Sure, I might have over simplified my comment by simply saying “PPA”, but custom repos on Debian have been a way to circumvent the slow release cycle for a very long time. And everyone here gets the comparison. When adding repos on Debian, you should verify the source just as one might from the AUR. I’d argue because of the slow release cycle, users find themselves looking for solutions to pull in newer software all the time and probably more than Arch. Both solutions are trying to solve the same problem - provide software not available officially - and both can be malicious.
I agree, once a user decides to take the effort to setup their Arch install to use the AUR, it’s much easier just start installing whatever without checking, and unfortunately that’s the price of freedom to having access to so much, so easily and so quickly. Some are pulling binaries, most are pulling git repos and building from source. Either way it’s pretty easy to see what’s going on by taking a quick look at the PKGBUILD and with care, it’s kinda awesome.
People didn’t downvote you because they don’t like Debian or disagree it’s stable. Or even because they are pretending the AUR is not dangerous. They downvoted you because you provided Debian as solution to using Arch in such a naive manner. It sounds like you think the AUR is the official Arch repo where users are getting their OS updates. I’m not going to lie and pretend arch updates haven’t provided me a headache from time to time, but overall it’s fantastic and there are distros of arch that provide a bit more of a buffer if you need it.
I’ve been using Debian since the late 90s. I still use it for all of my servers to this day. I have even used it as a workstation many times over the years. But the thing is, I always find myself adding non official repos, compiling my own kernels / pulling in custom kernels (sometimes) and building specific software from source before I consider it in working order. When you build a new workstation using newly released hardware, running vanilla Debian it can take years to get the point to allow you to use that hardware properly. Even on my servers, running on 4 year old hardware, I have a laundry list of “fixes” to get it where I need it to be. Just shell out thousands for a brand new gaming rig? It can be done, you can tweak a Debian vanilla install into a gaming powerhouse, getting a lot of the latest bells and whistles, but it takes effort and knowledge to do so. Desktop Linux is having a moment and it’s not a coincidence that valve switched from Debian to Arch.
We have multiple distros for a reason. Snaps flatpaks, app images, launchpad PPAs, and custom repos are all trying to fill that gap. Debian is awesome but not the solution to that specific problem.
I’ve been a Linux user for 26 years. I made distros for hardware manufacturers. I know very well the distinctions between the AUR and the regular Arch repos and the parallel with Debian’s.
With Arch, the problem is that the AUR is available in the first place and is very easy to enable. People, especially new users, won’t necessarily understand what they’re getting into when enabling it and getting packages from there. A lot of the advice people get online suggest to get packages from AUR. So Arch users are bound to use it at some point.
And if you add to that the fact that the standard repo has bleeding edge package versions with minimal testing means that vulnerabilities can also get introduced. And it’s happened before. This affected Arch, OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, Fedora, but you know what distribution wasn’t affected? Debian stable and Ubuntu LTS.
And on top of that, I’m not even going to mention how unstable it is and how even just making updates is risky on Arch. You have to be on your toes all the time and you can end up with a broken system at any time. For a main PC operating system, I find that absolutely unacceptable. At least Manjaro tried to improve on this.
Valve switching to Arch makes sense though. They moved to Arch because they wanted the most up to date software and drivers available with a faster release cycle. Then control what versions they push to their devices. They keep a tight control over what gets updated by curating their own repositories. So it’s not purely Arch either. It’s Arch-based. You can expect software to be a little older on Steam OS.
In any case. For me, Debian is the solution. I’m looking for stability and security. It has a huge repo with practically every software under the sun. There’s tons of documentation and support and a huge community. For me the distribution works OOTB without any hitch. I just know that I won’t spend time troubleshooting something on my time off. I already do a lot of this during work.
Sure, I might have over simplified my comment by simply saying “PPA”, but custom repos on Debian have been a way to circumvent the slow release cycle for a very long time. And everyone here gets the comparison. When adding repos on Debian, you should verify the source just as one might from the AUR. I’d argue because of the slow release cycle, users find themselves looking for solutions to pull in newer software all the time and probably more than Arch. Both solutions are trying to solve the same problem - provide software not available officially - and both can be malicious.
I agree, once a user decides to take the effort to setup their Arch install to use the AUR, it’s much easier just start installing whatever without checking, and unfortunately that’s the price of freedom to having access to so much, so easily and so quickly. Some are pulling binaries, most are pulling git repos and building from source. Either way it’s pretty easy to see what’s going on by taking a quick look at the PKGBUILD and with care, it’s kinda awesome.
People didn’t downvote you because they don’t like Debian or disagree it’s stable. Or even because they are pretending the AUR is not dangerous. They downvoted you because you provided Debian as solution to using Arch in such a naive manner. It sounds like you think the AUR is the official Arch repo where users are getting their OS updates. I’m not going to lie and pretend arch updates haven’t provided me a headache from time to time, but overall it’s fantastic and there are distros of arch that provide a bit more of a buffer if you need it.
I’ve been using Debian since the late 90s. I still use it for all of my servers to this day. I have even used it as a workstation many times over the years. But the thing is, I always find myself adding non official repos, compiling my own kernels / pulling in custom kernels (sometimes) and building specific software from source before I consider it in working order. When you build a new workstation using newly released hardware, running vanilla Debian it can take years to get the point to allow you to use that hardware properly. Even on my servers, running on 4 year old hardware, I have a laundry list of “fixes” to get it where I need it to be. Just shell out thousands for a brand new gaming rig? It can be done, you can tweak a Debian vanilla install into a gaming powerhouse, getting a lot of the latest bells and whistles, but it takes effort and knowledge to do so. Desktop Linux is having a moment and it’s not a coincidence that valve switched from Debian to Arch.
We have multiple distros for a reason. Snaps flatpaks, app images, launchpad PPAs, and custom repos are all trying to fill that gap. Debian is awesome but not the solution to that specific problem.
I’ve been a Linux user for 26 years. I made distros for hardware manufacturers. I know very well the distinctions between the AUR and the regular Arch repos and the parallel with Debian’s.
With Arch, the problem is that the AUR is available in the first place and is very easy to enable. People, especially new users, won’t necessarily understand what they’re getting into when enabling it and getting packages from there. A lot of the advice people get online suggest to get packages from AUR. So Arch users are bound to use it at some point.
And if you add to that the fact that the standard repo has bleeding edge package versions with minimal testing means that vulnerabilities can also get introduced. And it’s happened before. This affected Arch, OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, Fedora, but you know what distribution wasn’t affected? Debian stable and Ubuntu LTS.
And on top of that, I’m not even going to mention how unstable it is and how even just making updates is risky on Arch. You have to be on your toes all the time and you can end up with a broken system at any time. For a main PC operating system, I find that absolutely unacceptable. At least Manjaro tried to improve on this.
Valve switching to Arch makes sense though. They moved to Arch because they wanted the most up to date software and drivers available with a faster release cycle. Then control what versions they push to their devices. They keep a tight control over what gets updated by curating their own repositories. So it’s not purely Arch either. It’s Arch-based. You can expect software to be a little older on Steam OS.
In any case. For me, Debian is the solution. I’m looking for stability and security. It has a huge repo with practically every software under the sun. There’s tons of documentation and support and a huge community. For me the distribution works OOTB without any hitch. I just know that I won’t spend time troubleshooting something on my time off. I already do a lot of this during work.