TIL. What a superpower!
This repo has a list of extrepo stuff - https://salsa.debian.org/extrepo-team/extrepo-data/-/tree/ma...
> deb-get makes it easy to install and update .debs published in 3rd party apt repositories or made available via direct download on websites or GitHub release pages.
https://github.com/wimpysworld/deb-get/
In particular, the list of software is a bit longer than extrepo (e.g. includes zoom):
https://github.com/wimpysworld/deb-get/blob/main/01-main/REA...
However, trying the specific example that was listed in the article, I installed extrepo and enabled the mozilla repo. Unfortunately, firefox is not installable on trixie in it's current form because it depends on libasound2 and the trixie package is called libasound2t64. : (
the main reason i always fall back to Ubuntu is bc everyone has a PPA for it. Sometimes the PPA also works for Debian, but its 50/50 (from what i understand its not an official thing under Debian?)
AppImages have aleviated this.. but appimagelauncher is broken under Ubuntu and theyre annoying to integrate manually
Generally, these are repos maintained by the upstreams themselves, e.g. Docker, Tor, Armbian, Dovecot... my guess (and it's just a guess, I haven't used Ubuntu PPAs much lately) the PPAs are maintained by not-the-upstreams. Or perhaps some of the upstreams are maintaining both a PPA and their own hosted repo.
Was bummed to see firefox at version 128 as I've been missing features from the more recent versions. I don't know how I'm going to address that yet as I prefer not to add external apt sources, if I can. This is on a desktop system so somewhat recent versions of software is desirable.
What do other people do for desktop systems? Go with testing/unstable or just another distro for desktops?
[0] https://www.ebay.com/str/evolutionecycling
[1] https://linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/en/lates...
I believe that is because Debian ships Firefox "Extended Support Release" (ESR) as a security precaution, and the firefox-esr package[1] is quite out of date in absolute terms.
If you want the newest Firefox (not ESR), just add Mozilla's own repo instead: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/4-reasons-to-try-mozilla...
(mainly, it was the fact that the installer finally included firmwares out of the box which made installing much, much easier on laptops)
Because i want updated packages, the first thing i do is enable backports (otherwise i think that trixie still comes with kicad 5? hugh!) and do a full upgrade.
as for firefox, debian's repositories use firefox esr, which is why you are still on 128. There are instructions on firefox's site on how to switch to the regular release channels, just do that. If you can't trust firefox's own sources i don't know how you can trust debian's.
Debian + KDE is my favourite combo. I don't do anything different for desktop. When there was the debian 13 freeze i simply waited a couple of days, edited the sources to point at trixie and did a full-upgrade and an autoremove to clean old stuff. That's it.
I don't consider outdated packages to be a problem on any distro because I just use Nix (which doesn't interfere with other package managers) whenever I want a more recent package.
https://backports.debian.org/Instructions/
If I'm not mistaken, repo is already included by default, so you just need:
''' # apt install -t trixie-backports <package> '''
This will install backported package _and_ dependencies, so you will be good to go :)
Heck, I use Fedora Server as my homelab OS to run Incus. Works For Me.
In your case I guess it makes sense since you have to run Fedora at work, but I was under the impression that the support for Incus (i.e. official packaging etc) was better on Debian.
I’ve had more trouble and time wasted with snap Firefox than I’ve had with official Mozilla repos under both Debian and Ubuntu.
You can however get all stability of a released version with newer packages if you use stable+backports. This would give you a stable system, and allow you to upgrade selected packages to newer versions. This can be tedious, so running testing is also possible.
And well, overall, you can also install other distributions that are bleeding-edge (Arch based?). That's why I like about the distro ecosystem :)
Protip: don't use Pacman directly, just use 'yay' which comes with EndeavourOS. Yay is an interface to Pacman, now while it may sound silly, its totally worth its salt. I'm probably still on Endeavour because of yay.
In order to update your system just type 'yay' into a terminal and it does the work prompting you for confirmation.
