For reasons similar to why plain bread doesn't show up in sandwich recommendations.

One of the main historical reasons was the Debian project's puritan approach to open source, meaning the distro was very picky about what it could easily run on. As an example, most network drivers for Realtek nics weren't included out of the box as they contained non-free code, there was no direct way to install Nvidia drivers instead of nouveau, a lot of the hardware didn't work in the installer unless you sideloaded the drivers from a usb stick and so on.

There was a non-free ISO version to get around this, but you needed to know of it to use it, and it wasn't provided anywhere by default. The download page for it was just a barebone directory listing within the mirror. No link or information was provided for it on the main project page.

Starting from version 12 or 13 (don't remember exactly) proprietary drivers have been included in the installation images, which removed the biggest pain point (IMO) for novice users. Apart from that Debian has been one of the easier distros to install, and has things like a considerably better experience when updating to the next major release. It's not really slower to update packages than Ubuntu, as I'd be wary of recommending the non-LTS versions to novice users. They tend to be quite unstable compared to LTS.

Personally I've daily driven Debian for close to five years, on all my devices except the work laptop. That one is running Ubuntu 24.04 as the employer requires either that or Fedora for Linux users.

Debian takes work, especially if you have tricky, proprietary hardware that requires firmware support. It comes with that magical "free software only" mentality that makes it harder to adopt and hence why Ubuntu and Mint exist. It's a great minimalist distro

For desktop use debian sucks. I dont want to wait a year to update my apps. For servers its fine. Arch and Nix are my favorite rn and im looking to convert my home media server into Nix soon.

I'll be honest : because people is ignorant.

They tried Debian once few years ago, it didn't have the exact driver they wanted out of the box, they gave up. They think that's the normal and current experience.

Reality is I use Debian every day on my servers, SBCs, laptop but also my desktop. I've been gaming on it since the first day of the installation and it just worked. Sure I had to follow https://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers and basically follow those steps. It took me maybe 15min and 1 reboot but since then NO tinkering, 0, and I'm gaming nearly daily from indie to AAA, from 2D to 3D to VR. As I mentioned in another reply sure I might not have perfectly optimized all my performance but I don't give a shit, I'm just gaming!

Also as I mentioned elsewhere the "cutting edge" is bullshit. You can have a Debian installation, stable, and cherry pick the packages you want. Heck you can even pull from a forge the software you want, built it, run it. That's how "bleeding edge" it can be. Of course you can use VM (with GPU passthrough), distrobox, AppImage, Nix (different from NixOS), etc so they are many many ways to make sure you use the absolute latest without breaking your system.

TL;DR: Debian does not position itself as a gaming distribution. A lot of gamers want to optimize everything for gaming and consequently assume a specialized distribution will do better. Meanwhile people who JUST want to play can definitely do so on Debian.

Debian and Red Hat are the foundation for most of the popular distros out there.

Debian used to have quite old software before version 6.0 or so. Ever since then it’s been quite a good daily driver for workstations too.

I'll give you an example:

I tried to run an old videogame through plain wine. On ZorinOS it ran out of the box no questions attached. On Debian I had to install wine and go through a few hiccups and issues. An average user shouldn't go crazy when the command like says something incomprehensible 

I've been running debian sid on desktop for 4 years, I think. Yes, I don't care if it breaks. I wanted to try debian and didn't want to use old packages at that point. These days I don't really need the latest things. I recently switched to testing - I only needed to replace a few words in a few files in /etc. I didn't even need wiki or anything for that, because testing is almost like sid. If this doesn't break on me majorly, I might not switch and just replace "testing" with "forky". I'm really satisfied with debian.

Others already explained basically everything. I'd like to elaborate and offer a few examples to support them.

• On potential users:

  • The people who look for distros to try are seen as newbies by linux users, and therefore are recommended newbie-friendly distros. Also, debian is conservative: it rarely offers shiny new things, so its desktop use isn't high. There isn't much to be excited about, so there are no hype cycles. The current "shiny new thing" in debian was the recent change in apt's interface (now it formats its output into tables, for example), compare that to "atomic" distros. People often still use apt-get (it is in the guides for some reason) instead of apt so even this news in nothing to them.

  • Furthermore, software development often happens with the latest libraries around. It's often a great help that Arch ships the latest software. Debian doesn't have that. While languages these days have their own package managers, having the latest devtools, editors, etc. to try out is harder to do on debian. Therefore, IT students and software engineers have better time on faster-moving distros. Debian is more for the sysops/sysadmin people ( you can leave it there on auto-update and not care for 2 or more years ). The above further restricts its appeal and userbase.

