Cool beans. Oh boy! I did mention Sparky Linux in my recent update cadence article. Rolling release with MATE, XFCE or other desktop UIs that have a slow update cadence like even i3WM is great!
Just watched, and LOVE this video:
A really SOLID well-thought-out Debian based distro! Also, XFCE looks pretty polished and not just tacked on like some distros which require quite a bit of tweaking to get a more polished look.
That said, for me Kali Linux model is distinct in that it takes Debian testing as its base but runs packages through its own QA and staging process before pushing them to users. That extra vetting layer is genuinely uncommon among Debian testing derivatives.
SparkyLinux rolling, Siduction, and plain Debian testing all pull more or less directly from the testing repos (with varying degrees of their own tweaks), so theyāre more exposed to whatever breakage, albeit few, that lands in testing on any given day.
Kaliās team actively holds back or patches said packages, so it functions as a meaningful safety net, while mostly allowing the near bleeding-edge package access I crave.
Still tempted to give Sparky another try years later. Stability gets boring.
Iāve never really used anything other than Ubuntu and then Ubuntu MATE after Unity became the default DE. Iāve tinkered with other Debian based distros but in the end itās been UM for close to 10 years.
And like @ericmarceau stated the community in the last few years has been a big part of continuing with UM and now that we have that same vibe here I really donāt see myself moving away from it unless it goes by the wayside.
Sparky has the same problem as Ubuntu Mate. Small development team with one main developer. Who knows how long he will hang in there.
Capitan Jack
lami07
MoroS
The Black Pig
How many extensions are you using with GNOME? I miss GNOME, a lot! But I think their approach is a bit too minimalist on the UI side. I shouldnāt need to install extensions just to see application notification icons, or show a workspace indicator in the top panel.
Especially since they donāt maintain a shortlist of official extensions that you can bank on in terms of being always actively updated and supported over future versions.
I think for users who can run GNOME vanilla with no extensions installed. Itās hard to beat and insanely stable and capable on Debian releases.
Hi @hydn - actually, I donāt use many extensions or plugins. As for Gnomeās latest shipped version, it might be with Fedora 44, which I recently used a few times live (cf my dual-boot post ). There were some clic / handing issues with 43 but 44 seems alright.
The detailed answer? I donāt think that I use any of them, I actually like Gnome because it comes with everything I need or expect from a desktop. And for me, it also feels very Tux-y
Iām running headless straight Debian on most servers, KDE on one of them that has tons of mem to spare.
Iām running Debian-derived proxmox as a VM host
I run Debian based MX Linux w/ KDE on my desktop and laptop. I used to run Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Ubuntu Mate, but MX has less bloat and no snap by default, is actual Debian and uses Debian repos, and comes with a really nice desktop by default, which is also highly configurable.
Thatās a solid combination. Most of my Debian 13 boxes are headless (terminal only) but I do have one with a monitor and I chose the Cinnamon DE for it since all my desktop boxes are Linux Mint with Cinnamon.
Thanks for popping in again @userx. Being a minimalist, I love the less-is-more aspect of adding to a clean Debian base rather than removing things as is done with the Ubuntu base.
There are times I wished I had gone with LMDE. I tried it when I first headed into Linux-land on my own systems but ended up with the Ubuntu-based Linux Mint. There are pluses and minuses for each. And, in my current situation (as I work to fix an issue), being able to pull directly from the Ubuntu repositories has been a good thing.
Visually, LMDE and Mint are virtually identical, except that under the covers Debian sticks with the more stable versions. But you can still access debian/mint repositories directly.
Right. In my experience, it really comes down to hardware considerations. If one is on older, well known and recognized hardware, then the Debian base is really a good, solid way to go. And by older, I am not implying less-capable; most of my hardware is a couple generations back. For example, my primary desktop (which I built) is AMD Ryzen 7 3700X w Nvidia GTX 1660 Super. Neither are new hardware but still very capable. However, a laptop I recently purchased manifested an issue which was resolved only by going to a newer kernel that carried the necessary patch. Being on Linux Mint (which uses the Ubuntu kernel), I was able to pull directly from the Ubuntu PPA to get that kernel and it was a fairly straightforward effort to get there. Not impossible to do otherwise but certainly simpler in this situation.
But I do like and respect the solidity of Debian; all of my servers are Debian 13.
). There were some clic / handing issues with 43 but 44 seems alright.
