I've Used Linux for 20+ Years and Somehow Ended Up Back at Debian

I have been using Linux for more than twenty years, which is long enough to develop several extremely strong opinions and then live long enough to discover that most of them were stupid. At various times I have run Slackware, Gentoo, Arch, Debian, CentOS, FreeBSD, and assorted other operating systems that normal people quite sensibly refuse to install.

There was a period when I thought compiling my own kernel was fun. This is a sign of illness. Not a grave illness, perhaps. Nobody needs to telephone a priest. But if you find yourself spending Saturday evening comparing kernel scheduler options, someone close to you ought to ask whether everything is all right.

Gentoo was particularly dangerous. Gentoo convinces you that your computer is not truly your computer unless you have personally decided which obscure CPU flags should be used while compiling an image library at three in the morning. And because you are young and stupid, this seems magnificent.

Thousands of lines rush across the terminal: gcc, make, emerge. You sit before the glowing screen feeling like some sort of underground computer wizard. What you are actually doing is waiting six hours for Firefox.

Then there was Arch. Arch gave you the enormous satisfaction of assembling a clean little system containing exactly what you wanted and absolutely nothing else. Then one Tuesday you performed an update and your Wi-Fi disappeared. This was considered educational.

Arch users are tremendously fond of education. If Bluetooth stops working, this is education. If X refuses to start, education. If a package upgrade destroys the machine you needed for work the following morning, you have been blessed with an advanced seminar.

For years I genuinely enjoyed this. Part of me still does. But something happens after you've spent long enough around computers: you begin to understand why old men buy Toyotas.

Debian starts looking extremely attractive. Debian does not swagger into the room promising to reinvent the operating system. It does not have exciting ideas about where configuration files ought to live. It does not introduce a new package-management philosophy because somebody became bored over the weekend.

Debian walks in wearing sensible trousers and says, "I put the files where they normally go."

Wonderful.

"Will they still be there tomorrow?"

"Probably."

Even better.

I think there is a Linux horseshoe curve. At one end is the beginner, who wants the computer to work. Then he learns things. This is where the trouble begins.

He discovers window managers and filesystems. He develops opinions about init systems. He starts using phrases like "bloated userspace" while eating cereal. Soon the operating system itself has become the hobby.

Eventually, if he survives, he emerges from the other side. He has now seen enough broken systems that boring begins to look beautiful. He no longer needs the operating system to demonstrate anything about his intelligence, independence, masculinity, or ability to read a wiki. He wants a terminal, his tools, and a machine that stays out of the way.

And suddenly Debian makes perfect sense.

I have therefore spent more than twenty years becoming sophisticated enough to appreciate what beginners wanted in the first place: a computer that works.