My Experience After a Year Using Debian for Web Development

For the past year, I’ve been using Debian (stable) on my computer for web development, and I have some thoughts about it. I’ve learned a lot and can totally understand why some people absolutely love Debian. However, from now on, I’m going back to Fedora.

My Experience With Other Distros Before

Here’s my chronological order of Linux distros:

Ubuntu I used it for a long time, but I wasn’t into development yet. I learned basic Linux commands during this time.
Linux Mint When I started using Linux Mint, I was already doing some web development but at a less advanced level. I used tools like LibreOffice, VS Code, PyCharm, GIMP, Chromium, and others available in the Ubuntu repositories. The experience was smooth since the software was well-maintained and updated.
Fedora Upon switching to Fedora, I transitioned to more terminal-based tools: NeoVim as my main editor, Kitty as a terminal emulator, LazyGit, tmux, etc. This was very comfortable because Fedora provides frequent updates, and I enjoyed having updated tools without the potential instability of Arch.

After that, I decided to try Debian because it’s the foundation of many distros I’ve used. I wanted to learn what parts of them originated from Debian.

Changing From Fedora to Debian

When I switched to Debian, version 12 (Bookworm) had been released a few months earlier, so it wasn’t too outdated. Additionally, this version included support for non-free firmware, which made installation easier. I installed the XFCE version as a base to experiment with BSPWM and AwesomeWM, while keeping XFCE as a backup. Debian’s desktop environments are very vanilla, which I found similar to Fedora.

My General Evaluation of the Experience

Installation

The installation process is straightforward and not particularly difficult. However, the Debian website is unintuitive. While they have a large “Download” button, it’s unclear what exactly you’re downloading—Is it the latest version? Stable version? GNOME version? Although I eventually found the necessary information, this should be clearer on the website.

Software

Everything worked but required a bit of extra effort. I had to manually compile most of the terminal tools I used. While Debian is a super-stable distro, if you want updated tools like LazyVim (a NeoVim distribution), you’ll need to build them from source. For example:

LazyGit couldn’t be installed because Debian’s version of Go was too old. I had to reinstall Go from source.
Picom (a Xorg compositor) also needed extra configuration.
I installed Node using NVM and used Flatpak to get updated GUI software like Obsidian.

While the process required more effort, Debian’s active community made it easy to find solutions.

Update Cycle

Debian’s update cycle is very comfortable if you don’t need the latest software. Security updates are provided, ensuring stability after updates. This makes Debian an excellent choice for secondary computers or servers. However, for my main computer, I prefer a more updated system.

Strictness

Debian is strict with its decisions. For example, you need superuser privileges for some common commands, which can be annoying for web developers. However, I appreciated their handling of Python’s pip install.

When you attempt to globally install packages with pip, Debian enforces Python Enhancement Proposal (PEP) 668, recommending virtual environments or apt instead. This taught me to avoid global Python installations, a practice I now follow even on Fedora.

General Conclusion

Debian is a great distro for general desktop users. Although many developers use it daily, I think it requires unnecessary extra effort to install updated tools. For web development, I found Fedora more suitable due to its up-to-date software and easier workflows.

Debian’s strengths—stability, security, and strict adherence to best practices—make it an excellent choice for servers or secondary machines. However, for my primary setup, I’ll stick with Fedora for its balance of stability and modernity.