Switching to Linux? Don't sleep on Debian 12. Install Guide (2024). 

Good to hear! I'm glad LMDE is growing in popularity.

Thanks for commenting! Debian Stable + XFCE is a stability match made in heaven😆. Synaptic is great -- I was thinking about doing a video on it -- specifically on how to use it to backport a kernel for users with newer hardware.

Thanks for reaching out! I agree, I always come back to Debian, although I love Arch too.

Yeah it does! There's even some themes out there to make it look exactly like XP or even older... I think Windows 98 too 🤣

Thanks for sharing. What do you think about Cinnamon? I've used Mint before, but I'd like to try out Cinnamon on Debian.

@@Community-Compute it's my personal favorite desktop out of what I've tried. Xfce is nice if you're a macOS fan, so I'd put it in second in my opinion. KDE is beautiful, but every time I've used it, it's been incredibly buggy and unstable. Gnome seems to be fairly well balanced on resource use, but I've run into several bugs on it with large file transfers. Out of all of them, I've found I like Cinnamon the best; it's stable, clean and runs smooth. I've especially liked it on Debian so far, so I highly recommend giving it a shot if you haven't tried it.

Best version of Cinnamon on Debian is Linux Mint Debian Edition. It has all the nice tweaks of the Mint team just like Linux Mint Cinnamon along with solid Debian repositories (and Flatpaks if you need them). Best part - when Debian 13 comes out next year at some point, they have an auto upgrade tool. Great video.

@@SecularSkeptic Awesome, I wasn't aware that they had an auto upgrade tool. That's great for non-techncial users!

I'm actually posting a video about that in just a few minutes!

Awesome! Yep, unccheck Debian Desktop environment if you don't want GNOME, and then check the one you want.

Yep, uncheck the Debian Desktop environment, and check whichever one you want to install.

Hey! Yeah, I've seen that before. I think your BIOS might be pointing to the wrong OS (could be another, old install in GRUB). Check your boot order, and make sure your most-recent Debian install is in the top spot. Make 1 change, save & restart and test. Just do that until you find the right one. Sometimes it can be difficult to tell if there's multiple entries for Debian (from past installs).

don’t forget the iso & go in bios fore you-re choice of start-up disk!

Thanks for reaching out! I think Debian 12 would be a fine choice for your grandparents. You could set it up like you mentioned with Arc Menu, or even use something like Cinnamon as the DE. As for the automatic upgrades, you have a few options. Most of the graphical update tools can be added to the sudoers file so they can be run elevated as default (some security implications here), or you could look into this package: wiki.debian.org/UnattendedUpgrades You can set it up to not require the user to enter a password. Hope that helps!

To be honest, if your grandparents are used to the layout of Windows 7 and 10, my recommendation is to go with Linux Mint straight up. It will be an easier learning curve. I use Debian in my computers as I am getting away from Windows 11. Yes Debian will be more customizable. However, troubleshooting answers will be easier to find in the Mint Support Forums. Also, Mint has a Debian Edition without Ubuntu packages called LMDE. If you do not want anything to do with Ubuntu and Canonical.

@@giancarlolugo7048 Can't go wrong with Mint either!

Not to mention linux mint debian edition/LMDE

Thank you all very much for your replies, it do see why Mint is being recommended, but the start menu is vastly different from Win7. I also looked into the Debian unattended updates and got it working, though I think this only updates security patches on the main update channel, not the apps. So I'm also interested in knowing how exactly you can disable the need to enter a password when updating (edit: found it). For now I'm going to play around in LMDE as suggested. Thanks !

Interesting! Do you know if there's a bug report for that yet?

@@Community-Compute didn't search for it. I installed MX Linux🙂

As you are in The Netherlands, you are currently, (June 2024,) in CEST (Central European Summer Time.) CEST is UTC (Coordinated Universal Time, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinated_Universal_Time,) + 2 hours. It sounds like your bios real-time clock is actually set to CEST rather than UTC, and that your system is configured to assume your bios real-time clock is running UTC while actually running local time. Most Debian installers I have come across, ask you if your bios clock is set to UTC or not. If this one does not, the fix is easy. Go into your bios and set your bios clock to UTC. With you being in The Netherlands that would be local time -2 hours, (again assuming June 2024 and CEST.) This is exactly the time difference that you report. As a rule of thumb, for any Linux distribution, set your bios real-time clock to UTC before you boot and install. Also tell your installer that the bios real-time clock is set to UTC. If you had set your bios real-time clock to UTC before installation, you would not have had any time discrepancies. If the installer missed asking you this question or, you somehow missed the question, you would not have had the wrong time on your XFCE Calamares Desktop. Using, never attribute to malice what can be explained by ignorance, I have explained to you, what I think went wrong with your install. It is fine that you are using MX Linux instead of Debian 12 and, that you really like it. To each his own. P.S. your comment sounds hateful rather that helpful. It does not resolve the issue and you clearly state in your replay to @Commity-Compute that you could not be bothered to figure it out,

Hi there - thanks for commenting! I hope you're enjoying Fedora. For my part, I prefer community-driven distros. To each their own!

Started with Redhat 5 in 1999. After a while, I ended up on Mint for about 10 years. Recently tried Fedora, didn't work. Back to Debian LXQT, but run Openbox & haven't found a reason to leave.

I've never used MXLinux, but I always see it in or near the top spot in Distrowatch, so I'm definitely curious!

​@@Community-Computeerf... MX linux is a No Go. And there isn't upgrade capabilities. And it's... Well...

@@Community-Compute It's awesome. It has optional repos for testing, backports, MX testing, flatpak, non-free. And the suite of in-house app/utils by antix is 2nd to none! Even better than the Mint team. It uses init/sysv by default but you can enable systemd with a single change. For wanting Deb and none of the Ubuntu drama and updated [optional] aps, MX is the best I've ever seen.

I agree MX Linux is awesome - just wish it had an upgrade path. I am not a fan of Xfce and their KDE version is great too, but I can’t get past some weird bugs with KDE. I used it for about 5 months but like Mint better. LMDE’s Cinnamon desktop is perfect for me and LMDE has an upgrade path so that is my preferred distribution. Also, Zorin - set it up and forget about it - always works.

Crunchbang++ is my choice over MX.

That's awesome to hear! Yeah, it does require more tinkering, but the upside is that you can really build the system you want!

Which desktop environment did you choose, btw?

@@Community-Compute I'm using Gnome. I like the look of Gnome. Gnome has some issues such as lack of scaling option, but it doesn't bother me that much.

Thanks for commenting! They regularly release critical bug fixes and security patches, just no major version changes for software.

​@@Community-Computehi. No bug fixes on Stable. Only security fixes. You have to use backports to upgrade software for bug resolution.

@@daviusikse1486 You can also install newer versions of apps with Flatpak.

It's definitely a different take on the desktop! Im not a big fan, but I can see the appeal.

you can fix it in BOOT settings, it might have been set at windows on start rather than asking you everytime.

@@br0ken_107 bro problem solved I changed the priority of boot manager with f6 and save it through f19

Jeez, that's pretty harsh. I'm just sharing my passion with people who might be interested. And you're right -- it's the very definition of amateurism in that I'm not getting paid for it 😜