[protomyth]

> If you see ANYTHING wrong with Debian, go fix it, or shut up and go to sell your stuff to another one.

Ok, so Debian is a developers-only distribution?

> Feel free to downvote without reasoning why.

I didn't bother, but "Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downvote you or announce that you expect to get downvoted." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[chei0aiV]

> Ok, so Debian is a developers-only distribution?

Absolutely not. You can use Debian and help improve Debian without being a developer and even without being very technical.

https://www.debian.org/intro/help

[cbd1984]

> Ok, so Debian is a developers-only distribution?

This might not be a bad characterization of where it sits now.

If you want a hand-holding "user-friendly" (and I use the term advisedly, based on the common, flawed conception of what a "user" is), create one based on Debian, leveraging the Debian tools and packages and processes to make an Ubuntu or Mint or something else.

Debian isn't a meta-distribution. It is a distribution in its own right. However, it is commonly used as the foundation for a different distribution, with different goals and different ways of relating to the world. Debian itself remains unchanged, ready to base another distribution off of, and another, and another...

[yebyen]

For a plug of my friend Thanatermesis' great Debian-based distribution, which recognizes the distro and free-software ethos is not always fully conducive to a positive user experience at the forefront...

http://www.elivecd.org/ - The latest release is always based on Debian Stable and is currently under active development. The whole system is changed in (mostly subtle) ways to make it more attractive to a new Linux user. This is Debian, with some additions. I push this to any friends who say they are interested in Linux, but maybe just want to try it first.

I would not recommend Ubuntu to a new user (unless they were my employee, we use it at work) or Mint for that matter. I would not recommend Debian in spite of using it myself at home, because I don't always want to be the Debian support guy, or have to be the one to say RTFM. Elive tries to be as self-explanatory as possible, even in its somewhat Tarzanic way.

[chei0aiV]

Hmm, the website says "Elive is not made for newbies".

[yebyen]

The website says a lot of things, he's probably right, but as a newbie IMHO your first task is to compile enlightenment, and in elive that's already done for you...

[txutxu]

> Ok, so Debian is a developers-only distribution?

Well, as an user of a openly licensed system, you are free to use the source. As well as, you're free to don't use it :)

But regarding voluntary work, it's useless and ugly to harm and bash it, without helping the cause.

Didn't know that guidelines, thanks, and sorry.

[mwcampbell]

> Ok, so Debian is a developers-only distribution?

For all practical purposes, I'd say yes. GNU/Linux as a PC operating system for non-programmers is a lost cause. Sure, some organizations make it work, but it probably requires a lot of technical support; they'd probably be better off using Android tablets and/or Chromebooks if they need something less expensive than a Windows PC, let alone a Mac. And when non-programmers need web hosting, they don't reach for a DigitalOcean droplet; they use a shared host that offers an abstraction over the LAMP stack like cPanel, or an even more non-developer-friendly service like Squarespace.

[ableal]

> GNU/Linux as a PC operating system for non-programmers is a lost cause.

Engineering workstations. Lots of them.

[auxym]

In the 90s maybe? Even CATIA doesn't officially support UNIX anymore.