this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2026
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Why are so many Distros based of Ubuntu and not Debian? (piefed.social)
submitted 10 hours ago by vogi@piefed.social to c/linux@programming.dev
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Zorin OS makes so many right choices in my opinion, especially as a serious alternative for normal people to recommend. But they are ubuntu based just like Pop!OS, elementaryOS or Mint.

Mint has LMDE at least and are pushing it pretty hard. Never used it as a daily driver but have heard that it is stable and fast.

I also use Debian Testing with GNOME and it works perfectly fine.

What does Ubuntu offer that Debian does not for so many Distros to build of. Is it extended hardware support? or is it just an historical choice made back when Debian was not a great choice of a base for whatever reason? I really do not get it. As a non-maintainer i expect it to be a nightmare to have an already heavily changed base to build on and Ubuntus choices in the past were also rather questionable.

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[–] gsv@programming.dev 2 points 4 hours ago

I was always wondering the same and found the related choices always somewhat inconsistent. My own anecdotal experience was that Ubuntu was always to buggy to actually use it in production (every time I tried, I ended up removing it after a few days only due to driver road blocks and os-related bugs). Moreover, using Debian, as many said before, is a question of feature stability and extensive testing. That’s great for server deployment but not so great for consumer electronics. Thus trying to base a distro on Debian while trying to fulfill the expectation of receiving recent developments in the software seems counterintuitive to me.

Disclaimer: I’ve made a lot of very good experiences with Arch and derived distros and use them in production for more than a decade. Given my not so good experience with Ubuntu I’m certainty on the biased side here.