So I tried Debian Squeeze...

**ozz_man** · February 28th, 2013

What a pain in the butt that's been! ...half of the hardware doesn't work right...

I spent so much time fixing my network issues and now I have sound issues. It's been such a pain that I'm probably going to remove it from that drive. I already use Ubuntu/RedHat/CentOS but Debian has been the biggest pain so far.

Has anyone else had all these issues? (my hardware is brand new btw)

**Dry Lips** · February 28th, 2013

I haven't got terribly much experience with Debian, I've only tried it a couple of times. However, my main impression is that it isn't as "desktop ready" as for instance Ubuntu. It's more of a tinkerers desktop. When I tried it, it did not work out of the box. However, sometimes you just have bad luck, and your problems aren't necessarily the fault of the distro.

**ozz_man** · February 28th, 2013

Yeah, I'm not blaming anyone but it's def been a pain. I had to work with some developers from Qualcomm to figure out what was wrong with the network driver (which worked perfectly well with CentOS) only to figure out my soundcard isn't working now. ugh!

**Adam_GUI** · February 28th, 2013

Debian Squeeze is considered "stable". I feel more comfortable calling it "old".
If you needed continued support for an older machine, I'd consider Debian Squeeze.
You may have had better support upgrading to or installing Debian Wheezy "testing".
There's a giant section on Upgrading from Squeeze at Debian.org here.

There's a more to-the-point upgrade guide over at DoDebian. Here.

Or, the official install-from-base directions straight from the horse's mouth.

Debian has some more err... traditional linux views when it comes to software. You'll have to add third-party repositories for things like Firefox and Thunderbird.
Right now, Linux Mint Debian Edition is based on Debian Testing. It may be better worth your time to give it a shot instead of pure Debian. Found here.

**pythonscript** · February 28th, 2013

I'll second Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE). I've found that it offers a good mix of stability and rolling updates because they push out a frozen, tested copy of Debian Testing's repositories on a semi-rolling basis.

If you really want to tinker, run Arch for a while...

**ajgreeny** · February 28th, 2013

I think your problem is probably down to the fact that debian is an unadulterated FOSS operating system with no proprietary packages available from the default repos. If you want or need proprietary drivers for wireless or graphic cards, you have to work and search a fair bit harder than you do in Ubuntu.

I tried the LMDE, ie, Debian Edition version of Mint when it first appeared, thinking it would be just as easy as normal Mint, but it certainly was not the case, so I quickly gave up on it and went back to Mint, and then from that back to Ubuntu, which for some reason ran faster than Mint on my hardware.

Ubuntu also seems more "pure", though I am not totally sure I know what I mean by that comment; it's just a personal choice thing.

**kabukiM0n0** · February 28th, 2013

I've been running a distro based on Debian Wheezy for a little bit now, and yes, it does get complicated to set up certain features out of the box - but the list does continue on after that. I think it's just a different way of doing things, that does some getting used to. Hell I don't even come close to understand what I'm doing most of the time, but it runs very well on my system.

Even though this is not the first time I've tried Debian, it is the longest I have stuck with it - it comes down to how much patience you have really. It either sinks in, you learn it and keep moving (to more complications) or you bin it and go back to basic everything functioning properly out of the box buntu (no offense buntu users)

When it comes down to it - from the little I know about Debian these would be the key points before even attempting to install and run it.
Do I have enough time to spend trying to figure this, that and the other out?
Am I prepared to take a step deeper into the Linux world? Do I wish to (attempt) learn it?
How much patience do I have? (before I throw my system out the window)
Am I sure I have this much time to spend trying to figure out even the most basic things?

And of course it all realy depends on how deep you want to go. If you just need a basic system and don't want to tinker with it. That's pretty easy (once you know how of course) but if you do like to play around and see what you are capable of doing, well prepare to feel frustration at it's finest.

I do wonder sometimes (offtopic) how must it feel like to set up Arch the first time (without superior linux knowledge) because I had a hard time with Debian and yet Arch is meant to be infinately harder.

**CharlesA** · March 1st, 2013

You could try Lucid - the server version is supported for another 2 years. I haven't had any problems with Squeeze. I've got it running the wiki at work.

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