Debian vs. Ubuntu: How to pick the right Linux for your workflow

Debian works itself or in derivatives such as Open Media Vault or Raspberry Pi OS as a stable and lean server system on countless public and private devices.

However, anyone looking for a stylish and beginner-friendly desktop will not think of Debian first. This is due to unprocessed software, including the respective user interface, which always comes as an original upstream from the manufacturer (such as Gnome or KDE).

In addition, there are Debian peculiarities that irritate Linux beginners, but also those switching from Ubuntu systems. Even the installer wants to know much more from the user than with Ubuntu or Mint. More fundamental, however, is the extremely conservative release model, which does not provide for any kernel updates or functional software updates for two full years.

Setup with small but some hurdles

Even the search for the Debian installation medium requires a minimum knowledge of Linux terminology. The website debian.org is not difficult to find, but if you simply click on “Download” here, you will receive the Netinstaller without a live system.

This is unsuitable for pre-testing with a desired desktop. The subpage debian.org/distrib turns a lot of information into a confusing search game, especially the redirection to the worldwide “Download mirrors”.

If newcomers don’t load Debian with the desired desktop here, this is understandable, but can usually still be corrected in the installer.

The installer asks significantly more questions than Ubuntu. Most of them are not critical: domain and proxy can simply be skipped; the root account, which is unfamiliar to many, is mandatory here, and with partitioning (with a number of specialties) you can get away with the simple default settings, provided Debian solo is allowed to take over the data carrier.

Answering “Yes” to the question “Use network mirror?” can correct any download mishaps, because this then allows another “software selection”. It’s always advisable to select the “Debian desktop environment” option and also a desktop such as Gnome or KDE.

Without a desktop, only the substructure is available, but the system is headless. Without the “environment”, the selected desktop is available, but no desktop software (browser, sound, cups, and network manager may also be missing).

The release policy

Debian prioritizes stability at the expense of up-to-datedness. A new Debian version is released approximately every two years (currently Debian 13) and receives three years of support. During this period, there are only regular security updates—the kernel and software (including the desktop) remain at the same level.

Experienced users can circumvent this by including backport sources, but by default Debian software remains fixed for at least two years. This is the opposite of the agile rolling model of Arch Linux, and Ubuntu is also comparatively progressive with its biannual updates (point releases with kernel upgrades).

Release upgrades to the next higher version after two years are technically offered to users, but are not automated. The user must replace the old release name (e.g. “bookworm”) with the new one (e.g. “trixie”) in the “/etc/apt/sources. list” file each time it occurs (at least three times) and then perform an upgrade with

sudo apt full-upgrade

to request an update. This is not rocket science, but it’s different from the simple click offer in an Ubuntu “update manager”.

Debian is in good hands on computers where no new hardware components are expected for years. By “components” we mean critical candidates such as graphics cards or CPUs that may require newer kernels or graphics libraries.

Debian desktop users should also be unconcerned about missing out on two years of new features in Gimp, VLC, or Gnome.

Debian peculiarities

Debian does not recognize “sudo” for simple account changes. For administrative tasks, “su” should be used to switch to root, whose password was defined during installation. If you want Ubuntu conditions, you can install sudo (and visudo) in the root account:

apt install sudo

The main user can then be added to the sudo group.

usermod -aG sudo sepp

This leads to the next peculiarity: “usermod” seems to be missing like all typical admin commands. The background to this is a restrictive path specification: directories such as “/sbin” or “/usr/sbin” with the system administration tools are not included in the default path.

A command such as “usermod” will therefore only work with the complete path “/sbin/usermod”. In continuous operation, it’ll be easier to add the PATH variable accordingly (“export PATH=[…]:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin”).

After a Debian installation, the file “/etc/apt/sources.list” often contains the line “deb cdrom […]” (the installation ISO image) as the package source, which leads to errors with every apt command. The line must therefore be commented out or deleted.

Such minor issues are easy to fix, but can initially irritate Ubuntu users considerably. Service configurations are also a little more restrictive under Debian than under Ubuntu distributions.

By default, Debian only accepts its own, classic DEB sources as package sources: External PPAs are not permitted, snaps and flatpaks can be optionally retrofitted—as everywhere else—but they are not standard.

Desktop, drivers and software

As with Arch, the selected desktop comes in the default original version. Debian provides a few of its own background images, but nothing more. Depending on the desktop, you’ll have to make your own improvements here—certainly more with Gnome than with KDE or XFCE, for example.

This is not a disadvantage in principle, but assumes that you are familiar with desktop extensions, desktop settings and themes, and are happy to carry out such customizations yourself.

With regard to proprietary drivers and firmware, Debian has relaxed its previously restrictive stance so that “nonfree” sources are now automatically permitted. GPU drivers (such as “nvidia-driver”), graphics libraries (such as “mesa-utils”), or codecs (such as “ffmpeg”) can therefore be installed directly or are already added during installation.

Software and kernels are only reasonably up-to-date in brand-new Debian versions and remain at this level.

Typical for conservative software is also the use of Firefox ESR as the standard browser, which also receives function updates as an exception, but only once a year.

Debian-like alternatives

No question: Compared to Ubuntu & co., Debian requires a number of steps to set up the system and desktop. Compared to Arch Linux, however, the effort is limited.

If you still want to avoid these steps but want to use the rock-solid Debian, you can switch to derivatives such as MX Linux with XFCE or Q4-OS with KDE.

The Debian derivative that guarantees the closest possible proximity to Ubuntu is the Mint variant Linux Mint LMDE.