Firefox on Debian stable is so old that websites yell at you to upgrade to a newer browser. And last time I tried installing Debian testing (or was it debian unstable?), the installer shat itself trying to make the bootloader. After I got it to boot, apt refused to work because of a missing symlink to busybox. Why on earth do they even need busybox if the base install already comes with full gnu coreutils? I remember Debian as the distro that Just Wroks™, when did it all go so wrong? Is anyone else here having similar issues, or am I doing something wrong?
OP when they try Debian and it’s exactly what it advertises itself as:
You are literally describing the idea of Debian. Yes, stable is old, but that is the whole purpose. You get (mostly) security updates only for a few years. No big updates, no surprises. Great for stuff like company PCs, servers, and other systems you want to just work™ with minimal admin work.
And testing is, well, for testing. Ironing out bugs and preparing the next stable. Although what you describes sounds more like unstable, the one where they explicitly say that they will break stuff to try out other stuff.
So, everything works as intended and advertised here. If you want a different approach to stability, I guess you will have to use a different distro, sorry.
I guess when you last tried it, it was at a time when a new stable came out, so testing was more or less equal to stable.
About the firefox: It ships Firefox ESR these days, meaning you get an older, less often updated tested firefox (with security updates, of course). Again, this is the whole point. Less updates, less admin work, more time to find and fix bugs. Remember the whole Quantum add-on mess, for example?
As others have said, you can install other versions of firefox (like the “normal” one) via flatpak, snap… nowadays. The same goes for other software, where you would need the newest and shiniest version sooner. I’m using debian on my work/uni laptop and a bunch of servers, and it works pretty well for me.
This is why Debian is my server of choice, and my work desktop of choice.
OP, There are some flavors of Debian out there that are more rapid release, like LMDE, Siduction, Sparky, even Kali (though I wouldn’t recommend Kali as a primary desktop personally). Some based on Sid, some based on Testing.
As everybody else has said, Debian is working as intended. To respond to the actual post though, Debian is working exactly as it always has.
If you think Debian used to be good, you must really love it now. It is better than ever.
Unlike in the past, the primary drawback of Debian Stable ( old package versions ) has multiple viable solutions. Other have rightly pointed out things like the Mozilla APT package and Flatpaks. Great solutions.
My favourite solution is to install Arch via Distrobox. You can then get all the stability of Debian everywhere you need it and, anytime you need additional packages or newer packages, you can install them in the Arch distrobox. Firefox is a prime candidate. You are not going to get newer packages or a greater section than via he Arch repos / AUR ( queue Nix rebuttals ).
My bank used to complain that my browser was out of date. I wrote an email to customer service explaining to them that:
A) debian’s “out of date” browser actually includes all up to date security patches. B) simply reading the browser agent isnt really security. I had simply been spoofing my browser agent to get around their silly browser “security” policy
They removed the browser check 2 weeks later. Not sure if it was because of me
simply reading the browser agent isnt really security
It’s not for their security, but for that of genuinely clueless people that are just running an actually outdated browser that might have known and exploitable security flaws.
Ehm… im using debian stable, no website is telling me to update Firefox (I’m on deb 10, 11 and 12 in different PCs).
Deb 12, my home computer, is on unstable and running smoothly.
Debian isn’t “just works” but “it’s a freaking rock” + “open source hardcore philosophy”.
Maybe I got lucky?
I manage over 40 Debian clients in production use. All are managed with ansible. It’s the easiest time in my sysadmin time ever.
My own systems are fedora and Debian unstable. Why? Because I test upcoming changes and features. And think how it would be if all 40 clients run on unstable or fedora, every day updates of 20-60 packages for nothing the user would care about.
Debian stable is my hero.
Debian Stable ± Flatpak gets best of both worlds
Debian is working as intended. You are wanting to use Ubuntu or Mint if you want more up to date packages.
mxlinux is my goto, and if you need something current there us always flatpak for most popular apps
Debian is a server OS. Running it on desktop is like having frying oil for dinner.
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Kali: I have no such weakness!
trips and falls on postgres upgrade
What’s why we have NixOS. The unstable channel is more stable than most other distros and when it’s not, you just roll back
Ctrl+F “NixOS”
Anytime stability is mentioned somebody has to chirp up with NixOS. It’s the law.
