After some experience with Linux Mint, I gathered the courage to try another distro. I’d like to turn an old laptop into an IPTV receiver plus FTP/OpenVPN/HomeAssistant server with occasional desktop use. I first installed Windows 11 just in case my family needs to use it (it fucking sucks, the built-in PS/2 keyboard doesn’t work half the time but that’s an issue for later) but now I’ll be turning it into a dual-boot setup with Debian as the primary option. Please give me some encouragement, I’m really afraid of new things.
It’s Debian. Let us know when you have your first real issues with it, probably some time in 2037.
I had a fair amount of issues back in the day due to debian having limited support for newer hardware with proprietary drivers. I wouldnt be surprised if that still a thing given Debian’s modus operandi.
Debian now prompts users if they want non free drivers in the installer, and the installer it self comes with them so it can boot on platforms that require it, non free drivers and firmware are also in a seperated repository to non-free and enabling them is independent, selecting non free drivers in the installer will enable the non free driver and firmware repository
Good question. It seems like Debian has been speeding up a bit. The software is still a bit older, but it’s not too far behind compared to some other Debian releases. I switched and it’s been rock solid, despite me running a Trixie Backports system.
See my newest comment with the monospaced text.
But yeah, not a real issue, I fixed it in 15 minutes. Apparently it was foolish of me to want Num Lock on the lock screen (Czech keyboard layout uses the number row for diacritics).
Edit: Now I fixed that too. I can easily use numbers in my password now!
I had some getting it to run on a Chuwi HI8 but the thing is a terrible tablet-PC pretending to be a terrible Android tablet…
Don’t be too hopeful, it will probably be the upgrade to Debian 14 in 2030. And the issue will probably be: yes, you need to change the repo and then full-upgrade.