r/debian • u/ZekeForce • 1d ago
Community I need some answers
It's been quite some time since I switched to Linux, and I've already tried a lot of distros, being my favorite ones Mint and Fedora KDE. Either way, I have seen A LOT of people talking about how great, good, stable and amazing Debian is. And I haven't used that one yet, but I want to give it a try. I have asked AI like Gemini about what could be better for my PC, which I use mainly to play games in Steam (like Dota 2), watch videos, study and occasionally do some video/image editing, and it says that Debian wouldn't be a good option in general for my PC. So, of course I am not a development user that will have some server or other complex stuff. I would like to ask the people who knows about that in this community, what should I do if all I wanna do is keep going with my simple stuff, without complicating too much my life? Using Debian would be the same or better (or worse) than Mint when it comes to playing Dota 2, for example? Thank you for the answers, in advance. And any other recommendation that you can give for using Linux is very welcome.
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u/roflfalafel 1d ago
Debian is great. This is the best part about using Debian: need a desktop, use Debian. Need a server? Use debian. Need a base container image? Debian it is! The biggest thing, as others have pointed out, you may want to run a newer kernel for hardware or performance. I would _highly_ highly recommend using the official Debian backports kernel. This is very easy to setup, just need to add the debian backports repo to your apt sources. https://backports.debian.org/Instructions/. This kernel is signed by the same Debian keyring that the main debian repos are - so its ready to use without much fuss, and its supported directly by the Debian project.
I do this on my Thinkpad T14s gen6. Even though it is almost 2 years old, the wifi chipset causes the stock kernel to kernel panic, and the AMD NPU is not supported until 6.14, so running a 7.1 backport kernel works great.
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u/DeepDayze 1d ago
Debian is great as a server too and I've managed some Debian servers that supported lab operations for a local hospital.
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u/DeepDayze 1d ago
Your laptop should then be well supported out of the box on Forky once released. Trixie didn't support all the hardware common on Thinkpad T14s OOTB thus the issues. You'd have to chroot in to update the kernel on the new installatio or otherwise disable the wireless temporarily and using Ethernet.
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u/roflfalafel 20h ago
Yeah I had to pass a modprobe.blacklist=ath12k to the installer boot parameter and use a USB ethernet NIC to get the install to work. Agreed though, Forky will run it OOTB. I've been using Debian for 20+ years, so I just inherently know what to do "oh I bet its hardware related, let me drop to a console while the installer starts up so I can see where its panicking... oh looks like when it loads the wireless module it chokes let me try to pass that as a boot parameter to blacklist. Also looks like Ubuntu updates this in their OEM kernel, so I bet thats it!".
I would not expect a newbie to know this, but once you know linux, its not terrible. Which is why people tend to go for the "newer" distros, they get less of these issues with new hardware.
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u/Natural-Addendum-554 1d ago
You can try Linux Mint Debian Edition if you want, its basically reskinned debian
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u/ZekeForce 16h ago
And it's good if I want also to install Steam right with that edition or do I need some tinkering with the terminal also? (idc if I need to make some use of the terminal, really)
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u/CupPresent2625 1d ago
You should expect some manual setup
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u/ZekeForce 16h ago
Like what for example?
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u/CupPresent2625 12h ago
for a start, at least
add non-free non-free-firmware to /etc/apt/sources.listapt update apt install firmware-linux firmware-linux-nonfree firmware-misc-nonfree apt install libavcodec-extra
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u/pseudonym-161 1d ago
You can game on Debian just fine. If you want you can track a kernel like siduction or liquorix if you have very new hardware or just want some CPU optimizations that you probably wouldn’t even notice. There’s also LMDE7 which would give you the best of both worlds, since you already like Mint. Also, give MX Linux a look too, you track have multiple kernels and use different init systems (I’d stay with systemd for gaming though) and excellent GUI tools.
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u/BetaVersionBY 1d ago
Debian is good for gaming. I use my PC with Debian mainly for gaming (on the RX 9070) w/o any problems. You just need to learn how to install newer drivers if you want to play newer AAA games. But in case with Dota 2 there should not be any difference between Debian and Mint.
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u/grassparakeet 1d ago
I game on Debian. Debian is great for gaming.
Are you happy with Mint? Then stick with Mint.
Are you looking to change distros? Then Debian is absolutely worth trying. It's the only distro I use now, and I like it much more than Debian-based distros like Ubuntu or Mint, and any other distro I've tried. But if you're good with Mint there's no reason to change either.
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u/Technical_Rich_3080 21h ago
Why do you like vanilla Debian better than Mint?
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u/grassparakeet 13h ago
I felt like I didn't lose anything at all (functional or ornamental/visual) when I dropped Mint for Debian, whereas when I used Mint I had this or that break on me all the time. (Admittedly a long time ago, so this is maybe not valid today.) I feel like Mint is just an additional layer of stuff that adds nothing necessary but complicates things like updates.
Vanilla Debian is so insanely stable that if anything breaks it's my fault, and I can fix it by undoing whatever I did.
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u/Hrafna55 1d ago
AI is confidently wrong about a lot of things.
I think the main difference you would experience between Mint 22.3 and Debian 13 depends if the desktop you pick in Debian uses Wayland as it's display server / protocol rather than the legacy X which Mint still uses at this point.
Wayland should give you reduced latency in your display and so a smoother experience. That should equal a more enjoyable experience in games. Plus it gives features like HDR support.
So yes, Debian is worth trying provided you use the GNOME or KDE Plasma desktop.
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u/Pleasant_Struggle_16 1d ago
I am not so sure if Debian is a good choice for Gaming, at least if you use the Stable release, as this is usually the well Test and there for older packages. And in terms of Gaming and compatibility there is a lot happening in the last years so you might get miss out on a lot of cool new features for a while.
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u/Technical_Rich_3080 21h ago
Linux Mint Debian Edition sounds like a much better fit for your use case, than vanilla Debian.
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u/LtSerg756 16h ago
I used to main mint but I switched to Debian since it comes with way less stuff I don't need and I prefer KDE over Cinnamon
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u/ne0n008 14h ago
I used Debian for almost a year, and it wasn't the right distro for my system. I'm not saying it was bad, I would recommend Debian without hesitation, but it just wasn't the system for me or my machine. I switched to Fedora and things are working better, and it was easier to set up.
If you wanna try Debian, run it from live USB. As others have mentioned, there's also a Mint Debian Edition that you can try out.
If you need a minimal setup, and need to keep up to date with the newest trends (so to speak), Debian isn't the prefered choice. Sure it's stable, but if your games have updates often, you'll need a specific version of Debian that is more up to date.
If you want it simple, stay with Mint. If you want to distro hop, try Ubuntu, Cachy or Fedora, or even another Debian based gaming distro like PikaOS.
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u/mmarshall540 1d ago
Kinda sounds like you're looking for a reason to try Debian. If you like what you're using, it's okay to stick with it. It's also okay to try Debian. After all, it's the best!
You don't need anyone's permission either way.