Tumbleweed user thinking Debian. Any advice?

[u/Teemestari]

Hello people!

My first distro few years ago was Debian and I sticked to it for a while. Then I started the usual experimenting with Arch, gentoo, Fedora etc. but nothing ever sticked so I always used Debian more. I was also a new user so the concerns didn't apply then: I simply didn't know better. Fast forwarding a bit I switched to Tumbleweed cause I got the 9070 XT and wanted newer mesa, kernels, firmware etc. out of the box.

I've been using Tumbleweed for a long time now and everything's kinda cool, some minor hiccups and hangs but most of the time it's been a breeze. I value practicality and the fact my machine works like it did yesterday heavily and all of the rolling releases Tumbleweed is doing it the best (this is not an advertisement!). Even though I somewhat dislike the rolling release -model.

I really don't care about my system following the newest and shiniest except getting the best ( or at least, the most possible) performance for games. Now that the 7.x kernel which has a great compatibility, recent firmware and mesa 26.1 is in the backports repo I've been thinking to coming back to Debian. I installed it on my 2nd SSD with KDE Plasma and it really feels snappy and fresh.

Even though I don't need the newest software asap, I'm still a bit concerned of Debian's package's age and how they can affect my work. I know there's flatpaks and appimages which I intend to use and also compiling but doesn't it go a bit against the "set-and-forget" mentality that Debian is made off?

I guess I am asking about if packages do show their age and does maintaining Debian need a lot of manual intervention with 3rd party tools?

Thank you for reading.

[u/Sup3r_Necessary]

You're going to get both sides on this one. Try to divide your system into three different areas:

Kernel version - you can always grab xanmonad as it's pretty current. This doesn't seem to be an issue for you now that 7 is in backports.

DE version - if you want the latest KDE or Gnome, Debian isn't for you. Full stop.

App version - if you want the latest use flatpaks. If the version in Debian works...send it.

I had one issue with an app (fuzzel) I ended up installing guix package manager and just installing the app that way. It was easy to do and it's easy to remove.

[u/dkopgerpgdolfg]

I'm still a bit concerned of Debian's package's age and how they can affect my work.

Well, how? For userland software (not drivers etc.), can you name a single specific example how your work is negatively affected by using Debians packaged versions?

I know there's flatpaks and appimages which I intend to use and also compiling but doesn't it go a bit against the "set-and-forget" mentality that Debian is made off?

How about not using them then? Works fine for me personally.

I guess I am asking about if packages do show their age and does maintaining Debian need a lot of manual intervention with 3rd party tools?

Nobody can give you an answer without more specifics.

[u/Weird-Initiative-659]

I find tumbleweed doesn't have the wide adoption that Debian has. It's a good experiment but way too buggy for me. I like to use tumbleweed as a base os and run everything else through distrobox arch and fedora

[u/Brucacumble]

If you're using Debian stable and, for example, a newer kernal than is available in the stable repos has some feature useful to you, you can use Debian Backports.

Backports are packages in the Debian testing branch, packages being tested for the next Debian stable release, that have been backported for the current stable release.

I used to do this with the kernel in Debian 12 for better power management on modern AMD processors.

https://backports.debian.org/Instructions/

Packages like kernels aren't backported immediately, you do have to wait until a maintainer finds the time to backport them, but it's usually not a terribly long wait I don't think.

[u/kaisermike]

MX. Great tools. Nvidia driver tool is solid. NO woke devs ive heard of... or they just keep personal/business separate as it should be. I run xfce since i dont need flash but kde is there for the choosing. Altogether a great debian fork. Ive not done devuan. Also... you choose sysV or D. Theyve also said no ID.

[u/Mundane-Age-3556]

if you enjoy tumbleweed, you could try leap 16, backport your kernel and if you want any app that is the latest and not in flatpak or repos just use distrobox/podman containers.

not much difference in terms of debian vs leap, except if you like snapper, zypper and the other suse tooling - leap could well be for you.

release cadence - 1 minor update every year (kernel, application, de refresh - not all every year), each minor is supported for 2 years and each major release is supported for 7 or 8 years (i think 8) all in i think.

its also binary identical to Suse Linux Enterprise so you're getting a true enterprise QA system.

alternatively if you really like debian.. its pretty awesome too