  • Even further, Debian might be bigger than it seems, as others have pointed it out. Perceived marketshare is often based on desktop use. See EU OS's FOSDEM presentation on how opensuse has a bigger company behind it than ubuntu.

• On "latest drivers":

  • It used be much harder to configure Debian. Recently ( think it was with Bullseye) I installed it on an old machine, and debian didn't install the right wifi drivers by default. I think it also lacked the proper firmware. This changed only with Bookworm. Back in 2008, I also tried it on my pentium 3 I had then. Debian didn't have ath5k at that time, and the ndiswrapper hack was harder to pull off for me than just using mandriva, or later, lubuntu and salix.
  • I heard that these days, people expect linux to fully support their hardware on day1. They also expect it to just run on any new hardware they buy. Also, games often need the latest optimizations in drivers: it might just be the thing that pushes the fps count above 30, 60 or 120. They also that they want the driver bugfixes to come ASAP. Early on during a release cycle of a game, driver updates sometimes give big improvements. While using the latest drivers on debian is possible, and not too hard (Compiling a newer stock kernel is easy, even if it complies slowly. Mesa isn't hard either. Still, these require knowledge of old & basic dev tools, and also new ones.), ubuntu offers new drivers to LTS kernels, they are called HWE. No idea how doable this on debian, I never needed such things.

• On "stability":

  • What people usually don't think about it that there are different kinds of stabilities. Debian offers something like API stability, so that user-provided software on the same version of debian rarely - if ever - breaks. It's not necessarily shipping the most stable software, but it has a guarantee that updates won't break anything. Even a slight change can disqualify being included. This very slow process resulted in the old and famous xscreensaver vs debian drama. The abovementioned stability also applies to other distros, but to a lesser extent, I believe. Mostly due to the 2-year release cycle.

• On "ease of use":

  • Debian doesn't have a user repo like AUR, so it isn't as easy to install 3rd party stuff (I know, makedeb, flatpak, snap, pkgsrc, nix & guix exist), debian is so big that anybody providing packages will do it (to list a few examples: freetube, discord, librewolf, signal, Trinity DE, and there are bleeding edge emacs packages available).
  • Debian has docs, but I often just use arch wiki or the gentoo wiki to figure out stuff. I can only do that because I understand the differences and the similarities. Newbies would have trouble with this. Also, ubuntu automatically configures a few things, like installing something with a systemd service also will enable that service. Debian doesn't do that.

My 2¢:

I think it's gamer discourse bleeding out into other fields. Gamers need the newest libraries and the newest drivers or their stuff might not run as well as it possibly could, because gaming is a relatively young but aggressively growing field with the Linux ecosystem in general. Sure games have always been around, but it's never been the focus.

Now that gamers are switching more frequently, and that the average user is likely to play a game occasionally, it's becoming relatively important that packages be up to date for desktop workloads.

It really depends on the situation. Hardware support is definitely better than it used to be and everything in linux is hackable regardless of distribution if needed, but the reason I haven't switched my main tower from Arch to Debian is that fear of requiring extra work for things like gaming and music production. If you're running the newest and latest hardware you might run into an issue depending on the kernel version being used, etc.,

That being said, I use Debian every day on my thinkpad and love it. I have an interest in migrating away from Ubuntu Server and toward Debian for servers as well. I don't think I've ever heard it "not recommended", just similar caution expressed.

Once I installed Debian on an old eMMC weak netbook for a friend after trying about 6 other distros that all had some problem or another, including Mint and Xubunto. Debian worked flawlessly

My FP right now:

The reason I don't recommend it by default is that there is no updater across releases.

The official upgrade process is to modify apt sources files and run upgrade, then full-upgrade, etc.

That's fine for me but it makes it hard to recommend to people who may not be as willing to deal with modifying system files and reading some upgrade notes

While Debian is my preferred distro, I wouldn't reccomend it to others unless they are techy and don't mind fiddling with things. I absolutely wouldn't reccomend it to my grandma (I would reccomend her Mint though) and probably not to someone who just wants to play games, especially if they have an Nvidia card. I do game on Debian with a 3060, but it was cumbersome getting stuff working properly because of old drivers. I did get it working, but I think most people just want to play their games and not deal with that. I also have a nearly 10 year old laptop with Debian, and since it's so old, everything does, "just work", but I imagine most people aren't also using the same 10 year old laptop.

My laptop and dev box are Debian Trixie along with two home servers that are Debian Bookworm. My gaming computer is Debian Forky. Looking for the latest stable release to play games with, which is what most recommendations are for, will tell you to use Debian stable builds but stay away from Ubuntu LTS because they're not up to date .

