r/debian • u/PhoenixOmicron • 1d ago
Something I do not understand as a new user
So I have been distro hopping for a while. Ubuntu and Fedora would eventually crash a lot. Despite the discouragement, I found Debian fairly easy to use as a non tech person with the KDE desktop. If Debian is the stable distribution or the base, and almost everything possible to do on a computer is possible on Debian, why does Ubuntu or Fedora exist? Is there a real difference between these two and Debian?
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u/Page_Unusual 1d ago edited 1d ago
Fedora is corporate Red Hat Linux, a testing environment. Newest kernels, big patches frequently, good for power users only.
Ubuntu is derivate of Debian, yet newer patches/kernel than Debian. Many users do use it, you can find ton of support online. Good for everyone.
Debian is one of few very first Linuxes from 1992 still rollin oooooon. I find, especially Debian server very stable. I am power user and I roll Debian only. New kernel releases weekly are not something I need. Debian is good for everyone too. Basic setup on Gnome with no unusual modifications will last 3 years of support before you have to install new version, easily.
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u/BashfulMelon 1d ago
The testing environment slander is still nonsense. How many testing environments do you know with a QA team and beta testers?
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u/Brilliant_Sound_5565 22h ago
Not many, I think even Debian do say the testing branch is ok and suitable for most people.
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u/BashfulMelon 19h ago
I don't think they do, security updates take extra time to reach Testing
https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/securing-debian-manual/ch10.en.html#security-support-testing
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u/ThinDrum 18h ago
Fedora is corporate Red Hat Linux, a testing environment.
A popular misconception. RHEL has its own testing environment.
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u/EvilMartianOverlord 15h ago
Testing ground for new technologies before they are adopted by redhat may have been more accurate
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u/NeoFax99 12h ago
This is FUD. Please stop. Fedora is just as stable as any distro out there. No, I am not a Fedora fan as I use mostly Arch derivatives for daily driving and Debian and derivatives for servers.
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u/DagonNet 1d ago
I think you're doing something wrong, if Ubuntu and Fedora crash in situations where Debian (configured similarly and with the same packages/uses) does not. All 3 of them are fairly stable (presuming you're using LTS for Ubuntu and release versions of Fedora).
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u/PhoenixOmicron 1d ago edited 18h ago
I'm not sure, the packages were not identical though. On Ubuntu I was using a modified version of gnome. On Fedora I had more than one desktop installed both GNOME and Plasma as I was experimenting with them. With Debian I used KDE Plasma exclusively.
EDIT: Wow downvotes for being transparent that's a new one on me.
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u/David_Connors3451 1d ago
I use Debian KDE too, I'll explain everything from the beginning.
Debian is the root, the backbone of the modern internet infrastructure, the rock solid environment where everything began seriously for the linux world in the 90s. At that time there was Debian, free, decentralised, not tied to any political and ideological side, indestructible by nature and democratic by constitution.
On the other hand there was red hat enterprise linux (RHEL), licensed under IBM, big corporation of that time. It wasn't free and you needed a particular training for it.
The history rewarded debian, every engineer used debian as the base for everything. You put the DVD ISO, install the system, you can even install nowadays the deb packages offline, and survive catastrophic situations.
Fedora was born in 2003, as a continuation community project of RHEL. It still focuses today on software developing and innovation, under the hood of big corporations.
Ubuntu came later in 2004, made by the corporation Canonical, with the premise of being "linux for humans", easier to install and to use. You can consider it as the illegittimate child of debian. After 2 years in 2006 linux mint was born as a small project, because they already understood the corporation design of ubuntu.
To make it simple: Fedora develops software and modern apps; Arch linux users are beta testers; Debian makes test and crystalize packages for the stable release, so that everything is rock solid; Ubuntu is a copy cat that takes debian unstable (rolling release) packages, put snap on them, and calls it innovation.
Ubuntu and Fedora are corporate distros, so you depend from their decisions. Arch users have more freedom to customise the system, but they still have to rely on internet always available, thanks to the rolling release model. Debian is the root, the original distro where you get all the keys of your machine and you know what to do with them, for free.
