this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2024
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Debian used to be so good. What happened!? (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Firefox on Debian stable is so old that websites yell at you to upgrade to a newer browser. And last time I tried installing Debian testing (or was it debian unstable?), the installer shat itself trying to make the bootloader. After I got it to boot, apt refused to work because of a missing symlink to busybox. Why on earth do they even need busybox if the base install already comes with full gnu coreutils? I remember Debian as the distro that Just Wroks(TM), when did it all go so wrong? Is anyone else here having similar issues, or am I doing something wrong?

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

My bank used to complain that my browser was out of date. I wrote an email to customer service explaining to them that:

A) debian's "out of date" browser actually includes all up to date security patches. B) simply reading the browser agent isnt really security. I had simply been spoofing my browser agent to get around their silly browser "security" policy

They removed the browser check 2 weeks later. Not sure if it was because of me

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

The hero we need rn tbh

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago

OP when they try Debian and it's exactly what it advertises itself as:

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

You are literally describing the idea of Debian. Yes, stable is old, but that is the whole purpose. You get (mostly) security updates only for a few years. No big updates, no surprises. Great for stuff like company PCs, servers, and other systems you want to just work™ with minimal admin work.

And testing is, well, for testing. Ironing out bugs and preparing the next stable. Although what you describes sounds more like unstable, the one where they explicitly say that they will break stuff to try out other stuff.

So, everything works as intended and advertised here. If you want a different approach to stability, I guess you will have to use a different distro, sorry.

I guess when you last tried it, it was at a time when a new stable came out, so testing was more or less equal to stable.

About the firefox: It ships Firefox ESR these days, meaning you get an older, less often updated tested firefox (with security updates, of course). Again, this is the whole point. Less updates, less admin work, more time to find and fix bugs. Remember the whole Quantum add-on mess, for example?

As others have said, you can install other versions of firefox (like the "normal" one) via flatpak, snap... nowadays. The same goes for other software, where you would need the newest and shiniest version sooner. I'm using debian on my work/uni laptop and a bunch of servers, and it works pretty well for me.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

This is why Debian is my server of choice, and my work desktop of choice.

OP, There are some flavors of Debian out there that are more rapid release, like LMDE, Siduction, Sparky, even Kali (though I wouldn't recommend Kali as a primary desktop personally). Some based on Sid, some based on Testing.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

The last paragraph is vital. Grab a flatpak of any software you need to be more up to date. Flatpaks running on Debian are amazing. Current software running on a stable base.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

Ehm... im using debian stable, no website is telling me to update Firefox (I'm on deb 10, 11 and 12 in different PCs).

Deb 12, my home computer, is on unstable and running smoothly.

Debian isn't "just works" but "it's a freaking rock" + "open source hardcore philosophy".

Maybe I got lucky?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

Debian is as great as it's ever been.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Debian stable and flatpaks, I don't see all the fuss

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Why does the installer still explode sometimes when I use it on my computers. I use it on my mother's computer or our movie server and it works fine.

Maybe it just eats shit when it sees a btrfs partition or something. Nothing against Debian but I tried to install Debian testing weekly and it just refused to install on my system 76 laptop. After flashing arch on my USB drive to wipe the disk I just said fuck it and installed arch on my laptop again. I haven't had any issues with arch since I've installed it on my desktop five years ago. If arch blows up on my laptop I'll try Debian again.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Debian is working as intended. You are wanting to use Ubuntu or Mint if you want more up to date packages.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

They can just use Flatpak as it will be the newest outside of Arch. Alternatively they could run Distrobox with something like Fedora.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I stopped using flatpak when I found out both I had to update outside of the package manager. Also using flatpak gave me some issues with my sound card, so I just run the .deb. To each their own though, which is why I love Linux.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian

Installing outside packages is generally not a good idea. You can use Distrobox with a upstream distro like Fedora or you can use Debian Back ports.

https://backports.debian.org/

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Had forgotten about backports. Need to get that set back up. Thank you for the reminder.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

If the user really wants a new browser, Flatpak is always an option.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Debian's Firefox is Firefox ESR, or Extended Support Release. It's behind the bleeding edge, but gets security updates.

If you want the bleeding edge Firefox, you can add Mozilla's own APT repository and install it. Doesn't even conflict with Debian (firefox-esr vs firefox, it even uses a separate user profile by default). Instructions are on the Firefox download page somewhere.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Also, Flatpak

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

These days I care a lot less that a package is outdated than I do it being unstable personally. If security concerns are getting patched and it is still doing what I want it to do, I couldn't care less about UI elements getting moved around just to make some PM happy.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I've been on Debian Testing for my own desktops for about 15 years now. Sometimes as a Frankendebian mixing in SID/unstable. Sometimes mainly unstable, but mostly just Testing.

