this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I don't like anything Debian based. The package manager always sits at the core of the experience, and it's just a horrible experience. With a bit of manual intervention, you can upgrade an Arch install from 10 years ago. I've never managed to update any Debian based distribution from the previous release. That aside, a lot of what I do relies on newest packages, and having something that's 5 years out of date just isn't for me
I have literally never had any upgrade issues on debian that wasn’t something mentioned in release notes(been using it since debian 7). I am guessing you did a lot of things they tell you specifically not to do on this page:
https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian
Honestly, given the ways shit broke, you'd think that. One of the cases was on a practically fresh install with a few flatpaks, and it was updated exactly as the distro specified it
Fwiw, I’ve had great results with upgrading Debian derivatives. A machine in my closet has been upgraded from version 8 -> 12 without any major issue. Usually, upgrade problems come from custom or third party software in my experience.
I've had the opposite experience. Updating my apt sources.list and running dist-upgrade always worked for me on Debian (though most of the time I just run unstable which is rolling) but on Arch it seems like if I don't upgrade regularly sometimes I'll get hit with signature key errors because the key database is outdated and then have to go run some other command to update the keys before a pacman -Syu will work. I love both distros, but there's no better way to make your users not give a shit about security than making said security interrupt their workflow. Most of the time I just disable the key check in pacman.conf so that the damn thing will upgrade successfully.
Zorin OS (based off Ubuntu) recently released a wizard to upgrade the OS between major releases. I've not tried it yet.