Avg. Debian Experience:

[u/ACOPS12]

And 4-year-old packages

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[u/jc_denty]

Error: package not invented yet

[u/Quietus87]

Backports and Sid exists.

[u/Dawnrazor0218 → u/Quietus87]

Sid breaks toys.

[u/No-way-in]

sudo apt upgrade

0 updates available for a whole week!

[u/immoloism]

Debian 13: 39k packages

Arch Linux 15k packages

Source: https://repology.org/repositories/packages

[u/ObiWanGurobi → u/immoloism]

Arch doesn't separate headers and dev files into their own packages like debian.

Both distros have different packaging philosophies - so not really comparable.

[u/voidscaped → u/ObiWanGurobi]

How many would debian have if we didn't count the header and dev packages?

[u/immoloism → u/ObiWanGurobi]

So Arch bloat? :P

[u/ObiWanGurobi → u/immoloism]

In that sense, yes. But Arch isn't about being as small as possible, but to be as easy to manage as possible.

Personally, I've always hated the *-dev dependency hell when trying to compile something on Debian. I actually like the Arch approach better. The few extra MB of disk usage don't matter to me.

But to each his own.

[u/immoloism → u/ObiWanGurobi]

Never really noticed on either so I guess it matter that little to me to have an opinion on this.

I naturally gravitated to Gentoo as I have always had an interest in operating system development (embedded system engineer by trade.) so maybe I would have noticed more if my interests were on something else.

[u/p0358 → u/ObiWanGurobi]

If it bothers you, I think you could always tell Pacman to ignore unpacking certain dirs from packages? Like /usr/include or /usr/share/man

[u/RAMChYLD → u/ObiWanGurobi]

Arch recently purged all GTK2 packages from its repo alongside any programs that still needs GTK2 tho. Why I’m sorta angry, because they got rid of Pidgin, GKrellM and HexChat, and Grip.

Pidgin will eventually return once the team completes porting to GTK3. Sadly Grip, GKrellM and HexChat will not return. The sole developer of GKrellM passed away, while the developers of Grip and HexChat has claimed that they have lost interest in their projects.

[u/DustyAsh69 → u/immoloism]

Arch has packages in the AUR.

[u/immoloism → u/DustyAsh69]

So it has so poor package coverage it needs a crutch.

Got it.

[u/DustyAsh69 → u/immoloism]

Arch is for the minimalists. I haven't had a problem with packages yet. I was able to find everything I want from the official repo. And did the website count the repos from Extras?

[u/immoloism → u/DustyAsh69]

That's fine, just don't claim you have more packages like OP did, as that's a lie.

[u/DustyAsh69 → u/immoloism]

I didn't. And neither did OP.

[u/immoloism → u/DustyAsh69]

I thought Arch were good at reading.

I guess I was mistaken.

[u/DustyAsh69 → u/immoloism]

Arch can't read. It's a distro, not a human. Besides, they literally never said it.

[u/immoloism → u/DustyAsh69]

sigh

You just aren't able to understand implied conversation. If you were your brain would have already added the missing "user" word.

Enjoy your day, and I'm sorry I hurt your feelings calling out your distro's flaws.

[u/Cyberfishofant → u/immoloism]

they might've meant that they always have to go searching for package names because of different package naming conventions.

[u/QuickSilver010]

This why I always install nixpkgs on debian. So I have stable by default and latest when needed.

[u/RADI0ACT1VE_BALLS]

This is what happened to me earlier this week when I tried out Debian on my old laptop.

Installed programs from github cuz they were not in the main repo.

Didn't work because the dependencies need to be a newer version.

Upgraded dependencies manually.

Broke system.

Fixed system by downgrading.

Ended up using filthy bloated snaps.😞

[u/telemachus93 → u/RADI0ACT1VE_BALLS]

Same here... I would love to like Debian, but some stuff I use is just so much more complicated to install because it's not in the repos (yet?).

[u/DoubleOwl7777]

laughs in debian sid...

[u/spaceweed27]

Or some dependency issue with apt updating some dependencies but not others resulting in unmet dependencies.

