advantages of Debian?

[rahnjoseph]

Going to install this debian linux but need to know the advantages that WHY i install it to my PC . Suggestions will be appreciated.

[oz]

Going to install this debian linux but need to know the advantages that WHY i install it to my PC . Suggestions will be appreciated.

A few of the biggest advantages to Debian are the fact that it's been around for a very long time and will probably continue to be around for a long time, it's considered to be highly stable, and it has a huge number of applications/packages in its repositories, ready to be installed.

Each person has to install and try Debian for themselves to decide what about it are advantages and disadvantages from their own perspective.

[TheBigPhish]

...to pile on to Ozar's post, Debian has been around long enough that other VERY popular (Ubuntu) have spawned off it, and become very successful in it's own right.

One of the more important things about Debian (IMHO), is that you essentially have 3 aggressiveness-levels built into it. While staying in the same distribution, you can decide your level of bleeming-edgedness of the version. The way Deb allows you to chose Stable(Stale),Testing or Experimental allows a basic user to pick up a rock solid base product - drive it until they want to modify it, and then allows them clearly defined and easily manageable upgrades to more cutting edge features & updates.

I started on slackware, took a chance on Debian back in 2006, and have been exclusive to Debian since..15+ production servers / workstations, plus my house infrastructure...and I'm not leaving any time soon.

it's the equivalent of the "Beginner, Advanced, Pro" skill levels on video games, or "Don't Hurt me, Bring it on!, and I am DEATH Incarnate"

[elija]

Well, Debian is very configurable and can be set up how you want it, it is light and stable and it is also stable. What I mean by that is should you go for the "stable" version (currently Lenny but soon to be Squeeze) the software will not change apart from security / bug updates which explains the first of the stables, however even with Debian testing it doesn't seem to crash at all (yet anyway) and that is the second of the stables.

There are two derivitives of Debian that are also worthy of consideration, which are both completely compatible with Debian and yet add enough to be distinct. If you like KDE, there is Simply Mepis and if you like Gnome, there is Linux Mint Debian Edition.

The best way to find out the advantages and indeed disadvantages is to install it and see if you like it.

[hazel]

Another advantage of Debian is that it is absolutely mainstream. Other distros speciallise on being novice-friendly (e.g. Ubuntu) or bleeding edge (e.g. Fedora, Gentoo), or small (DSL, Slitaz), or maximally configurable (Gentoo again) or having proprietary drivers available by default (Mint), or this or that, but Debian is as close to being "just Linux" as you can get.

Which makes it a good learning distro.

[sgosnell]

Actually, there are more than three levels. Stable, Testing, Unstable, and Experimental. Standard Ubuntu is based on Unstable, which is less well-tested than Testing, although their LTS releases are based on Testing. None are as stable as the Debian version they are based on, though. If you really want a bleeding-edge distro, Debian isn't for you. But if you want stability, it's exactly what you want.