r/debian • • 21h ago

General Debian Question Why Debian is quietly winning the "bloat wars" and where do we go from here?

150 Upvotes

Hey everyone,

I’ve been hopping around various distros for side projects over the last few years—testing rolling releases, heavily immutabled setups, and shiny new tech. But time and time again, I find myself coming back to Debian for anything that actually matters.

In an era where operating systems are becoming increasingly bloated with forced telemetry, unrequested AI integrations, and snap/container layers forced down our throats, Debian stands out like a beacon of sanity. It just works, respects user sovereignty, and sticks to its Social Contract.

What’s interesting to me is that "Debian Stable being outdated" feels like a myth of the past now. Between Flatpak/AppImage for user apps, Backports for modern kernels/drivers, and Podman/Docker for dev work, Debian Stable is arguably the most modern, rock-solid base anyone could ask for without the fragility of rolling releases.

My question to the community:

As Linux continues to gain desktop market share (especially with Linux gaming booming), do you think Debian should maintain its conservative, "quiet giant" approach, or is there room for the project to actively market its stability and ethics to refugees from Windows/Ubuntu?

Would love to hear your thoughts on how Debian can keep its core identity while welcoming the new wave of Linux users.

Cheers to all the maintainers and contributors who keep the universal OS rockin'!


r/debian • • 22h ago

Mum now uses Debian and loves it

81 Upvotes

Just moved my mum who's 79 from her Windows laptop onto Debian with GNOME de and she loves it, just gave her one of my old Lenovo, i7 6th gen with 16gb laptops. Tbf she only really uses Firefox on it but she was happy that it came with Firefox, she signed into her Mozilla account and away she went, prints first time to her wireless printer too which is all good :)


r/debian • • 10h ago

Real Debian with KDE on iPhone

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47 Upvotes

KDE and Debian on iPhone!

LinuxRunner brings Debian ARM64 to iOS, including desktop environments like KDE Plasma and apps like Blender.

No jailbreak, JIT, or virtualization needed. It runs Linux binaries through an ARM64 interpreter.

Still early in development, but pretty interesting to experiment with. Feel free to try it out!

GitHub: https://github.com/mxhm11cr/LinuxRunner


r/debian • • 2h ago

News Debcraft v1.0 released: Easy, fast and secure way to build Debian packages

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17 Upvotes

Containerized Debian package builds, artifact diffs, and automated maintenance, test running, new upstream imports and more. If you previously struggled with .deb work, this might make things a lot easier now.


r/debian • • 5h ago

Debian Stable Question I am going absolutely crazy

14 Upvotes

I have two Debian 13 (Trixie) (13.7) machines, both tell me they are up to date, but first one tells me:

vstubbs@infinity:~ $ php -v
PHP 8.4.24 (cli) (built: Jul 31 2026 05:11:11) (NTS)
Copyright (c) The PHP Group
Built by Debian
Zend Engine v4.4.24, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies
    with Zend OPcache v8.4.24, Copyright (c), by Zend Technologies

this machine has a debian.sources file of:

vstubbs@infinity:~ $ cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.sources

Types: deb deb-src
URIs: https://deb.debian.org/debian/
Suites: trixie
Components: main non-free-firmware contrib non-free
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg

Types: deb deb-src
URIs: https://security.debian.org/debian-security/
Suites: trixie-security
Components: main non-free-firmware contrib non-free
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg

Types: deb deb-src
URIs: http://deb.debian.org/debian/
Suites: trixie-updates
Components: main non-free-firmware
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg

second one tells me:

vstubbs@overwatch:~ $ php -v
PHP 8.4.27 (cli) (built: Oct 21 2026 07:53:46) (NTS)
Copyright (c) The PHP Group
Built by Debian
Zend Engine v4.4.27, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies
    with Zend OPcache v8.4.27, Copyright (c), by Zend Technologies

this machine has a a sources.list file of:

vstubbs@overwatch:~ $ cat /etc/apt/sources.list

#deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 13.4.0 _Trixie_ - Official amd64 NETINST with firmware 20260314-11:53]/ trixie contrib main non-free-firmware

deb http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/debian/ trixie main non-free-firmware
deb-src http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/debian/ trixie main non-free-firmware

deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security trixie-security main non-free-firmware
deb-src http://security.debian.org/debian-security trixie-security main non-free-firmware

# trixie-updates, to get updates before a point release is made;
# see https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch02.en.html#_updates_and_backports
deb http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/debian/ trixie-updates main non-free-firmware
deb-src http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/debian/ trixie-updates main non-free-firmware

# This system was installed using removable media other than
# CD/DVD/BD (e.g. USB stick, SD card, ISO image file).
# The matching "deb cdrom" entries were disabled at the end
# of the installation process.
# For information about how to configure apt package sources,
# see the sources.list(5) manual.

They both used to point to the Canadian mirror, but when the first one refused to update PHP, I changed the first one to the main repository source but that didn't help.

This is driving me absolutely crazy, the machines are on the same network, same switch, same router. the only difference between them is one has 48GB of memory the other has 16GB memory, and the first one runs docker the second one doesn't, but that shouldn't matter...should it?

TIA...your very thankfully the insane ;-)


r/debian • • 6h ago

News What do you think about Josch stops uploading on New because of Debian AI policies?

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12 Upvotes

r/debian • • 17h ago

New issue setting battery charge limit

11 Upvotes

I have set my battery to charge to 80% using KDE's settings and somehow it keeps getting reset with the original settings after reboot. This worked fine for the last three weeks so maybe it was a package update.


r/debian • • 17h ago

General Debian Question bluetooth battery indicator not showing more than 2 digits

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10 Upvotes

dell xps 15 7590 - Kernel Linux 6.12.113+deb13-amd64 - FW. 1.9.1 - gome48 - wayland

i don't know since when it's the case but i just saw that and didn't know why it was like that.

someone else has the same problem? is it debian or gnome and what can i do to fix it if it is even fixable for non os dev?


r/debian • • 19h ago

Debian Stable Question Backports/forky for 9060 XT?

