I recently moved my work machine from Windows to Linux and chose Debian Trixie + KDE Plasma for the stability. The advice is that if stability is your priority, you should try to avoid breaking Debian. I understand that adding third-party sources can cause dependencies conflicts, and must be avoided at all costs. I also understand that Flatpaks, AppImages, Snaps, and Docker/Podman images are safe because they don’t interfere with the system dependencies. So far, so good. What I don’t understand is what happens with other ways of installing software (eg .deb, tarballs).

I know it’s a contentious subject but if stability is the priority, how would you rank different methods? I may be wrong but my take is:

Debian repository > Flatpak > Appimage > Docker/Podman > Snap > tarball

To be avoided: .deb for Debian > .deb for Ubuntu > PPAs

Eg Viber is available as an official AppImage (with certain bugs), unofficial flatpak (with other bugs), and an official .deb for Ubuntu (which is probably a bad idea for Debian anyway). Viber support told me they don’t support my OS.

  • anamethatisnt@sopuli.xyz
    7·
    8 hours ago

    Debian is known to be stable as in “staying the same”, you won’t get any big version updates on the programs in the debian repository, just backported security updates. That ensures that you don’t end up with dependency mismatches where different programs want the same library but different versioning.
    It also means that as Trixie ages the version you get from the repo will be further and further behind as you will still be running 2025 versions with backported security updates until you upgrade to Debian 14.

    By installing random .tarballs and .debs outside the default repository the main advantage of Debian Stable is nulled.
    I would actually recommend going all in on flatpaks, appimages and dockers if your goal is to keep the main system stable and lean. You might also wanna look at distrobox for running programs that aren’t officially available for your distro.
    Another thing too look at is atomic distros, such as Fedora Kinoite https://fedoraproject.org/atomic-desktops/kinoite/

    • ProperlyProperTea@lemmy.ml
      4·
      8 hours ago

      Yeah, I only use Debian to host Docker images. My main desktop is Pop OS, but I’ve been pondering switching to Fedora or something similar.

      • anamethatisnt@sopuli.xyz
        2·
        7 hours ago

        Fedora KDE is my main workstation distro and it’s been treating me fine.
        I chose between that and opensuse Tumbleweed and ended up trying Fedora for the simple reason of having a larger user base than opensuse.
        I’m still curious to try out opensuse tumbleweed but fedora has just kept going and I’ve felt no need to fix or switch.

    • Stopwatch1986@lemmy.mlOP
      2·
      6 hours ago

      I agree with the popular view that Debian Stable + KDE Plasma + Flatpaks (or Appimage, Docker) strikes a balance between system reliability and freshness in selected applications when that counts. I may be missing updates for KDE Plasma but v6 is quite mature so I don’t mind. I know storage is cheap but I am instinctively uneasy with containerisation as it’s done by Flatpaks etc because of the duplication you get with all-in. But if that’s the price of reliability, so be it. It’s just that sometimes there is only a PPA or a .deb, which is why I asked.

      EDIT: I just tried distrobox for the first time. It is amazing how efficient it is. I ran Firefox on Arch and I couldn’t tell the difference in resources. Amazing really.