It rarely breaks, but when it does, it's a learning opportunity. Stable for servers and other people's desktops. Maybe with backports. Flatpacks if this no other option.

You don't get 100% solid and 100% new. Ever. With anything.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (2 children)

A someone who worked in OS security, I beg you dont use flatpaks.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

As someone who works, flatpak's solve a bunch of problems, freeing me up to continue working.

Security issues are just a class of issue; no more or less important than other issues

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

As I said, "if this no other option". And to be honest, that was once, for a few weeks before the new KiCad hit Debian repos. And only because hardware team wouldn't wait to switch, so to open stuff, I needed it too.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Ever considered LMDE? Best of both worlds if you ask me.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Someone after my own heart.. Debian for my servers, lmde for my laptop, the way it was meant to be.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Debian Stable ± Flatpak gets best of both worlds

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Debian was always like this.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

For me, the outdated packages in stable have actually gotten better over time, as DEs get closer to a place where I don't need any major updates to enjoy using them, Flatpaks become more readily available, and on a subjective level, I get less and less invested in current Linux news. Before Debian became my "forever distro", I'd hopped to it a few times, and often found myself wishing for a newer piece of software that wasn't in backports or flathub, or simply being bored with how stable it is, but that's been happening less and less. And I feel like Debian 12 in particular left me with software that I wouldn't mind being stuck with for two years.

I've gotten warnings to upgrade my browser with Debian's Firefox ESR, but they never affected a website's usability in a way that a newer version would fix, and they do provide security updates and new ESR series when they come out; even if you must have the newest Firefox, you can use the Flatpak.

Additionally, I'm currently on testing in order to get better support for my GPU, and each time I've tried to use it, it's worked for me for a longer time than the last as I get better at resolving or avoiding broken packages. If you do experience issues like the one you described, and can replicate them, and no one else has already reported them, you should report them to Debian's bug tracker. The whole point of Testing is to find and squash all the critical bugs before the next stable releases.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

TL;DR

You want Debian stable with either back ports or containers. On desktop flatpak is your friend. Also do not add extra repos.

Honestly there is little reason to not use flatpak for web browsers. If you want packages from Fedora or other distros you can use Distrobox with podman as the back end.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Debian testing is complelty okay. If you want to have the most up to date security use apt to grab sid security updates. https://wiki.debian.org/DebianTesting

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Stable is for servers, unstable for desktop. It has worked for 20 years. I actually installed two further Debian workstations recently after trying and failing with Kubuntu. So .... no, I don't have this problem.

No idea why busybox is needed. Is this is your emergency boot environment like initramfs? Sometimes it's nice that Linux boots up and offers an environment to fix stuff while some modules are broken.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

I use debian headless as a server never had any issues but then again pretty much any linux system is gonna be a decent server since everything is containerised now.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

You can install Firefox from Mozilla's own repository. It is a luxury to have in Debian a Mozilla repository to install Firefox.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

I don't have issues yet on stable 12.5 but I plan to switch to nixos eventually.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago

What if you just get your browser using their own repositories or flatpak? 🌈

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Huh? Install testing or sid?

The Debian way is to install stable then change your sources.list to either testing or unstable.

I call shenanigans.

edit: what version was Stable using before 11Jun? 'cause it's 115.12.0esr-1 right now.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Or there is OpenSuse Tumbleweed which is up to date, and stable...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Tried the Tumbleweed. It's anything but stable.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

when i see a debian user i see a future fedora user

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

When I see a Fedora user, I see a future Arch user btw

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

This is funny because on a laptop I had I did this exact same progression - I started on Debian, but it didn’t have the right kernel version for my audio drivers, so I switched to Fedora, but it was running slowly (probably because of gnome, it lets you choose so this was my fault) so I moved to arch (with xfce) because it has a reputation for being relatively lightweight. It worked better, but it took longer to get working with the unusual chromebook hardware.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Man a laptop new enough to require a newer kernel but slow enough for gnome to be slow. That's an annoying spot to be man.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It wasn’t that new (2017), it just had weird hardware which iirc only recently got supported without proprietary drivers by the new audio system.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

That makes a lot more sense. I remember living with $200 laptops for a while and that's kinda what I was thinking initially.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 2 months ago

Debian is a server OS. Running it on desktop is like having frying oil for dinner.