• notanaltaccount@lemmy.world
    201·
    2 days ago

    The packages in Debian are really old. It’s awful.

    I was looking at my xzutils package the other month. “So outdated,” I thought, envying the cool hip trendy Arch users.

  • dan@upvote.au
    131·
    1 day ago

    Debian gives you a choice though. If you want stability, install the stable release. If you want newer packages, install the testing release. Just be sure to get security updates from unstable (sid) if you do that.

    “stable” in this context means that stuff doesn’t change often. It doesn’t mean “stable” as in reliable / never crashes, although Debian is good at that too.

  • barkingspiders@infosec.pubEnglish
    1212·
    2 days ago

    I am a little biased because I’ve been using Debian professionally for many years now but we don’t deserve Debian. It is fantastically stable and reliable and makes an excellent platform for running your services off of. If you are at all interested in offering some time and energy to the open source community, consider adopting a Debian package!

    • A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.world
      491·
      2 days ago

      I’m thinking about a Linux laptop with FOSS software for my business actually, Lemmy’s relentless horde of pro-Linux propaganda has won me over

      (OK I’ve always liked FOSS I’ve just never taken the jump)

      • qprimed@lemmy.mlEnglish
        361·
        2 days ago

        ONE OF US! ONE OF US!

        but seriously, modern FOSS distros (yes, debian is modern, damnit!) are amazingly good. you have an exceptionally high probablility of switching and staying switched.

        • A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.world
          7·
          2 days ago

          I’m looking forward to it!

          Side note: anyone got recommendations for business software? I’ve started browsing the FOSS community here for ideas but I’m not sure what QuickBooks alternatives exist

          • fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de
            6·
            2 days ago

            I’m an accountant.

            The best accounting software will be the one your accountant uses.

            When clients are on the same platform that I use internally everything just matches up and it’s beautiful and elegant and amazing.

            When clients are using something else it just doesn’t fit our workflows and it’s just more of a fuck around, which of course the client gets charged for.

          • F04118F@feddit.nl
            72·
            2 days ago

            A quick Google shows Quickbooks to be cloud-based accounting software. For FOSS accounting, GnuCash exists so you could try that (it can also run on Windows and macOS). However, it’s unlikely to have feature parity so if you like the added convenience that Quickbooks offers, see if you can use Quickbooks in a browser. Being cloud-based, they would probably build a browser version before building a Linux desktop app. If they don’t and you need to run a Windows desktop app on Linux, you can probably do this using Bottles (which uses Wine and Proton under the hood, the tech that enables the Steam Deck).

            • A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.world
              2·
              2 days ago

              I mean yeah, but specifically I’d like something built for Linux that’s good for just basic spreadsheet stuff. I’m an electrician so I mostly just need to track jobs and accounts.

              • F04118F@feddit.nl
                2·
                2 days ago

                Most of (what we call) Linux OSes are formally GNU/Linux. GnuCash is as close as it gets to “made for Linux”. If you don’t want an accounting-specific application, but just generic spreadsheets, check out LibreOffice.

                I highly recommend GnuCash for accounting though: a fellow board member cleaned up an org’s accounting by putting it all in GnuCash, where it was a bunch of error-prone Excel sheets before. That really made it easier to keep track and to do it right.

    • nexussapphire@lemm.eeEnglish
      61·
      2 days ago

      That’s how I feel about arch, it’s not “stable” but the few issues I’ve had they typically have it fixed with an update within hours.

      I do have to clarify when I switched to arch from windows my entire computer was brand new and practically no other distro booted or if it installed it dumped me to a black screen.

      After running my server on archlinux with the stable kernel for 7 years I did install Debian on my new server. Zfs just required an older lts kernel than I could get on arch without a ton of hassle. I didn’t need it on my Mac mini with an external hard drive plugged in. From my experience it’s not very different to maintain compared to arch but it’s nice having built in automation instead of writing my own.

      Man it’s weird using a system of what I can guess is a bunch of bash scripts on Debian to set things up compared to just using the tools built into and written for systemd.

      • dan@upvote.au
        11·
        1 day ago

        it’s not “stable”

        “stable” in this case means that it doesn’t change often. Debian stable is called that because no major version changes are performed during the entire cycle of a release.

        It doesn’t mean “stable” as in “never crashes”, although Debian is good at that too.

        Arch is definitely not “stable” using that definition!

        • nexussapphire@lemm.eeEnglish
          2·
          1 day ago

          Yeah, I know the definition. I knew someone would quote it verbatim, someone always does. I quoted it because it’s not the word I would use. I like scheduled or versioned releases better but someone always disagrees with me. As far as I’ve seen it’s a major/minor version release cycle anyway.

        • undefined@links.hackliberty.org
          6·
          2 days ago

          This is what I specifically hate about building Docker images based on Debian. Half your Dockerfile ends up mucking about with third-party repositories, verifying keys, etc.

        • undefined@links.hackliberty.org
          3·
          2 days ago

          I should be more clear: specifically I was rebuilding a Docker image based on Debian and needed Node.js for one build step, then Ruby for another as well as the final image.

          In the Dockerfile there were a ton of weird commands for simply installing Node.js and Ruby whereas on Alpine Linux I could simply install the needed versions from apk. I understand it’s preferable to build these from scratch but in the case of Node.js I was looking to simply compile a bunch of assets then throw away the layer.

          I could’ve spent a bunch of time figuring it out for Debian but I wanted a smaller image in the end anyway too.

  • mariusafa@lemmy.sdf.org
    43·
    23 hours ago

    What’s wrong with having a some year old software? Does it do what you need? Yes. Then what? I have all I need on Debian. Why should I care of new updates. Security? Yes we have Debian security because of that. Look, y’all had the xyz backdoor package in your systems because it was new. Me as a Debian stable user I didn’t have to deal with it. Did I lose something by not having the latests software? No. Well maybe less crashes.

    Most privative software also gets weekly updates. Does it make it better? No. You may prefer that.

    Also I don’t get the point about the version numbering of Debian packages. Every team uses the versioning they want.

    From my experience software that updates a lot tends to break old features a lot too.

    Debian suporting freesoftware projects or other stuff doesn’t look as a relevant argument. I mean if you prefer using privative stuff and using that kind of software. Do whatever you like with your Google/Facebook/Apple friends.

    But don’t come intoxicate the community with this bullshit.

  • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
    16·
    2 days ago

    YEARS OF BACKPORTS yet NO REAL WORLD USE FOUND for staying more than ONE VERSION behind

    I have a really old computer that still gets the job done, and just getting up to Bullseye broke it a bit.

    I know, I know, it’s just a meme.

  • Successful_Try543
    26·
    2 days ago

    I still remember this nice ‘feature’ of XScreenSaver.

    However, as of 2016 Iceweasel is Firefox ESR again.

  • mox@lemmy.sdf.org
    213·
    2 days ago

    Tell me you’re an opinionated novice without telling me you’re an opinionated novice.

    (edit:specificity)