Why do you use debian?

[fladi]

Well ..... long ago (I think about 7 years) I turned my back to Win***s and tried Linux-based distributions. My first one was OpenSuse, but it had too many bugs and broke my system after a short while, then I tried Fedora, but the "bleeding edge" sometimes was too "bleeding" and their community was a bit harsh when I tried to describe my problems refering to their religion on their forum, Mandriva was the same experience. All these 3 distros didn't seem to fit my needs. So I stumbled over Ubuntu, a Debian Linux based user friendly distribution with a reputation of working right out-of-the-box. Nowadays I am thinking of Ubuntu as bloatware with a company politics, which makes me vomit (Amazon shopping lense, E.T. calling home, spyware, bloatware, etc.). I now use Debian for quite a good time and I never was disappointed. I used Arch derivates for testing (Antergos, Archbang), but the many of their community members policy of not signing packages and not taking security for serious plus the AUR which maybe user-friendly but also risky made me come back.

I now have got a "pimped" Debian testing Jessie XFCE plus contrib & nonfree apt-sources on my HP laptop with kernel 3.16rc3 installed and it works like charm. I want to learn a bit in my spare time so Debian seems perfect for that. Don't get me wrong, I am far away of being a super-nerd knowing anything about everything but I can upgrade kernels, use the command line, add or remove users and groups, etc. So I would call myself a newbie who is willing to open his eyes.

[dariusdor]

Rolling distro (sort of). Large package library. Binary packages. Stability.

[Ardouos]

Reliable, stability, security, vast library of packages, customisable. It is just amazing.

[eor2004]

1.Everything I need to work, works!
2.No need to reinstall in order to upgrade!
3.It's free!
4.Very stable, even when using backports!
5.Very experienced users in case I need help!
6.Debian is very cool and awesome!

[Linadian]

Because my computer has never worked better or been more functional, private and secure in the 17 years I've been tinkering (self taught, building, fixing, loading PCs and laptops). That includes 4 Windows versions (95 up to and including XP with the exception Millennium), and numerous other distros, including some Ubuntu derivatives. All my tinkering paid off, because Debian is not Mint, that's for sure, I've got nothing against Mint, great distro, great training wheels until you're ready for Debian.

[Justin417]

I love the stability, how things just work with it, and how well it acts as a server as well.

My main use of debian is servers, and the fact that this operating system is so secure and well built makes it a great choice.

(Its also the first distro i ever looked into when I was told to try this "linux" thing a long time ago )

[sirfer]

Still here and still using Debian

Why?

Because it still does everything and just doesn't break. Granted, I'm using stable as I write software for windows systems which I test in VirtualBox and I'm scratching my head to remember the last time something broke. As others have stated, sometimes reliability trumps all other requirements and now that I have all the OS tweaking urges almost out of my system, a rock solid platform is now appreciated more than ever.

As yet others have mentioned, the array of hardware supported by Debian (and Linux in general) is great. I have a raspberry pi as a web server which hasn't missed a beat since I set it up over a year ago. It runs raspbian, which reminds me, I must ssh in and update it..

edit: Here's another reason

http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/09 ... nix-in-it/

this bug was patched by Debian before i read this article yet it seems not to have been in MacOS...what gives Apple?

[khelben1979]

Because it's the best Linux distribution you can get!

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Holy NecroBump Batman!

I use Debian because it's very reliable, it supports secure boot, it has 78 trillion packages, it doesn't rely on the latest kernel or Firefox versions and because the project has political principles which are perfectly aligned with my own.

[None1975]

I use Debian, because it is rock solid. Also i like they Social Contract with the Free Software Community!

[Pummelchen]

Its kind of unavoidable ..

FreeBSD has a lack of killer apps like Dropbox and VMware Workstation. As such it fails as a normal desktop replacement for office use.

Clear Linux is much faster (10-20%) than Debian, based on the poporonix benchmarks, but the rolling release breaks things after reboot, so you have to recompile kernel modules which makes it impossible for 24/7 use.
Also many packages are missing and usually you file more bug reports than to complete tasks.

Debian on the other side works stable, 24/7, packages are tested and well supported and you can leave a box untouched for years if required. Kernel updates are fairly easy manually to stay up to date if required.

[zoli62]

My argument. It used to be difficult to configure Debian in the past, and it is easy these days.

[jmgibson1981]

I switched my main server to Debian just a week ago from Ubuntu. I am currently using my desktop, which I rarely use anyway to be the server. Needed more space for storage drives. I am using the LXD snap to run my Ubuntu containers which serve LTSP based media centers which boot directly to Kodi, along with all other network services & minecraft servers.

I picked Debian because I wanted the foundation of my network and file sharing to be rock solid. Ubuntu is great for the most part, and I trust it for my containers. Ubuntu is also easier when it comes to certain software that I need. I hate to compile if I don't absolutely have to. For the bare metal it was an easy choice to go back to Debian. I wanted a base that can effortlessly upgrade between versions rather than a general headache as most of my Ubuntu upgrades have tended to be.

It has been a bit of a curve with some of my normal software deprecated or removed for whatever reason in Buster, but I've adapted. Msmtp rather than ssmtp is the main one. Thankfully the wiki was plain as day on how to configure and all of my email alerts are working just fine now.

It should be noted that any issues I had with NFS glitching occasionally before, seem to have disappeared thus far. I was never able to explain those hiccups but they seem gone for now.

[vicshrike]

What else is there?

[Chrisdb]

This is not another 'Which is the best distro' thread, but rather a different point of view to prevent those IMO pointless threads.

I would like to ask everyone here another question...

Why do you choose or use Debian...