10 Upvotes

Hello all,

I use Debian on a mostly battle-tested Am4 setup, but paired with a 9060 XT. Since the card only came out in 2025 and was like 2 months old when Debian trixie came out, I wonder if I'm missing out on driver improvements using Debian stable. I played around with the testing and unstable branches in the past, but eventually figured I'm happy with stable, so I'd rather keep it that way.

What I've done so far is install the backported kernel with apt install -t trixie-backports linux-image-amd64 linux-headers-amd64. The installed backports (output of dpkg -l | awk '/^ii/ && $3 ~ /bpo[0-9]/ {print $2}') are:

  • libdw1t64:amd64
  • libelf1t64:amd64
  • libelf1t64:i386
  • linux-base
  • linux-base-7.2.9+deb13-amd64
  • linux-base-amd64
  • linux-binary-7.2.9+deb13-amd64
  • linux-headers-7.2.9+deb13-amd64
  • linux-headers-7.2.9+deb13-common
  • linux-headers-amd64
  • linux-image-7.2.9+deb13-amd64
  • linux-image-amd64
  • linux-kbuild-7.2.9+deb13
  • linux-modules-7.2.9+deb13-amd64
  • linux-sysctl-defaults

But I guess I should also get backported versions of the userland companions of the driver. I'm not entirely sure what packages make sense to get for that. Also, what implications for updating to forky next year do these backports have? Should I continue getting backports once forky is out or use the occasion to go back to pure stable?


r/debian • • 8h ago

Which method do you use for adding the nvidia repo?

9 Upvotes

Im just making myself a little app to add/remove the repo for the Nvidia drivers and then enable you to select the right nvidia driver in the gui, as i currently dont use them myself (yet) do you guys add the nvidia repo directly or do you use the repo setting in extrepo from within Debian? So far i was adding the external nvidia repo directly


r/debian • • 8h ago

Mint ate my battery

10 Upvotes

Mint must have been the one eating all my battery because I been on Debian now for a few days and my battery lasts sooooooo much longer! Its the little things that make me so happy. I'm done hopping around I found the one for me and its Debian, but I do hear Fedora is really good too. LOL. Maybe both for me.


r/debian • • 2h ago

Debain Bullseye Sources - Apologies Up Front

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7 Upvotes

Hi All,
Version: Bullseye
Im maybe missing something.... But today I go to update and and get all sorts of errors.

Included the pics I have of sources list and the update result.
Is something up with that IP address.

Im happy to update it all the the newest version but this has me lost.
Apologies Debian isnt my main language.

Can anyone help ?

Edit: Sorry for my crap spelling but was rushing... "Debian"

Thanks.


r/debian • • 6h ago

General Debian Question Looking for an obscure debian release of printershare

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6 Upvotes

r/debian • • 49m ago

Php backports old drain servers

• Upvotes

If anyone still (like me) neeed old Debian systems running I made backports for a number os combinations
Best regards to all Debian users

https://git.iscsp.ulisboa.pt/trincheiras/php-cve-2026-109618-cve-2026-109619


r/debian • • 2h ago

Got the Lenovo Yoga 9 14IAP7 fingerprint reader (Goodix 27c6:550c) working on Linux, Debian packages + a little TUI

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3 Upvotes

r/debian • • 5h ago

Debian Stable Question Key repeating/stuck character bug on Debian 13 Stable (Dell Latitude 3420 / Wayland)

2 Upvotes

Hey everyone, does anyone else experience a bug on Debian 13 Stable where characters keep repeating/getting stuck as if the key is still pressed?

This happens with both the laptop's built-in keyboard and Bluetooth keyboards. I've noticed this issue specifically on Debian, while other distributions with the exact same hardware don't have it. The bug is intermittent and only happens sometimes.

System Specs:

OS: Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie) x86_64

Host: Dell Latitude 3420 (Intel i7-1165G7)

DE/WM: GNOME / Mutter (Wayland)

Kernel: Linux 6.12

Has anyone run into this or know how to fix it?


r/debian • • 21h ago

Choosing a base for a Linux remaster project + ISO build/boot tooling

2 Upvotes

Hi all,

I'm working on a Linux remaster project and would appreciate some guidance on two points.

Context: I need a base that is minimal yet functionally complete — not as stripped as TinyCore (missing packages, limited app support), and not as bare as Arch (where everything must be assembled manually). The project has two phases: (1) environment preparation — debranding, identity renaming, and DE selection; (2) integrating my own custom tooling,tools that integrate with the system. Keeping phase 1 short is important, since the real value of the project is in phase 2.

Question 1 Base selection:
Is Debian netinst a good fit for this? I understand that netinst is an installer medium rather than a minimal system by itself, and that the resulting system is a fully modifiable Debian install. My question is whether netinst + selective tasksel (no DE, standard utilities only) is a practical starting point for a remaster, or whether starting from debootstrap directly gives a cleaner/smaller rootfs that is worth the extra manual work. Any guidance on package selection to stay lean without leaving the system incomplete would also help.

Question 2 Tooling:

  • What tool would you recommend for building/exporting the system as an ISO? I'm considering live-build — are there better-suited alternatives for a custom remaster?
  • After producing the ISO, what's the recommended path to a reliable bootable image (hybrid ISO, El Torito, UEFI + BIOS)? Is xorriso/isohybrid sufficient, or is an additional layer needed?

Thanks , any help is appreciated


r/debian • • 19h ago

Debian Testing Question Cam Debian testing be a dayly driver???

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0 Upvotes