Hello everyone, today I will share my thoughts and opinions on the Debian operating system.

Debian

Debian is a GNU/Linux operating system that stands out for its incredible stability, security and performance. So much so that many Linux distributions are based on it. Due to the length of the article I will divide it into three parts.

The good

As I have said, it is incredibly stable, this allows you to be sure that the operating system will only break down because of you. LOL, let me explain:

The lack of instability in Debian

We define instability as those moments where the Operating System does not behave in a deterministic way or as we wish. Well, when does it happen? It happens when you configure it wrong (the OS), that is, the instability is caused by the user, not by the programs, the libraries, or some bad base configuration. So we can conclude that it is the user himself who makes the operating system unstable, that is a good thing, because unlike other operating systems like Arch, EndeavourOS or Windows (to name a few), if you have any instability problem, it is simply because of a bad configuration, which has made it unstable. Therefore, Debian is one of the most stable operating systems currently on Linux. And I personally love that fact. If I have to find something bad about that (which is splitting hairs), it is that unlike other OS like Arch, in Debian when you configure everything you have it forever, that is, it is more “boring” because you are not constantly tinkering and trying new configurations, which depending on how you look at it can be a good thing (for those who do not want to complicate their lives with absurd errors, like installing an update and having it cause errors) or a bad thing for people who want to be constantly fiddling with things and configurations in Linux. The beauty of this stability is that you configure everything and forget about it. You can be sure that your OS will behave the same now as it will in 5 years, even if you update it regularly. This doesn’t happen with other OSes, like Windows or Arch for example, where you can update it and get a Kernel Panic.

Gameplay in Linux

This section doesn’t only apply to Debian, I understand that it happens in other GNU/Linux distributions, like Arch for example; but what I’m going to comment on will only apply to Debian. There’s no doubt that a few years ago, the gameplay or “gaming” in Linux was crap. You could only play games compiled and adapted specifically for Linux, only a few big companies did that (like Valve with their games), and not even those few companies adapted all their games, only some. So, when you wanted to play a game, it was Russian roulette, if you were lucky it worked, and if you were even luckier it was just downloading and playing (which was practically impossible). That often made you not want to play the game directly because of the heaviness of that configuration. That has radically changed for the better over the years, thanks to Proton.

Proton

Proton is the Windows to Linux instruction translation layer, it is built on Wine, and it is responsible for translating the DirectX, Vulcan, OpenGL instructions (which are graphical libraries) and the native Windows library instructions (aka DDLs) into instructions that Linux can interpret when you run the game. Well, even though in theory, this should be unstable, in many games it should not work or screw up your experience halfway through the game. Nothing could be further from the truth, in practice, Proton is surprisingly stable, with very very very good performance where most of the time (based on my experience) the FPS are better than directly running the game on Windows. Graphical glitches practically never appear or the game becomes unstable. It should also be noted that apart from all these advantages, it also has a forum ProtonDB where there is a community that tells the configurations they have used to achieve an acceptable experience.

We can conclude that Valve together with Steam and Proton, have managed to revive “gaming” in Linux by making the experience as it should be, DOWNLOAD AND PLAY.

Privacy and Open Source Community

Open Source Community

By default Debian only allows you to have Open Source repositories, although that can be a bad thing (I will explain it in the following sections) you can easily change the configuration of the repositories. It is quite reassuring to know that behind the scenes, Open Source is always prioritized, because Debian will not do strange things to you as it happens in Ubuntu, which suddenly puts proprietary programs or gives you an Amazon promotion by installing Bloatware (this is real, Ubuntu started doing it to raise more funds years ago). To conclude and not to go on any longer, I see it as a good thing that priority is always given Open Source by a distribution, and that the operating system is managed by the community and not by some company behind it.

Privacy

Due to the previous section, the Debian developers have no reason to obtain any of your data, as there is no monetary incentive, as is the case with Windows or Ubuntu, you can be sure that the Debian developers will never violate your privacy, because they don’t give a shit, they provide you with an operating system whose development has been practically the same for almost 30 years and that’s it, if you like it fine and if not, well, fine. I see it as a good thing that the entities (in this case the Debian development group) don’t mind obtaining your data, because it gives you the guarantee that in the future they will not try to do weird things to monetize the project.

These are my opinions on The Good in Debian, in the future I will post new articles explaining the rest of my not so good opinions. 😈

I will continue with the explanation in part 2: Debian The Ugly.

Regards, emilio.red 😎