Debian, one of the most popular Linux Distributions that has served as the base for over 100 derivative distributions (See here for the partial list) is celebrating it’s 29th Birthday! I have been using it since 2003, so it’s been 19 years since I started using it and I have to say the OS has been improving constantly over the years while keeping the core values/stability.
I have tried other distro’s in the middle: Ubuntu, Mint, Knoppix but keep coming back to Debian because of the stability and functionality. I do use Kali as the primary OS on my laptop as I use that for my security research/testing but all other systems run Debian. I even managed to get it to work on my Tablet. 🙂
One note of caution/advice is to always look at the packages being changed/removed when you are upgrading esp if you are on the Unstable branch as things can break in that branch. Usually if I see that packages are being removed that I want to keep I just have to wait for a few days and the issue gets resolved. It is not the best distribution if you are looking for ‘newbie friendly’ but is one that will let you learn Linux the fastest. (Linux from Scratch will get you to learn more about Linux internals than you ever wanted if you can manage to get it to work and have the time required to install/configure it. For me the effort spent for the gain wasn’t worth it, but your mileage may vary.
In any case, I think I will be sticking with Debian for the foreseeable future. Here’s to another 30 years!
– Suramya