Forky (testing) is a great gaming distro with the latest drivers, but people are afraid it's unstable (which is Debian Sid), so they choose to compare other distros to the last stable release while pushing Arch and the latest Ubuntu because Debian testing is too bleeding edge for what they think of Debian, which is supposed to be stable.

I haven't read through the other responses in the thread, but I don't think it's the slightly old software that's the problem. I think it has more to do with using older kernels, meaning that the latest hardware won't always be supported (on the stable branch at least - there's always testing and unstable too of course which may have better hardware support).

That may have changed with recent releases though - I haven't used Debian for several years now. But if your hardware is supported then it's a pretty solid choice.

Some other people sometimes mention that Debian isn't as beginner friendly as Ubuntu or Mint, but my experiences have been similar to yours - I found Debian to more user-friendly than Ubuntu for example. Assuming that the hardware works of course - if it doesn't then it obviously is a worse choice.

I think it's a reinforcing cycle. (I) Debian gets recommended less often for home use -> (II) less people become proficient in it -> (I)

I spent most of last year running LMDE6 and while it started off good, things just got more frustrating to troubleshoot and the system felt buggier over time. (Which I know is not how things are supposed to be for "stable" Debian.) Switched to CachyOS a couple months ago and things work so much smoother.

I like using Debian stable because I don't like being bothered every ten minutes about updates. I need a newer version of something I install a Flatpak.

debian is meant to be stable and ancient, it's for servers

In my opinion, Debian is best for small, specific purposes that don't change much over time. I used Debian for a bit as a home PC, mostly for making music with bitwig and gaming on steam as well as freetube/media consumption.

I had trouble with apps having conflicts, and combined with an nvidia card, the experience got worse over time and I had to separate my system into different bootable linux systems on the same drive, one distro for gaming and one for music. Some apps were deb files, some were apt, some were direct from websites and others immutable type apps, a mess.

Eventually I tried Arch based systems and liked how unified pacman is and how there are meta-packages full of music and RT. Then moved to Cachyos because it is just so much less annoying that vanilla Arch maintenance for me. I also used endeavorOS for a while, but at one point started having endless crashes from that distro across 2 different PCs (some black screen video issue with nvidia GPU).

As to how that applies to what I would recommend:

I think Debian is good at specific use-cases, but poor as an everyday home PC imo. Also, Debian is so barebones that things like a firewall aren't pre-configured, which makes it more of an intermediate distro that seems easy on first glance.

I wouldn't recommend Ubuntu personally, because the last few times I have tried it I found it buggy and I don't like snaps. But there are so many Debian derivative distros that in some cases Ubuntu is the best option, for example, Ubuntu Studio is actually pretty nice for quickly making creative content. There also Ubuntu distros pre-configured for other purposes.

Linux Mint seems to have outdated packages, but overall decent for beginners because it is a debian/ubuntu sub-distro that has a lot of polish and is really good at hardware detection on installation. I also think the linux mint DE is pretty good for new users.

Debian is fine distro and many people rely on it as strong foundation including the people that build ubuntu and mint. Maybe Debian is the hidden champion.

When Ubuntu became popular, it had some advantages like reliable release cycles, slightly newer packages, better integration of proprietary drivers. Stuff that was not wanted in Debian stable main at the time.

Other non-debian-based distros also brought some advantages.

Personally, I'd love to see Debian as the base distro with Mint, Ubuntu and others building ontop of it. I like my apt update. I just won't send novices straight to Debian when the derivates have more desktop users.

I daily drive Debian stable for the last 3 years now. I started using it because I develop software that runs on Debian so it was easier to not worry about library dependencies. I never had a problem with "outdated" software. It just works as a computer should. You have no idea what version software you run unless you need a specific feature in a later version. I don't want to play around with my work machine, I have other devices to do that. It is an amazing distro (that many others build upon), as many other distros also are. I recommend it constantly.

Because Mint exists and is just ”Debian configured for regular humans”.

Anyone that would rather have raw Debian doesn’t need to be told that.

It's just more barebones than lots of other options, and distro hopping tends to be about exploration. There isn't a whole lot to explore on Debian, because its purpose is stability and simplicity.

You find tons of Debian-derived distros exactly for this reason. They build on that stable core but add bells and whistles. Distros usually are defined by which bells and whistles they include by default.

As much as I'd like to recommend Debian, its release cycle really leaves a lot to be desired for pragmatic computer users.

Bugs stick around for years, and with each new release you get new bugs that won't be fixed for years.

It could be better if the ecosystem had more support, but as it stands right now there are just better options for the desktop space.

