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Debian OS

Debian OS

Overview

What is Debian OS?

Debian OS is an open source operating system.

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Debian OS review

10 out of 10
August 24, 2021
Incentivized
Debian OS is an operating system which is aimed and designed to work in a very smooth and fast way. The developer-friendly feature of …
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What is Debian OS?

Debian OS is an open source operating system.

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Product Details

What is Debian OS?

Debian OS Technical Details

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Reviews and Ratings

(26)

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Reviews

(1-4 of 4)
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Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Debian for nearly all of our servers, along with various Ubuntu flavors (a derivative of Debian) for some additional servers and all of our Linux workstations. Debian is such a robust, general-purpose, and well-thought-out OS, that we use it as the base for our file servers, web application servers, database servers, hypervisors, and a whole heap of other purposes, both small and large. It never lets us down, and it's very predictable life-cycle makes it incredibly easy to manage within our business, with no nasty surprises.
  • The APT package manager is dead simple to use, and the APT repositories contain pretty much every package you can think of. If there's something missing from the standard repositories, there's a good chance a third-party repository can be added to fill the gap.
  • Debian OS releases are often considered, "boring". But that's a good thing! The Debian developers do not make changes for change's sake and this means new releases are very predictable and intended to cause as little drama as possible.
  • Debian is such a widely used and popular Linux distribution, that practically all Linux software vendors officially support it.
  • The Debian community is huge, especially when you consider Ubuntu is derived from it. If you need help with anything, you'll usually find it has been asked before and already has a resolution.
  • Official documentation is lacking in certain areas. Whilst the Debian Administrator's Handbook is actually rather good, the official Debian Wiki is rather old and tired, outdated for many topics, and seemingly difficult to contribute to. In contrast to, say, the Arch Wiki, it's a world apart.
  • Debian's bug and issue tracker is painful to use! It's a very dated system and I'm sure this must discourage a lot of people off from using it properly. I would love to see this moved to something more streamlined, easier to use, and less foreboding.
Debian is very well suited for application servers, web servers, file servers, hypervisors (personally, we use Proxmox for some hypervisors and this is based on Debian), and much more. It can run on various CPU architectures and scales well from large to small. We have Debian DNS servers running on Raspberry Pis, and large application and database servers running on powerful Debian installs in our racks.

If you want an OS that is rock solid, easy to manage, and predictable, Debian might be the OS you're looking for. The official packages are generally far from being bleeding edge versions, but this means that you are using packages that are battle tested and will not break compatibility at any point during its life-cycle. This, to me, is one of Debian's core strengths and a good reason for recommending it to others.

On the flip-side, the lack of up-to-date versions of various packages may be an annoyance if you actually do need to be using the latest version of such a package. If you need to be using more modern versions, you will need to remedy that yourself or look at an alternative distribution. Ubuntu may be worth a look, in this case, being that it is basically Debian with newer packages and some minor differences here and there.

Personally, I would not recommend Debian for a graphical desktop OS. You'll nearly always be better off with one of the Ubuntu flavors for a modern desktop with all the bells and whistles you'd expect with a GUI desktop.
  • New major releases only come out every two years or so, and each is supported for a number of years with updates. This makes maintenance and patching a breeze!
  • It's rock solid, stable and reliable. It just keeps chugging along, for years on end, no matter what hardware it runs on.
  • It's one of the gold standards of Linux distributions, along with RedHat and its forks. Easy to find knowledgable people to administer and work with it.
  • Debian's absolutely free of charge - giving us an enterprise-grade OS for zero cost and zero licensing headaches.
  • Standardising on a single distribution (Debian) for the majority of our servers, and Debian derivative (Ubuntu) for our workstations, has meant knowledge of our systems can be re-used in many parts of our business.
  • Its ability to run on a large variety of hardware, and do so for free, makes it possible for us to offer bespoke solutions to customers at very attractive pricing.
For our Linux servers, we felt that Debian suited us better than any alternative we've used previously, for a number of reasons.
Although RedHat could be said to have advantages with being backed by a very large company with a bucket full of cash, this does mean it has a more corporate feel to its development and business choices. It also means it can be rather expensive to license, although CentOS does offer a good solution for that.
Other than RedHat, almost all other server distributions suffer from being rather small players, and thus, not having much in the way of a community or vendor support.
Debian is one of the most well-thought-out, logical, and intuitive Linux operating systems you can use. Configuration, package management, file system layouts, etc, are all based on many years of usage, and it's very rare to find anything surprising or confusing in everyday usage. Package management and updates are handled by APT in such a way that once configured, you can almost guarantee your system will behave as expected for the lifetime of its service. Top-notch system integration provides all the tools you'd expect from a modern Linux system, with all the stability you demand from a demanding server OS.
  • APT package management - it just works.
  • Configuration, whether it be system units or package configuration, is very intuitive and logical in its approach.
  • Installation is very straightforward and supports a large variety of hardware.
  • Official packages may not be as recent as you wish, but this is often a blessing in disguise. Everything is well tested no nasty surprises and no breaking of compatibility.
No
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We have several instances of Debian running in our environment ranging from Debian 9 to Debian 11. It is lightweight and very stable. Because it's so lightweight, we have no troubles running both containers or full VMs for each application we use with it. We use Debian to run media software, security software, network management software, and computer/user support software.
  • Lightweight to make hardware resources stretch far
  • Stable. You basically have to be trying to break it to break it.
  • Versatile. Because it is so lightweight and stable, many, many pieces of software are built around it.
  • At first, learning how to use the command line interface can be difficult. Just takes some time to learn.
  • Setting up a minimal base Debian install to be an every day use desktop style OS takes time to learn and do effectively.
My favorite way to use Debian OS is to run shared, hosted, network applications for easy segmentation of apps so that when doing work on one you don't have to effect or take down others. I would not use it is for a daily use desktop style OS. For that I would stick to Windows, macOS, or a distribution of Linux that is already geared towards a daily use desktop OS.
  • Versatilitiy
  • Stability
  • Lightweight
  • Due to it's low resource requirement, we are able to run more applications on less physical hardware
  • Because of it's versatility, we are able to learn Debian well and run our applications off of the same base operating system. That saves time and expertise requirements.
Debian is the most widely used operating system in our environment due to being how lightweight, stable, and versatile it is.
August 24, 2021