If you want to install anything its as simple as 'yay packagename' and then it gives you options, including from the User repos (AUR) which are like Ubuntu's PPAs.
I spent probably 15 years on Debian / Ubuntu (though it mostly became Ubuntu even for servers, I got too used to Ubuntu over the years). I installed Arch this past year because I wanted more up to date packages, I didnt want bleeding edge, but it hasn't been so much bleeding so I'm okay with it. I update every few days, or when Discord decides to tell me to download the DEB package or it wont open.
I did not use the Firefox coming with 11 and I won't use the ESR version in 13. I downloaded the deb from Mozilla's site once and it autoupdated itself up to the current version. No problem at all. I'll do the same on 13.
I trust Debian, and I trust the Debian Firefox team to secure Firefox, but I do not trust Mozilla.
You can tell apt to prefer a given source list only for a few packages.
I solved all of the above by switching to the NVidia Cuda repo (well, I did not reenable Secure Boot, so not sure if that would work now).
Another useful thing from the article for me was `apt modernize-sources` to update the existing sources.list to the new structure. Now I need to check if scripts like this run automatically on my auto-updating desktop from my parents.
What I lack with the "modern" `sources.list.d/` file schema is a command to perform common types of edits. Something like `extrepo` but generic and with knowledge of Debian repos/dists. It's a small thing but I want to be able to type commands like
apt-sources available # prints known dists, marked by their support status
apt-sources list # prints all active dists
apt-sources add trixie # or "testing", "unstable", "sid"
apt-sources remove bookworm
apt-sources dist-upgrade # combo of the previous two
The Libreoffice 5.8 (which was just released very recently) is already packaged in backports for trixie for instance. Did things like updated KDE desktops make it to backports for bookworm?
If only :(
> Truly adventurous users may take their chances with the unstable ("sid") release.
It's been years since I've run Linux as a daily driver, but when I did it was Sid, and it didn't feel particularly adventurous. Over a 10-15 years timespan, I think there were 2 breakages, one of them being the difficult KDE 3.x transition.
I've long meant to try Fedora, but apt/dpkg is in my muscle memory, and I never got the handle of dnf/rpm.
I tried the 580 bundle with the same problem. I had to revert to the 535 bundle.
[1]: https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/nvidia-555-58-4k-120hz...
Come on guys, Debian 13 has been in testing for months, and you can't be arsed to update your apt repos from bookworm to trixie by release, or even weeks after release? That's embarrassing.
~ sudo apt update --audit
[...]
Hit:8 https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt google-compute-engine-bookworm-stable InRelease
Hit:10 https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt cloud-sdk-bookworm InRelease
Hit:11 https://pkg.cloudflareclient.com bookworm InRelease
Hit:12 https://pkg.cloudflare.com/cloudflared bookworm InRelease
[...]
Fetched 407 kB in 2s (222 kB/s)
2 packages can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see them.
Warning: https://pkg.cloudflare.com/cloudflared/dists/any/InRelease: Policy will reject signature within a year, see --audit for details
Audit: https://pkg.cloudflare.com/cloudflared/dists/any/InRelease: Sub-process /usr/bin/sqv returned an error code (1), error message is:
Signing key on FBA8C0EE63617C5EED695C43254B391D8CACCBF8 is not bound:
No binding signature at time 2025-08-21T15:58:52Z
because: Policy rejected non-revocation signature (PositiveCertification) requiring second pre-image resistance
because: SHA1 is not considered secure since 2026-02-01T00:00:00Z
At least google's got you covered, if you simply ask nicely:
$ curl -s https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt/dists/cloud-sdk-trixie/InRelease | grep -E Suite:\|Date:
Suite: cloud-sdk-trixie
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2025 18:45:14 UTC
$ curl -s https://packages.cloud.google.com/apt/dists/google-compute-engine-trixie-stable | grep -E Suite:\|Date:
Suite: google-compute-engine-trixie-stable
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2025 21:24:03 UTCIt's not like the Debian release schedule is a secret, I suspect there's just less corporate pressure to prioritize Debian.
