I’ve been getting more into self hosting lately, grabbed an optiplex 3050 for everything and I’m running Mint currently. Looking more into things though, I saw Debian come up as a more barebones distro and now I’m wondering if there is a lot of benefit to going more barebones. I’m not having any issues with my current setup but now I can’t stop thinking about it. I am newer to Linux but having to learn new things doesn’t wig me out much if there is a lot more involvement with Debian
Edit: I appreciate the responses. I do see where I could just end up creating problems that don’t exist by experimenting with it more. Debian does sound enticing so it’s definitely something I’ll mess about with virtually for now and see how I like it in comparison. But I definitely have to agree on the “don’t mess with a good thing” if it’s working for me. All your answers have definitely given me something to play with now as well, I want the problems to solve but doing it in a separate environment would suit me better to learn a few things. This community rocks.
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Mint is for desktops. Hands down.
Run something paired down for servers. Fedora Server, or plain Debian are fine. CoreOS or Talos if you’re trying out some k8s stuff.
Yes, it’s mostly just package selection, but you don’t need to sift through the cruft and clean up all the desktop shit running you don’t need.
Debian is stable. It works well, but the software in its apt/deb repo are relatively outdated compared to what might be in Fedora.
In the stable repo, but there are backports, testing and unstable repos too, if you want later versions and accept more risk of bugs.
Don’t tear down your server just to have fun - setup a vm (or get one of those minipcs), call i “playground” and have fun there.
Redo your server after you’ve tried different things, and only if you feel like you found something that is worth it.
Experimenting with different distros can teach you a lot (especially if you try very different ones - mint and debian aren’t that much different) and I do recommend you do it, just don’t do it in production :)
lights fuse* Proxmox! runs*
If it works on mint, it’ll most likely work on debian, with the caveat that debian is a lot more CLI and a lot less handholding. Depending on your setup, debian might be a better choice for you, as Mint is desktop oriented.
But don’t fix something that already works. If there’s no issues with your Mint setup, I’d say keep it. Next time you set up a server, you can go for debian instead.
Source: I use both extensively. Mint on desktop, debian on headless stuff.
I’m not having any issues with my current setup
There’s your answer.
+1 🐧
Debian is what you make of it, definitely. But it is also inanely stability focused to the point of being a detriment. It takes many months for simple package updates to hit Debian repos and it leads to frustration when stuff I expect to be updated is still very much not. As a server distro I recommend it, but as a play around distro it’s a bit more annoying and you have to do a ton more self maintenance on packages to get the latest and greatest.
Distro-hopping is very fun and educational, but don’t dump a working system for an experiment unless you’re forced to or you’re just a masochist.
Play around with it, try and recreate your current setup within it, and once (if) you’re comfortable enough to do that, then consider replacing your main server with it.
There’s plenty of more wild distros out there too. I love Debian, I use it a lot, but you’ll also learn a ton by trying to wrap your head around Fedora Silverblue, NixOS, Arch or Gentoo. It used to be a rite of passage to build your own LFS (Linux From Scratch) distro, not sure if people even do that anymore, but you’ll probably learn a metric shitton if you try.
If your current setup is satisfying your needs don’t change it. Linux Mint is quite similar to Debian when it comes to the base.
If you want to try and learn new thing maybe look into Bash scripting or Docker. Think of something useful you would like to have and try creating it.Consider Debian without a GUI (i.e. “headless”) if you are setting up a new device in the future. There’s no reason you can’t run mint or mint DE for a server, and the presence of a GUI on the install is not significant for self hosting unless you are pushing the limits of your hardware. The differences between mint and Debian when it comes to how all the kernel bits and service configurations are set up aren’t going to be significant for most casual self hosting situations.
But for now, just keep doing what you are doing. Make changes when you move hardware, that way you can test some stuff out on the new hardware while keeping your current setup running.
I have both running right now. Mint on my laptop and media server. Debian only because it was previously required for Home Assistant support, (support which they’ve now dropped.)
Both distros are extraordinarily reliable, but I much prefer Mint. Debian is more focused on security and some of the design choices focus on that over usability. My LAN is completely locked down and only accessible via Wireguard and the physical systems are only accessible to me, so IDK how much better security it provides in my situation. Mint has every package I’ve ever needed prebuilt while I have had to build some packages for Debian.
Bottom line: As much as I like Mint, for me there is not sufficient reason to switch from Debian to Mint or visa-versa, but if I were installing from scratch I’d choose Mint every time.
Debian is … fine. It’s the Toyota Corolla of distros. It’s reliable, it’ll likely do what you need it to do. It’s not fun or exciting or packed with the latest tech, it just does its job with minimum fuss.
Toyota Corolla is not “fine”, it’s a marvel of engineering, reaching levels of reliability and quality control previously unfathomable, the world’s best-selling car of all time, still going strong and still constantly improving after six decades.
But yes, Debian is the Toyota Corolla of Linux.
Which is what makes it an excellent server distro. And also why I don’t tend to use it on anything with a screen.
The most messing around I’ve done with my server after setting it up is update to trixie. I think I might have had to reset it two or three times in the past 6 months for the reason of “I didn’t feel like actually troubleshooting”
My recommendation is Debian for a server (real or virtual), or Proxmox. The former is perfectly reasonable and excellent experience; the latter is more flexible and more complex.
Debian is the parent distro of numerous Linux flavours (including *buntu, which aren’t suitable as a server OS, IMHO), so administration and services are all common (apt, etc). No need to learn dnf, pacman/yay, etc.
It’s still my preferred server OS, despite other options and being experienced.
Though I do also have a NUC running Proxmox (for VMs and LXCs), and both a NAS and RasPi running Docker. 🤷♂️ My Debian server is a VM inside one of them.
Proxmox, ironically, is also based on Debian.
That’s what I use, but it’s all preference. If your setup is working the way you want it, I wouldn’t fuck with it.
Should I be using Debian?
That’s unanswerable but …
I’ve used Debian exclusively for many years. There are several aspects that have served me well:
- debian is one of the older, more popular distros - huge community and catalogue of solved problems.
- it just makes sense to run the same OS on my desktop and on servers, no oddities between them.
- it’s stable and boring.
On that last point, before switching to debian I (like everyone) enjoyed different DE’s and distros because they look great and the constant change gives a feeling of progress. However, at some point I realised that I didn’t want my OS to be a distraction from what I’m actually doing. Like I want to get my work done, and something not working quite right with the OS due to some bug or update is a huge distraction. Debian’s release cycle mitigates that problem.
In the before times it used to be annoying that the software in Debian’s repos lagged a long way behind the current releases, but that’s not really a problem with the advent of flatpak, nix, and (my preference) AppImages.
Recently I was tempted to switch to NixOS, but I didn’t.
