Debian User Forums

You know, after spending a lot of time with Debian, I have found that I definitely prefer an old stable version of it. Now that Buster has been released, I think I'm going to stick with Debian Stretch for now. I would rather look into adopting buster once it becomes old stable. Why you may ask? Well, it's because if I wait for that. All of the bugs, quirks, and kinks will be ironed out, and then when the time comes for me to adopt it. It'll be super stable, and I won't have to worry about any unforeseen issues later down the road. I must say, along with that, that's taught me some things about life too. Sometimes nothing beats that old and reliable piece of equipment, or that faithful operating system, or that old game engine (Doom / ID Tech 1, ha ha) that has a ton of documentation on it so you can make content more easily for it.

What are your guys thoughts and experiences on this? I'd love to hear from all of you!

My thoughts are that you can do whatever you want.
Stretch is still supported for a long time. Keep using it until it doesn't get security updates.

@ sunrat

That's what I plan on doing with Stretch. Using it until it's no longer supported.

sunrat wrote: Keep using it until it doesn't get security updates.

I agree with this.
Anything beyond that is just asking for trouble.

@ theblueplll

Better safe than sorry right?

That's an interesting take. A lot of people tend to consider Debian stable obsolete from the very release day.

I usually upgrade to the new version in the days/weeks after release.
Debian team tends to test the next stable before the release (instead of after like MS with W10) sufficiently that I consider the release trustworthy.
I never had any problem.

Couldn't agree more, don't fix it; unless broken, right?

Tekmon_Xonic wrote:All of the bugs, quirks, and kinks will be ironed out

Well there are two schools of thought on that: either follow the Debian paradigm and settle for a constant set of bugs, quirks and kinks that only need to be worked around once every few years or use something bleeding-edge like Arch which has all the latest bug fixes directly from upstream but then deal with the new bugs, quirks and kinks that are introduced by the continual updates.

I prefer the Debian Way but I always update to the latest stable version because I'm a sucker for new features. Secure Boot support rocks!

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

Tekmon_Xonic wrote:All of the bugs, quirks, and kinks will be ironed out

Well there are two schools of thought on that: either follow the Debian paradigm and settle for a constant set of bugs, quirks and kinks that only need to be worked around once every few years or use something bleeding-edge like Arch which has all the latest bug fixes directly from upstream but then deal with the new bugs, quirks and kinks that are introduced by the continual updates.

I tried a rolling release distro once and ended up hating it because of this.

Every 2 days there was an update which was fine but then every 2 days one of my most used applications was broken and needed to be reinstalled and reconfigured all over again.

This only lasted about 2 weeks and I said f^%$ it this is Debian based anyway so why am I using a middleman and getting an inferior experience.

So I wiped the drive, reinstalled Debian Stretch(have since updated to Buster) and I haven't had to reinstall or fix that application since.

@ Funkygoby

I can understand some people consider Debian stable obsolete the moment it's released, but those are probably the same people that love Sid. Some people just like to be bleeding edge. I'm the opposite, I prefer to lag behind with something old and reliable.

@ sickpig

Right on man! I'm really enjoying Debian 9. At the rate things are going, I'm going to have to buy me a cheap laptop on Ebay, so I can have a main Debian Machine.

@ Head_on_a_Stick

I really don't have any hardware that I could use for Arch Linux. But despite Debian 9 having some quirks, they're pretty minor, and easy to work around. So I prefer the Debian way too.

I was going to wait for the first point release of Buster before installing/upgrading. I lasted a week before I couldn't stand it any longer, and decided to install Buster on my laptop. I have been very pleased with the things that the developers put in Buster. I have had only operator errors on the installation so far.

There is only one thing I would change with the installation of Buster on my laptop: I would have created separate partitions for root, home, var, and tmp. I did select to create a separate home partition. I used the entire disk for Buster. If I want to experiment with other operating systems, I'll use the virtualization tools I installed: gnome boxers, VirtualBox, Virtual Manager, and VM Player. All of my virtual machine images are stored in my /home partition.