One of the features I'm most excited about is access to Podman 5.4.2, and the ability to use Podman Quadlets. It'll be nice to start transitioning my systemd service units over to the new format for my containers.
been running "unstable" since 2007 as my daily driver, work-horse, dev-machine, ... Not once faced a "problem" I couldn't recover from. Not once a restore from backup of the main OS due to something the upgrade or OS had caused, no booting from a rescue-image. For something that comes without warranty and has "unstable" in it's name, it's pretty solid.
Apples and oranges of course, but it holds up also well compared to Windows (which tbf, has gotten more stable since Win98), or even compared to MacOS that also crashes at times even after version MacOS 9.x (which was when MacOS became usable in the sense of "stability").
It's just old ideas that get repeated even once they stop being true.
Debian release cycles have a strong focus on stability, and for those situations where it matters, like running a production server, that is a pretty important feature. Just because your desktop never broke doesn't mean it's not "unstable", it's more of a disclaimer that if you put serious things on top of it and it breaks, that's much more on you because you chose to go against maintainer advice.
For me personally, with exception of the Enterprise Linux family (Alma, Rocky etc.), there's no Linux distribution I'd rather run on a workhorse, production, long term deployment server than Debian.
To be fair, sid had various bugs leading to unbootable systems since then. While it's possible to recover in such situations without re-installation or data loss, I believe that makes the term "unstable" quite fitting.
I’ve had a few instances of X not starting, over the years. Nothing terrible, and that’s as much down to me using nvidia cards as anything.
There’s a small number of packages unavailable in Deb 13 that exist in 12. I assume at some point all of them existed in pre-stable trixie.
That's why I use rolling release distributions on my Desktop. For Debian, people recommend Debian testing usually. And that's fine. Maybe they should just call it Debian rolling releases and rename stable to Debian LTS. I think it's more appropriate to how people actually use these things.
Manjaro is not without issues but I've had it on one of my laptops for the last four years and it's nice to have the latest driver updates, kernels, etc. working together. It also helps that the community is just focused on current versions of stuff and fixing minor integrations with released packages rather than working around issues in some long forgotten release with distribution specific patches, etc. You find relatively little of that in Arch (which underlies Manjaro).
For production servers, the server just needs to boot my docker containers and get out of the way. IMHO There's no need to support > 10K packages for god knows what there. Most of that stuff probably has no business being installed on a server. I'm actually leaning towards immutable distributions and servers for that reason. The business of manually fiddling with servers in a production environment is something I'm trying to avoid/do less off. They shouldn't need a package manager if they are properly immutable.
You're obviously correct here. But perhaps there are users who prefer stable packages on the desktop too. Corporate users most likely (yes, there are such users too). It helps with their security strategy and a development environment similar to their server.
To be very honest, I think the stable security-oriented approach is better than that of a rapid update distro. You should probably use an overlay package manager like flatpak, mise (for dev tools) or even Nix/Guix for anything modern. Preferably something with minimal installs and good sandboxing features. Please let us know if anybody has better suggestions to offer.
My reasoning is quite simple: I really don't need the latest versions of everything. Were computers useful two years ago? Yeah? OK then, then a computer is obviously useful today with software that is two years old. I'll get the new software eventually, with most of the kinks ironed out. And I've had time to read up on the changes before they just hit me in the face.
Sure, it was a bit painful with hardware support some twenty years ago or so, but I can barely remember the last time that was an issue.
For the very few select pieces of software where stable doesn't quite cut it there's backports, fasttrack and other side channels.
I like to build things which last. I like to craft a software system and then use it for decades, moving it from machine to machine and intentionally upgrading the components at my pace.
I don't understand why people like the rigmarole of constantly updating their systems. The only things that come down the wire are security updates.
