I’ve been getting more into self hosting lately, grabbed an optiplex 3050 for everything and I’m running Mint currently. Looking more into things though, I saw Debian come up as a more barebones distro and now I’m wondering if there is a lot of benefit to going more barebones. I’m not having any issues with my current setup but now I can’t stop thinking about it. I am newer to Linux but having to learn new things doesn’t wig me out much if there is a lot more involvement with Debian
Edit: I appreciate the responses. I do see where I could just end up creating problems that don’t exist by experimenting with it more. Debian does sound enticing so it’s definitely something I’ll mess about with virtually for now and see how I like it in comparison. But I definitely have to agree on the “don’t mess with a good thing” if it’s working for me. All your answers have definitely given me something to play with now as well, I want the problems to solve but doing it in a separate environment would suit me better to learn a few things. This community rocks.
I have both running right now. Mint on my laptop and media server. Debian only because it was previously required for Home Assistant support, (support which they’ve now dropped.)
Both distros are extraordinarily reliable, but I much prefer Mint. Debian is more focused on security and some of the design choices focus on that over usability. My LAN is completely locked down and only accessible via Wireguard and the physical systems are only accessible to me, so IDK how much better security it provides in my situation. Mint has every package I’ve ever needed prebuilt while I have had to build some packages for Debian.
Bottom line: As much as I like Mint, for me there is not sufficient reason to switch from Debian to Mint or visa-versa, but if I were installing from scratch I’d choose Mint every time.