Debian OS review

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Debian OS is an operating system which is aimed and designed to work in a very smooth and fast way. The developer-friendly feature of Debian OS is particularly useful for companies like us as we developers use various programming languages to develop and support various client applications in our day to day life. We use it across organization for various good reasons.
  • Runs smooth and fast.
  • Supports many tools since it being an OSS.
  • Has got rich software feature and great backend support.
  • Having frequent updated versions to its feature set could have been better.
  • Great OSS operating system with few glitches in their menus here and there.
  • Very few times, running multiple Debian OS in a VM environment may overheat and lag.
Since Debian OS is an open source software distribution, it is feature rich with good integration of pre-loaded tools with the operating system itself. Many more tools required for later supporting tasks can very well be installed with just few commands. Debian OS has great community help and support both from the existing users and the back end supporting technical teams as well. So you will never be left alone if stuck at some point. I don't see any points which take it back.
  • Being open source software.
  • Very much similar to Ubuntu as there are many past Ubuntu users.
  • Running smooth and fast with minimal hardware configurations.
  • As Debian is pretty similar to Ubuntu, saves lot of learning times for employees.
  • Many tools which need to be bought in other OSes, are free to use here.
  • With very few crashes of its operating system, it certainly improves reliability.
When compared to others, Debian runs smoother and faster and has great support for feature set with it. Even installing other supporting tools or IDEs for development work is pretty easier. With few simple commands and a good internet connection all the debian packages from the Internet can be easily fetched and installed on you systems.
Oracle Linux, Mirantis OpenStack for Kubernetes, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), Rackspace OpenStack, Cisco Virtualization Experience Infrastructure, Dell EMC PowerMax NVMe, Joyent Triton, Cisco Webex Experience Management, IBM AIX, Dell EMC Ready Bundle for Openstack (CloudScaling), VMware Cloud Director (formerly vCloud Director), Cisco Metacloud (formerly Piston OpenStack) - Discontinued Product
Moris Mendez | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Linux Debian as the main operating system in the area of development, testing and implementation of systems, as well as in the area of servers and services that we offer to our internal users and some external users. the main obstacle to implementation towards end users is the learning curve and the habit of using traditional opporative systems
  • The stability of the operating system is excellent, that is, it manages resources very well
  • the support from the international community is among the best there can be
  • The wide catalog of tools, applications, programs with which it has support makes you have confidence that you will always find a solution to your need
  • The security it offers makes those who try it do not want to leave
  • The installation could include suggested partitioning schemes for those beginning users or those who have their first approach with Debian OS
  • offer encryption of the home partition or the entire hard drive by default
  • an improved visual package manager and if it could be native it would be very well received
Debian OS is very useful as a stable operating system, which provides confidence and security, it is highly recommended for development work environments, computing, as well as in the area of networks and servers due to the many tools and software with which it is highly compatible and efficient.
For end users it would not be recommended unless they have intermediate knowledge that they would be able to use it daily without many complications.
  • Stability is undeniable by far the best
  • short lapses between updates are a big plus
  • Debian OS has an unrivaled resource management of our machines
  • we have always had a positive impact being a stable operating system helps to meet our goals
  • the security that Debian OS offers is a quality that contributes to our objectives
  • everything that helps productivity and efficiency in our work has a positive balance in the fulfillment of the objectives that we set ourselves
As they are all a Linux distribution with many years of development, they all fulfill their specific function as an operating system, but something that differentiates Debian OS by a lot from the others is its resource management, which is very good, in addition to being safe and supported by one of the largest communities internationally
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