Installer newer software can be managed. I use the following strategy:
- For Discord / Slack / <something that needs to be the newest>. I can normally use Flatpak.
- Use a third party repo. For Brave, Node and some other things. I use their repository.
- Open source stuff. For smaller stuff that is easy to compile from source e.g. vim / neo-vim I just compile from source so I have the newest versions.
- Python Apps / NPM tooling. I install them in my local user directory.
- Docker is installed in rootless mode.
>> You're obviously correct here.
It's neither obvious nor correct, the "stability vs. features" expected is completely subjective. I run Debian Stable on my desktop because I've almost never encountered needing newer versions of anything, and when I did I could usually jump to testing (i.e. the upcoming release) rather than unstable, and even then the next release usually wasn't that far away, so it was still very stable.
As other commenters have pointed out, you can run Debian Sid (unstable), but I'll also agree that if that is what you want long-term then maybe running something like Arch makes more sense anyway.
The only problem I had on Debian 11 desktop was related to the new openssh libraries. I could not install the latest nodes and rubies because 11 had older libraries. However there are workarounds related to providing some environment variables (from memory: some legacy_providers_*) so after a little googling I made them work on my dev machine (and on some old server from a customer of mine.) I'm installing Debian 13 in these days so no more workarounds, for a few years.
Everything else worked fine. I don't install much on this machine: no flatpacks, no appimages, no snaps (I left Ubuntu because of them.) Only debs and docker images. I install languages through their language manager, never through the OS: I could have only one version of them, which is useless. Same about databases. There are hardly two projects on the same language and db version. I could be using LibreOffice and GIMP from 20 years ago: they already had all the features I need.
It's a tricky thing to solve. One the one hand, you don't want your system to stop working due to an update but also want to keep the software you use updated, both in terms of security and functionality.
Mark Shuttleworth talked about this many years ago before snaps were introduced as a solution to this. The idea at the time was that a rolling release distro is too much of a hassle to maintain and even the 6-month cycle was getting to be too much. So he talked about having a stable core with a long release cycle and rolling releases for software that need to be frequently updated, both desktop and server software. The idea was great but the details of the execution left a bitter taste for many users.
You don't want to use RAM for tmp files for which you probably can't do capacity planning, and you don't to enable swap on server either.
I sometimes manually changed the /tmp to be in memory, or used /dev/shm which by default is in memory. Did not run into any problems just yet, but then again it's just a home server.
Would it really be so hard to make that switch to a more privacy focused umask?
# UMASK is the default umask value for pam_umask and is used by
# useradd and newusers to set the mode of the new home directories.
# 022 is the "historical" value in Debian for UMASK
# 027, or even 077, could be considered better for privacy
# There is no One True Answer here : each sysadmin must make up his/her
# mind.With Trixie, PAM's "User Private Groups" are by default enabled and default umask thus is 002 instead of 022.
(Personally, I'm irritated by the rather silent way this invasive change got introduced -- it is mentioned in /usr/share/doc/libpam-modules/NEWS.Debian.gz together with instructions to restore the old behavior.)
Yes, yes, we all run Postgres in containers, but if you don't, and you upgrade to a new Postgres major version, gladly using the Debian scripts that make it all more comfortable, while using umask 027, you will enjoy your day. Though I don't remember if those upgrade-scripts where from Debian proper or from Postgres.
Since that experience I always wondered what other tools may have such bugs lurking around.
From https://groups.google.com/g/bbr-dev/c/i-sZpfwPx-I/m/0jmNry0A... :
> To make sure we're all on the same page: currently the TCP BBR code in Linux is BBRv1. We are working on getting BBRv3 upstream into Linux TCP.
> BBRv1 is definitely not ready to be the default on any Linux distribution. Whether BBRv3 is ready to be a distribution default is arguable.
I'm running somebody's rebase tracking things. 6.13 I believe. Worked on one box, not on another. Oh well. Doubly irritating is that the sysctl only flags bbr not which version.