Sometimes it's a "the devil you know" situation.)
@mkj @vkc You are correct. And I agree. But a LOT of people don't always do that. If everyone did the right thing, this wouldn't be a problem. But not everyone does the right thing, and historically it has been a problem for some projects. This isn't a problem for Debian, or for the Users, but it's not a "zero downsides" situation either, it's just that the downsides are for someone else.
@vkc GNOME 43 here! Works fine!
@vkc No argument from me.
I need some kind of stability on my ThinkPad. And I never needed any Flatpaks or Snaps... Generally I rarely need the newest features. I script many things in bash and my filemanager is mc.
I think it's a matter of personal preferences. Some people like it rolling, others like it stable. That's fine.
@vkc to me, unchanging is a strength. Aside from security fixes, I have no desire for the latest updates unless I specifically need them for a package I actually use. Stability is much more important to me than new features.
In short, maybe I should be using Debian 
@vkc one of the things I love about #Gentoo is that it''s essentially the same. As long as you stick with packages that have been marked stable you've got a pretty smooth ride with well-tested software. If you need something bleeding edge it's just a matter of accepting the packages that aren't marked as stable and use those instead. And naturally you can go for all unstable packages if you like living dangerously (and updating often).
@vkc I agree with you about debian. I was a long time Ubuntu (+GNOME) user but I got a new laptop and for the heck of it I switched to Debian. Generally I found (for me) that KDE worked better than GNOME on Debian. KDE 5 has fractional scaling support and the default terminal (konsole) has semi transparency as a basic feature whereas in Debian 12 with gnome the gnome terminal does not easily have semi transparency. Apparently the Ubuntu people modified debian to make that happen by default.
Plasma 6 recently landed in Debian Sid, so the wait for that is finally over, thank goodness.
There's one package I had a notable issue with the point-release model: NeoVim...
Frankly though, that's a result of its community being strongly backed by users of rolling-release distros, and who often don't version their plugins... so, you're effectively required to use one as well if you don't want to write your entire config. from scratch, or deal with compatibility issues from unversioned plugins...
@vkc Always been my distribution of choice.
@vkc time to whip out this ol' gem (Fig. 1).
but seriously, not everyone needs or wants the cutting edge! i have debian (sans GUI) on an old netbook my roommate and i use to fiddle with terminal stuff. it's fine!
it's the toyota corolla of distros. it's boring, it's reliable, it's fine. sometimes that's exactly what you want.
@vkc Agreed. I personally like to be very up to date and the flexibility of other distributions, but ultimately the constant bickering between a lot of Linux users is really unnecessary, especially towards less bleeding edge ones. Just use whatever fits your needs best; it might be Debian, it might not be. The variety is what makes Linux an interesting option for many, there's no need to ruin the fun with bikeshedding.
@vkc "You know what I like? That I can pull out a laptop I haven't touched in three weeks and there's little that needs updating."
Agree, the constant updates on Windows is like a form of malware that stops you using your computer when you want to use it, or even shutting it down when you want to.
@vkc I think Debian is more than fine. Honestly, one of the best traits about Linux community is "to each his own." Personally, I am a proponent of Mint as my "it just works" distro. And Antix makes even a 32 bit potato usable, especially for writing. Find hardware you like running a distro you like and experiment as much as you want.
@Jettisoned @vkc ??? It is still possible to run Debian Potato which is obsolete for more than 22 Years now?
@vkc stability is a really nice thing. Really nice. That's why LMDE has one out of regular Linux Mint in my house because Debian's stability is just so much better than Ubuntu's.
@vkc Debian plain and simple makes my life easier IMOO and I don't care what others think. End of story of many years.