I say this to be fair, since I’ve used Debian since almost the very beginning:
Debian is a bit more complicated to set up.
I generally find when people ask me for help, they’re either on Ubuntu or on Fedora (in which case I direct them to someone else for help). Sometimes they’re gamers or using something where Debian + tweaks is ideal, but often I just help them configure Debian, or just help them get their Ubuntu where they want it.
Not that user: My biggest problem with Debian was that packages were often so out of date (even sid). This was a big issue for the kinds of software I wanted to run, and also generally denied me useful newer features in most programs. Security and stability weren’t that device’s most important values.
When I switched to Ubuntu, they just had more up to date packages, and with two releases a year (sort of), stayed up to date with other software, which is a good thing for a system I actually use. From then on, I just stayed on it, because I don’t reinstall my OS until something’s broken. I’ve been moving the same one for a decade now.
If I had to install a new desktop system I’ll probably go with mint, for the same reason : more frequent software update.
Note that this is all for desktop (and some specialized systems). Servers are all running debian, because stability is preferable and frequent software change is not what I want in these environments.
Why not use Debian? Non-free packages issues?
I say this to be fair, since I’ve used Debian since almost the very beginning: Debian is a bit more complicated to set up.
I generally find when people ask me for help, they’re either on Ubuntu or on Fedora (in which case I direct them to someone else for help). Sometimes they’re gamers or using something where Debian + tweaks is ideal, but often I just help them configure Debian, or just help them get their Ubuntu where they want it.
Second this. I got tired of Ubuntu and moved to Mint first, then Debian.
Not that user: My biggest problem with Debian was that packages were often so out of date (even
sid). This was a big issue for the kinds of software I wanted to run, and also generally denied me useful newer features in most programs. Security and stability weren’t that device’s most important values.When I switched to Ubuntu, they just had more up to date packages, and with two releases a year (sort of), stayed up to date with other software, which is a good thing for a system I actually use. From then on, I just stayed on it, because I don’t reinstall my OS until something’s broken. I’ve been moving the same one for a decade now.
If I had to install a new desktop system I’ll probably go with mint, for the same reason : more frequent software update.
Note that this is all for desktop (and some specialized systems). Servers are all running debian, because stability is preferable and frequent software change is not what I want in these environments.