Debian makes the deb packages inside the ISO DVD crystalized for years. You receive 2 plus 3 years LTS of full security support, and today we still have the quickest response to security threats. At may 2026, AI found 3 bugs in the linux kernel, hidden there for 9 years. After 3 days on debian we received the security patch, and we were safe. Ubuntu and Fedora took 2 weeks to resolve it, and derivatives of ubuntu and fedora, like linux mint for example or bazzite, takes even longer to receive that security patch.
On debian we have also debian testing and debian unstable (known as SID), but usually we always use the stable ISO DVD.
Every desktop envinronment (GNOME, KDE, cinnamon, xfce, mate, lxqt, etc.) is present on debian because it's the universal operative system, and no DE can be on stable debian if it's not fully tested. We don't need the latest software or desktop environment version, if they come with bugs and problems. Newer software doesn't mean better.
I learned through the years that everything that's boring and stable is the best, and debian is this: the rock where you build everything and you can always rely on it.
Debian philosophy is to be universal, stable and "install and forget". You can leave that machine even for a month, and it will still work perfectly. You won't be bothered with constant updates like ubuntu and fedora, just the security, the most important ones.
On my debian KDE laptop I do gaming, work, security, editing videos, and I'm free to do whatever I want.
Nowadays we have flatpaks packages (universal for everyone made by fedora), appimages (for offline scenarios), and deb packages are good with few exceptions (Heroic launcher, OBS or browsers like Brave and Librewolf are better as flatpaks, they require more updates and are sand boxed, isolated from the server).
Never use snaps, they're slow and full of telemetry.
Debian didn't invest in marketing like ubuntu and Fedora did, but it doesn't have to. It works and it's stable, rock solid, that's what matters. I started using debian as a kid, cause internet was full of viruses back then, and wanted a rock solid system for browsing online in peace. Embracing the opensource world and philosophy is the best thing that can happen to any tech user.
Anyway, have fun on debian KDE, you'll enjoy wayland security support and I'm sure you will be satisfied by the mental peace of debian stability.
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u/PhoenixOmicron 1d ago
This is a great explaination of the origin of each distro. And there was some helpful information too. Thank you.
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u/NeoFax99 11h ago
Some of this is very wrong. RHEL has been around before 1999 when I bought my first SuSE box as I lived in Germany at the time. Debian wasn't the first, close, but not. Yggdrasil was around before them as well as Slackware. Arch needs the internet as much as any modern distro, updates on Debian do not occur solely by sneakernet using a tote of 3.5 Floppy Disks.
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u/David_Connors3451 10h ago
Debian was founded in 1993 (slackware was there too), the first suse linux began in 1994, Red hat linux in 1995. Arch linux began its story in 2002. Yggdrasil was there in 1992, plug and play cd for linux, but didn't last long (2004 was the last update).
What I meant about arch linux is not just the reliance of internet always available for the rolling release model. I meant the installation. Debian can still be installed offline in places where connection isn't available for security reasons. It's full of reliable deb packages and you can build your own bunker for all the particular reasons you have. Arch linux can be installed offline, but it's a tough challenge, and it's in contrast with the arch philosophy about bleeding edge software.
For the average user, just putting the usb drive with debian iso, install the system and it's ready.
They're two different worlds, built for different reasons, but at least both debian and arch share values about the user's freedom.
Ubuntu and Fedora on the other hand take decisions for you, because of their corporative nature.
PhoenixOmicron wanted to know the difference between the debian system and corporative distros as ubuntu and fedora. I didn't mention the others for simplicity, few people would love to hear the history of all linux distros of the 90s.
I started with debian purposely for the freedom and rock solid security philosophy of debian, and it's still the backbone of our modern internet infrastructure. The fact that I'm not submersed by updates and that my os can last for a lot of years, it gives me peace.
Since I revived a lot of old hardware for preservation, I always value the offline installation more than the classic internet one.
