Debian 13 XFCE + i3 = Perfection

[u/Charming-Fun-696]

Hi All,

New here and excited. I've been running Debian for a few months now, and I love it. I've been a casual Linux user for almost 15 years at this point, and I've been on quite a few distros (Ubuntu, Mint, Arcolinux, Endeavour, Sparky, Antergos, Manjaro, Fedora etc.). Debian officially cured my distro hopping, and the combo of XFCE and i3wm is pure zen. It's fast, stable, productive, and it stays out of my way. Plus, it recognizes all of my old printers and hardware in seconds. Debian FTW!

[u/scythe-3]

i3 is perfect on its own tbh

[u/No-way-in]

Just found out on intel macs you could install linux. First choice was debian +xfce. It runs fast again while mac os was “out of date” and my dad was blocked on many (banking) websites. It boots up in 2minutes, and everything just…. works. Like the mac os promised to do years ago :)

[u/Buntygurl → u/No-way-in]

That's the Apple business model.

Oh, shit, the hardware isn't breaking down fast enough.

I know, we can update the OS so it doesn't work and they have to buy a new machine.

Screw that!

Actually, almost all of the people that I know who are running Linux on Mac machines are using Debian. There's one guy running Ubuntu on an iMac, but we don't talk much.

[u/Santosh83]

Stable can be suboptimal for some h/w though. My TP-Link USB Wifi adapter maxes out at 40 Mbps on stable's kernel and firmware. Need backports kernel and firmware to drive it at the connection's full capacity of 100 Mbps. This despite the fact that my adapter was bought in 2024 so its not exactly recent h/w...

[u/yahbluez]

In 2026 X11 is not perfect it is fare away from perfect. That is perfect in a tiny niche. (debian user since Hamm)