Is Debian Any Good?

Is Debian any good?

I’m going to ignore the argument that it is good, by weeding out those not yet skilled enough in Linux to use it, by asking tough questions at installation.

What are the benefits of Debian?

Debian is designed to be ultra-stable. Every release is reliable.

It lacks features of some of the competing Linux versions.

Fedora is bleeding edge, but you get a new OS release that is unstable because of all the cutting edge features. Debian delays rolling out features in favor of stability.

For Debian to have a reputation of reliability is an accomplishment, given how stable Linux is in general. Linux has systems with 100% reliability down to a five decimal place rounding error.

Debian’s major drawback is the hardware support. While their drivers are ultra-compatible with Debian, if the Debian developers didn’t create a driver for your device, it may not work.

That’s almost as bad as Apple’s proprietary hardware.

No, nowhere near as bad. Debian runs off everything from single core to quad core PCs, servers, laptops and so forth, while Apple’s iOS only runs on Apple devices.

Why doesn’t Debian run on every device? I thought Ubuntu did.

Ubuntu accepts manufacturer’s drivers, and you know the manufacturer will put out a driver for their devices. Debian tries to say you have to use the Debian driver, but not all hardware manufacturers release device specs.

Giving hackers the specs to a device does all potential malware entry points.

Just plugging a device into your PC and loading the drivers can add malware to the computer, which is why Debian wants to use its drivers.

Is security a driving consideration for Debian?

Zorin is probably better on security, but Debian is high up there. They get releases fixed in days, whereas CentOS and some other Linux versions take weeks or months to patch holes.

So Debian is a good option.