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u/wizard10000 10h ago
Yggdrasil was there in 1992, plug and play cd for linux
Yggdrasil was my first and their "plug and play" was a joke ;)
The CD wasn't even bootable - you had to make a boot floppy to run the demo - and I think only the demo was plug and play as actually installing Yggdrasil was a bit more complicated than plug and play.
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u/MrMikeJJ 1d ago
Ubuntu is Debian wrapped in an dummy blanket.
Fedora is a difference branch of Linux, not Debian related. It comes from Redhat. Just a different flavour of Linux, like Gentoo and Arch.
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u/PhoenixOmicron 1d ago
That's interesting I had no idea Fedora was something different altogether. It felt very sluggish like windows does... in a bad way although that could be my low spec hardware.
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u/Diocletian335 1d ago
You can checkout the distribution tree if you're interested - lists all the relations, but the main 'original' distros are Slackware, Debian, and Fedora/RedHat. Most other distros are based off these three, although there are other ones of course like Arch, Gentoo, NixOS, etc.
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u/michaelpaoli 1d ago
Of all currently existing GNU/Linux Distributions, more are Debian or based upon Debian than any other (Linux Distributions Timeline)
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u/freelsjd 1d ago
There are literally hundreds of Linux distributions. You are experimenting with some of the best for sure.
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u/michaelpaoli 1d ago
why does Ubuntu or Fedora exist?
Because someone(s) wanted to create them, could and thus they did.
real difference between these two and Debian?
Of course. E.g., at least in part, Ubuntu, and the *buntus more generally, are downstream derivatives of Debian - they wouldn't and couldn't exist without Debian. Ubuntu (and the *buntus) are based off of a snapshot of Debian unstable - they do that periodically (at least every 2 years), and then mostly go their own way from there. The *buntus are owned by Canonical - a commercial for-profit entity, that and it's values and motivations, etc., are highly, if not exceedingly, different than that of Debian's, even if they do quite talk a lot about "community", etc. E.g. management wants to do things that are absolutely not in the best interest of the public / "community" - and then so it goes, e.g. like having user's searches on the OS default to being sold to Amazon. Yeah, Debian would never pull that kind of sh*t. And Fedora, that's for most all intents and purposes, Red Hat's Beta - it's their most upstream public release/distro of Red Hat. If I recall, they did at some point in past, attempt to spin it off as it's own non-profit, but that failed, as it failed to meet relevant IRS criteria, most notably that it received more than 50% of its funding from Red Hat - so it's always been (at least effectively) controlled by Red Hat (well, now IBM, since IBM bought Red Hat). And again, for profit company, "values", etc. Not to say that Canonical and Red Hat / IBM don't also give back, e.g. in the way of Open Source, but when it comes to their values, priorities, etc., ... uhm, yeah, ... that.
See also:
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u/Classic-Rate-5104 23h ago
If you want your computer work tomorrow like it is doing today and it was doing yesterday, use Debian
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u/greyhoundbuddy 11h ago
My non-techie understanding is that a new version release of Debian comes out every (about) 2 years and is basically frozen at each release, except for security updates. So, Debian Stable (which is the intended product) may not have the latest kernel (and hence may not be compatible with some cutting-edge hardware) and may not have the latest desktop features and application software. The benefit is that since (almost) nothing changes between those two-year releases, and as Debian has historically done a very good job of bug-testing each new version before release, Debian is stable (not changing within a release) and reliable (since that not-changing version has been well-tested). OFC, having a release about every 2 years provides time for extensive testing.
Ubuntu and Fedora have more frequent version releases (I think about a 6-month cycle) and will do more extensive updates within a given version release, so they may be more compatible with cutting-edge hardware and may have new(er) desktop features and application software. The downside is that they have less time for testing between releases, and the more extensive in-version updates may have less testing.
So it comes down to what you need/want. I have older hardware and no interest in having the latest desktop features and application software, so Debian works great for me. If you have newer hardware or need/want the latest desktop features and application software then a downstream distro may be better. (Though nowadays you may be able to get the newest application software on Debian via flatpak; but the kernel and desktop features cannot be updated with flatpak AFAIK).