I decided to do an upgrade from Debian 9.9 to Buster on my desktop. I'm glad I did. My home directory was left as it was. I did install LXDE because I'm use to it. My laptop is also running with LXDE. On my desktop, I left one large (300 GB) partition which could be resized to install other operating systems. I deleted old partitions and consolidated space to give me a large (more than 400GB) for my Buster partition, which includes my home directory.

@ duffy

I'm glad to hear that Buster is working for you.

Speaking of Virtualization, I use it too on Windows. I actually have a copy of Debian 9 running just for managing files on my Linux based devices. The two being my BittBoy V3, and my Raspberry Pi. Windows 7 doesn't like multiple partitions for some reason.

Tekmon_Xonic wrote:Windows 7 doesn't like multiple partitions for some reason.

Really?
I never seemed to have any problem with that.

What happens for you that lead you to this?

So far, I'm really liking Buster. Just got done installing it on this computer, my everyday carry notebook computer. I've got four computers that run only Debian. I was finding the drive space too small on this one and got a terabyte SSD to replace the old 240 GB SSD. So, I decided to backup /home, perform a clean install of Buster on the new higher capacity drive, then restore /home. Worked smooth as silk. It helps that this notebook computer doesn't require non-free firmware. I usually just perform a clean install, leaving /home (which is in it's own partition) as is.
Everything is looking good, but I'll be running Stretch on my other computers until I run Buster through it's paces on this computer for few weeks or so.

@ theblueplll

Well basically when I have a hard drive or storage device that has multiple partitions on it, Windows 7 will only show one of the partitions. The rest are inaccessible. I've tried using the built in disc management utility, but it just throws an error when I try to activate the other partitions. Apparently this has been fixed in later versions of Windows...

But it's okay, I've got Debian 9 running on virtual box, and it's solved my issues using it. So it's all good.

@ RU55EL

Well I'm glad to see that Buster is working out for you. Also, it's nice to see that you had a super smooth transition with your hard drives.

Tekmon_Xonic wrote:@ theblueplll

Well basically when I have a hard drive or storage device that has multiple partitions on it, Windows 7 will only show one of the partitions. The rest are inaccessible. I've tried using the built in disc management utility, but it just throws an error when I try to activate the other partitions. Apparently this has been fixed in later versions of Windows...

But it's okay, I've got Debian 9 running on virtual box, and it's solved my issues using it. So it's all good.

Umm if you are expecting windblows to find your ext4 paritions that is not going to happen and is not a problem or bug.

winblows has no clue what ext4 is nor how to read it

If that is what you are talking about anyway.

If that is what you are talking about anyway.

If your not sure what the OP is talking about, Why comment , when you don't even know what you are talking about ?


Probably would be more appropriate on a windows forum, but any way: Use a little search foo , instead of reading what the previous trollbot wrote.

Ext2Fsd

Ext2Fsd is a Windows file system driver for the Ext2, Ext3, and Ext4 file systems. It allows Windows to read Linux file systems natively, providing access to the file system via a drive letter that any program can access.

You can have Ext2Fsd launch at every boot or only open it when you need it. While you can theoretically enable support for writing to Linux partitions, I haven’t tested this. I’d be worried about this option, myself—a lot can go wrong. Read-only support is fine, though, and doesn’t carry a risk of messing anything up.

There are many sites that do explain how you can mount and read/write Ext2,3,4, etc partitions,...
Here is 1 :https://thelinuxcode.com/mount-linux-pa ... ws-10-8-7/

@ cuckooflew

Thanks for that link man! I really appreciate it!

Well actually I DO and DID know what I was talking about since no one mentioned or asked about using other software to make it work and natively windows doesn't know what an ext4 partition even is.

Asking for clarification is not somehow not knowing what the op meant.

I don't know why you feel the need to follow me around the forums and run your mouth and act like you are some kind of superior being.

Tekmon_Xonic wrote:@ cuckooflew

Thanks for that link man! I really appreciate it!

Your welcome