It's fine for servers because they have the resources to make sure server programs aren't a buggy or featureless mess.

Because linux distribution recommendations are written by people who have nothing better to do than be hypnotized by the jangling keys of whatever’s new or hot for people who have nothing better to do than be hypnotized by the jangling keys of whatever’s new or hot.

It’s the same reason rhel doesn’t get recommended tbh.

Is there something I am missing, or does it really just come down to people not wanting software that isn’t “cutting edge” release?

It might just be that, people tend to gravitate to the next shiny new thing. But you're right, even when the application repos skew a bit older they're not really that old. And technically nothing is stopping you from running a more up-to-date application via flatpak, appimage, or just compiling directly. I think it's perfect for people looking for a more vanilla boring experience with the standard DE environments (GNOME, KDE, etc.).

I will say for total noobs another distro is maybe more friendlier, more polished installer, etc.. before settling on Debian I was happily using Ubuntu which felt easier for someone still getting used to Linux. But I always knew it was Debian based which made me curious about eventually just running Debian itself... nowadays Debian is my main and has been great.

In my experience, the Debian installer is just confusing. Once you're past that, the userbase is smaller than Ubuntu's. Their repos are different too, meaning software packaged for Ubuntu isn't guaranteed to work on Debian. Ubuntu itself is pretty terrible for its own reasons, so when asked for a desktop Linux distribution "close to Ubuntu" I'd put Mint first. (For general recommendation, I'd probably say Fedora now.)

Debian 13 is still relatively new, so the problems of it being out of date aren't showing yet. Debian 12 just before 13 released had tons of these issues, like glibc being too old for some binary programs, or the kernel not being new enough for some "gaming" features.

For reference, I am on Arch Linux. I feel I have a good understanding of how to manually install Linux. The Debian installer confused me in many ways, the main one being that "language and region" are closely tied, and selecting en_US "language" forces you to choose an American timezone later in the installer. In general it was a slow install process too. This is something other "user friendly" distros handle much better. A default live environment, a quick installation, and options being there, but having the defaults automatically correct (like timezone).

Like (almost) every other distro, Debian has its own benefits and downsides. These make it a good fit on desktop for slightly more experienced users, or users familiar with apt. This means it isn't in the list of distros I'd generally recommend to people when they're not familiar with Linux.

PClinuxOS sees your favourite distro omitted and understands.

One thing I have yet to seen brung up in the replies yet, is Debian Testing and Debian Unstable

I have been using unstable on my desktop no issues,I would say that it is suprisingly stable, I only had one breakage so far and I have used it for one year as my main and sole system

Debian is generalist, with it's strongest strength being it's stability. That said, I'm not sure who I would recommend it to. Zorin or Mint would be better for new linux users, and Debian's slower updates mean it will fall behind other distros for anyone wanting games. Also the rise of immutable distros means that it's stability isn't as much of a selling point as it used to be, if I'm worried about a kid messing up the install an immutable distro would be better than Debian probably.

I have a lot of respect for Debian, but the main people I hear using it these days are more experienced linux users who want to settle down (done distro hopping) and just have a reliable computer for non-gaming stuff.

You can somewhat avoid the issue of old packages by running the testing version instead of stable, but in that case you should ensure you get security updates from unstable: https://github.com/khimaros/debian-hybrid

I used to run some systems on Debian testing and never had any issues.

I'd say it's because:

1. the people who ask for recommendations won't like (or understand) debian? (it's just "old packages this" and "outdated that" for most people)
2. the people who do use and appreciate debian don't read "I hate windows pls recommend me a distro" posts (or at least don't reply as often as the fanboys)

And, no, I don't use debian myself.

but when I finally switched over to Debian, everything just worked!

That's most probably because you learned how to use your system without breaking it in the meantime :)

And why is Ubuntu server even a thing, often recommended? Debian is this but without a second-party repository.

Edit: right, services, contracts.

I recommend Linux Mint Debian Edition to anybody who will listen

I haven't messed with Debian in a while but I remember the install being a hassle for all of my devices. But in my experience when I go to compile something I have to tediously update scores of libraries as dependency issues metastisize throughout the system. At some point I think to my self "who am I an Ubuntu developer or something?" and I go download some upstream distro like Ubuntu or PopOS.

I think it's a bit boring. It's fantastic for servers, and as a base for other distros. I did recently try it after using Mint for years (LMDE recently). I even used it with the Cinnamon DE I'm used to, and I just found it lacked some polish or something. Little niceties here and there. That's it really. Minor drawbacks, and no advantage to me over LMDE, so that's what I'm back to.