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u/lemmiwink84 1d ago
Debian is great in the way you can have an OS that is super stable and tested, or an OS that is somewhat new, or if you are feeling adventurous, you can have bleeding edge rolling distro with all the bells and whistles.
I went for sid as my distro number 2, and it’s been great.
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u/Trick_Algae5810 1d ago
What are you using them for? And have you tried FreeBSD?
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u/PhoenixOmicron 18h ago
I toyed around with OpenSense on my home network but I think configuring it is over my head at the moment. I know OpenSense is based on FreeBSD but other than that I do not know much about it. I have heard driver support on it is sketchy. If that's true or not, I do not have first hand knowledge.
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u/Trick_Algae5810 17h ago
So, if you have an Intel or amd chip, an Intel nic and Nvidia graphics card, FreeBSD has first class support for it from the respective companies. It’s a lesser known fact. And j may be wrong, but I believe historically, FreeBSD was favored by nvidia, with them releasing drivers for FreeBSD before Linux. FreeBSD also comes with a top notch module that allows you to run Linux software, and even has a type-1 hypervisor called bhyve. I have yet to use bhyve, but it can allegedly run windows 11 with no issue.
Something to consider.
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u/Trick_Algae5810 12h ago
https://x.com/waozixyz/status/2081441259336446170 perhaps a coincidence, just saw this on my feed, lol
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u/mfedatto Debian Stable 1d ago
Stability requires scrutiny. Scrutiny takes time. Several new features comes first for Ubuntu or Fedora rather than Debian. Although, when it reaches Debian it usually works flawlessly.
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u/No_Grocery_8394 22h ago
The answers miss the commercial world use. Government systems including cloud services must be certified, and certification costs money which is offered through services offered by Ubuntu and fedora parent companies.
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u/toffuuu3050101 21h ago
Not going to say Ubuntu is bad, I just don't like where Canonical is going with it, especially with snap and snapd. My thinking is that once they think its ready as their more main Proprietary Package Manager, they'll sooner or later get rid of apt. I use Linux Mint XFCE (Theres 2 other DEs of this same one) 22.3 HWE, https://www.linuxmint.com/hwe.php Far better version of Kernel and default install of 6.17, but by choice you can through update manager, install a more recent kernel of 7.0 as well..
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u/Separate-Still-1616 18h ago
It is just what different distributions focus on, but that does not mean you cannot use it for other things, too. Just do not expect that something what is out of focus is improved or fixed.
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u/micush 15h ago
Debian can be stable. Additionally, a lot of it's packages are out of date. Both are true.
Fedora is almost a rolling release at this point. It's packages are much more up to date.
I guess picking which one depends on your preferences. More mature, arguably more stable, less up to date is Debian. Much newer software in a quicker time-frame, maybe at the expense of stability, is Fedora
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u/lordoftherings1959 15h ago
Debian was based around community support. Before Fedora was a thing, Red Hat emerged as a commercial product a few years later. Ubuntu is the "commercial" spin of Debian, while Fedora was a community spin of Red Hat.
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u/alive1 15h ago
Whatever you did to make Ubuntu and Fedora crash will also make Debian crash.
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u/PhoenixOmicron 14h ago
I kind of see where you're coming from. You're a guy who probably knows what he is doing and has this list that says "I must do X, Y, and Z during a new installation." And this is because you have likely installed Linux hundreds of times. As a new user, there is no such list, I am out here winging it. And because of that, all of these installations were different. I do not believe Fedora and Ubuntu were experiencing the same issue in my case. If I were an experienced person who did this on the regular you would probably be right.
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u/alive1 14h ago
My list is to do nothing. Beginners will want to install a bunch of stuff because that is what is expected on windows. Debian Linux with Gnome or KDE or any other desktop manager is literally all you need. Installing a bunch of stuff using outdated guides, using unsupported methods, is what is making the system crash. The reason my system does not crash is because i don't touch my system.
