I'm going to get a new (used) laptop soon. Which Debian release should I install at this stage of the release cycle, Jessie or Stretch? My current laptop runs Wheezy.
(I want as few bugs as possible, but also dislike the idea of having to upgrade in the near future.)
Also, is Xfce still the lightweight desktop of choice?
Bumping up my #whichdistro thread again (starting here: https://mastodon.cloud/@stefanieschulte/788364).
I've installed #Debian Stretch on my new (used) ThinkPad last night and everything seems to work fine (even the Wi-Fi!).
As desktops, I've installed both Xfce and LXDE, but I'm currently sticking with Xfce.
I'm planning to test BunsenLabs (suggested by @oswriter ) in a VM.
Thank you to everyone for the suggestions!
@stefanieschulte I've been using Debian testing (currently "stretch") for a while without any issues. There are a few tools (like apt-listbugs) that can help avoid any critical bugs, but that happens rarely. It's very usable.
If you absolutely need stability, don't require fresh packages and can live with a painless upgrade every now and then, stable is probably the way to go.
@nikolap Thank you! When I installed Wheezy in summer 2013 (still a relative Linux newbie at the time), it had been stable for a few months. That was good timing, I believe, but I've avoided upgrading it ever since. Today, many Wheezy packages seem out of date (including browsers), and the end of Long Term Support looms.
I might give Stretch a try...
@manicphase @nikolap This is why I consider installing Stretch straight away. It's going to become stable soon, and long term support is scheduled until 2022. It would probably "outlive" my already old hardware. This might allow me to avoid upgrading.
On the other hand, I have heard less bad things about Debian upgrades than about Ubuntu ones.
@stefanieschulte this is not a choice: you had to use at least a stable version. Most of your wheezy applications don't have security updates.
Updates are the only solution for security.
So you need to use Jessie now and update to Stretch latter. If you only use applications from package you will have security updates and upgrade will be easy.
@stefanieschulte If you're looking for something light and Debian-based, you might look at BunsenLabs. I used it for awhile and preferred it to any other Debian setup. They're still on Jessie, not sure about their timeline to move to Stretch.
@oswriter Thank you for the suggestion, I'll take a look at it!
Generally, I prefer sticking to the most popular platforms, because this makes it easier to find answers to questions online. Even so, I often have to search Ubuntu forums for solutions to Debian problems...
However, I like this about BunsenLabs: "The distribution consists of configuration and resource packages installed on top of Debian. There are no changes to the way the Debian base system is administrated."
@stefanieschulte Yeah, it's really just an easy way to install a functional, minimal Debian system. One thing I notice was BL contains some of the extra drivers that Debian proper excludes, which meant my wi-fi worked out of the box on my ThinkPad.
Here's a piece I actually wrote last year on BL and its configuration:
https://github.com/oswriter/bl-howtos/blob/master/01-how-i-configured-my-bunsenlabs-linux-desktop.md
@stefanieschulte Sounds pretty solid. I'm strongly partial to Windowmaker: stable, usable, gets out of the way, changes very, very little.
I've also got a couple of decades with it, which may factor into the decision.
@stefanieschulte @dredmorbius @gcupc Right. I've tried tiling WMs from time to time, and like the concept in theory. I find it difficult in practice. WM starts approaching the concept for me:
* I bind hotkeys to commonly-invoked apps: terminal, editor, mailer, etc.
* I bind a hotkey to "maximise hight of currently focused window", which is virtually /always/ what I want to do for a terminal. Pop it from 25 rows to the max that will fit.
@gcupc @dredmorbius @stefanieschulte A few other bindings for workspace nav and the like.
There's a pinnable windowlist which is good for walking through open whatever.
Other than that, the styling is unobtrusive and can largely be ignore. You can easily arrange windows into nonoverlapping locations and switch between them with either alt-tab or mouse focus, which is good for most use-cases for me.
Of GNOME, KDE, xfce, etc., my fave.
Stefanie Schulte
Rafał Piątkowski
Doc Edward Morbius ❌
Nikola Plejić
manicphase
oswriter
YvesAgo [old]
Yoxem (Seirbheal)
Dr. Edward Morbius ❌
Khoshekh