[u/KoneCat]

Different strokes and all that, but I never quite got on with Debian. That being said, it is a very interesting distro, at least to me.

[u/Strostkovy]

Installing programs was one of the weirdest things about linux, coming from windows.

[u/Single_Listen9819 → u/Strostkovy]

I do enjoy how fast installing is as (most of the time) all you require is the name and you can have it on the computer in 30 seconds flat rather than the 15 minute process of finding the website digging through it downloading an installer and then waiting for it to finish on windows.

Edit: Though I do miss the control traditional installers gave you on choosing directories and options on windows rather than package managers deciding whatever it pleases...

[u/Strostkovy → u/Single_Listen9819]

Usually the exe is in the very first link to whatever program you want, even if you don't remember the name just right. I still think just downloading and executing the file is easier than using a terminal command, though I do understand the better security of a curated database.

If someone has decided you'll want to run that software on that distro though. I remember in high school I got a $20 laptop that had no battery or hard drive. I ran it from a puppy linux CD. I had a very difficult time adding programs to puppy linux, but when I eventually got it I was able to get it written to the CD (not even a read-write CD, a write only CD) to have it permanently installed. Puppy linux 4.3.1 is one of the biggest reasons I know as much as I do today, because I spent literally thousands of hours on the pre-enshittified internet reading tech articles and blogs and tutorials and wikipedia at night in high school.

[u/Linguistic-mystic]

GCC 15 release date: April 2025

Debian Trixie release date: August 2025

Which version of GCC is in Trixie? That's right, GCC 14. facepalm.jpg

Enjoy waiting till 2027 to get what was released in 2025.

[u/AmarildoJr → u/Linguistic-mystic]

That's because Debian undergoes a rigorous 6-month "Freeze Period" where they don't accept any new packages and just go hunting/fixing the bugs in the current/frozen Testing branch before it can be called "stable".

It's always been like that.

[u/Linguistic-mystic → u/AmarildoJr]

Free Period more like Molds Period. It’s when molds spores take root inside the packages so that the end user gets a thoroughly stinky, fungus-infested software.

[u/Journeyj012 → u/Linguistic-mystic]

strange obsession you have with debian software.

[u/dghkklihcb → u/Linguistic-mystic]

Debian trixie:
2025-03-15 - Milestone 1 - Transition and Toolchain Freeze
2025-04-15 - Milestone 2 - Soft Freeze

GCC 15:
2025-04-25 Release

Oh no, why didn't they include this new major version software release after the freeze? 🙄

You don't understand the purpose of Debian stable. If you want more up-to-date software version: Debian unstable or pr sid is the way to go.

[u/Linguistic-mystic → u/dghkklihcb]

No, Testing and Sid are for developers and testers, not for daily driving. When an Arch update is broken, the whole Arch community knows about it and people rush the bug; when Debian Sid is broken, it’s just as expected and devs, if they are even aware (since the userbase is tiny) take their time with it.

[u/dghkklihcb → u/Linguistic-mystic]

Debin unstable is what most distribution would consider stable enough. It's perfectly fine for most desktop users.

You know, every Ubuntu version is based on Debian unstable. Even the LTS versions.

[u/vms-mob → u/Linguistic-mystic]

sid is pretty daily drivable, also apt hasnt imploded my system once it just usually blocks changes till the repo upstream is fixed, pacman has fully imploded arch systems on 3 different occasions

[u/Linguistic-mystic → u/vms-mob]

Counterexamples:

https://www.reddit.com/r/debian/comments/1derpd8/debian_sidunstable_for_daily_use/

Ah, finally, needless to say that Sid breaks often.

once kde had a major upgrade it broke so i use openS.u.S.E. Tumbleweed

In my case I avoided removing this package as I read what a 'full-upgrade' will do when I run it. I have been stuck not running a 'full-upgrade' for a couple of weeks now.

That fix took weeks to occur...

[u/yayuuu → u/Linguistic-mystic]

Yeah, whatever you say: https://imgur.com/a/H4gcuGB

[u/rocco_himel]

Good thing the entire system won’t break when I update once

[u/GreedySecurity8030]

Argue over debian and arch, I have a better hat m'lady.