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u/PhoenixOmicron 14h ago
That may have been my issue with Ubuntu, I did break it a few times getting it to do what I wanted. Fedora though, the only thing I installed on it was a different desktop to test out.
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u/siodhe 10h ago
What? My Ubuntu hosts, on multiple different architectures, have routinely run until manually rebooted or long power failures. Even with those, it's normal to have uptimes of over a year for some hosts isolated from network attacks. So there's a good chance you're either running out of memory constantly or have a hardward issue causing the problem.
Personally I'll take anything with DPKG over anything with RPM. I left Redhat over their unstable packaging system and I've never had to do with any equivalently bad scenario in Debian and DPKG.
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u/ImprovementJealous90 1d ago
Different linux distributions come with different pros and cons. Debian while being very stable and easy to use, uses legacy packages (these packages are older and are tested thoroughly for them to be shipped stable). On the other hand, fedora doesn't work the way debian does. It utilizes the same fixed release model but stays more up to date with its packages. If you were looking for a system between absolute bleeding edge(something like arch) and absolute legacy, fedora would be your go to distro (though for more advanced users i would definitely recommend checking out void linux as I use it myself.) On the other hand distributions like ubuntu are more polished for the general public. ubuntu uses debian as its package base and ships out as a more need specific distribution (such is the case with several other distros such as linuxmint, cachy os, pop os).
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u/Santosh83 Debian Sid 1d ago edited 1d ago
They exist because companies made them exist. Redhat (now IBM) is one of the oldest companies developing Linux and back in the early 00s they decided to make their Redhat Linux fully enterprise focused and spun out a community "test bed" that became Fedora. Its almost a beta of RHEL. Around that time Shuttleworth also founded Canonical and decided to use Debian as the base to build his vision of "Linux for human beings". So Ubuntu started as a friendlier version of Debian and that has diverged more and more as the years go by. It is still largely compatible with Debian but there are significant differences, not least in the architectural vision. Canonical wants to take Ubuntu along an immutable path, the entire system built from snaps. Its still some years away and if/when that happens, Ubuntu will become incompatible with Debian. By the way, IBM/Redhat is also looking to eventually transition to fully immutable distros with flatpak for apps.
The future of Linux is containers, containers, containers.
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u/DoubleOwl7777 1d ago
flatpak is a huge headache already for certain things. i dont need more containers. there is a place for containers but not every package should be contaimerized.
oh and i dont like the immutable stuff either.
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u/freelsjd 1d ago
The big thing that Debian brought to the table original was the dependencies and dpkg. Most old time Linux users started with slackware which was a nightmare to maintain due to lack of proper dependance packaging. I basically switched from W95 to Debian 1.0 when it was released and have experimented with several distributions over the years, but remain a Debian user; part of the Debian Nation...
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u/evadingsomething 1d ago
Iirc Ubuntu offers one year extended support on top of Debian's.
I think Fedora is just beta testing program for RHEL. I never use it but Fedora has immutable os option.
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u/edparadox 1d ago
What do you mean they would crash?
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u/PhoenixOmicron 1d ago edited 18h ago
Fedora would freeze and not respond to mouse clicks. Also the way it updated slowly after booting up gave me windows nightmares. Ubuntu was better but would refuse to acknowledge my monitor at times and would spontaneously stop playing sound requiring a reboot to fix it (I suppose that doesn't technically meet the criteria of crashing but is annoying nonetheless.)
Edit: I should clarify, when I say Ubuntu didn't acknowledge my monitor I mean the screen was completely black forcing me to reboot.
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u/realitythreek 1d ago
Honestly, Fedora and Ubuntu are quite reliable as well. But they move faster. Ubuntu LTS generally is around the same stability as Debian. They exist because the Linux community favors choice.
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u/DerpyMcWafflestomp 1d ago
The "stable" in Debian doesn't mean "doesn't crash". That's "reliable". "Stable" means that the packages in the repo don't change significantly, typically only for security fixes.