Re: Debian makes things a little harder than neccessary
[Author here]
> But if you want proprietary blobs you just have to make sure you include "non-free" /and/ "non-free-firmware" in your sources.list
I feel this is disingenuous.
[1] Why should or would a non-expert know that they had to do this?
[2] Is there a good reason why this can't just be a ticky-box in the installation program?
[3] What if you can't get online to find those lines and copy-and-paste them without having the drivers in order to get online? That has happened to me personally.
Devuan is just as bad, or worse, in this respect.
If the intrusive stuff in Ubuntu is putting people off, that is fine: I can understand even if I don't relate. But Debian remains considerably more work, and the Debian project's intransigence is driving people away and fragmenting Debian, which of course worsens the problems.
There are multiple things to put people off Debian: the awkwardness of driver support, the clunky installer, the mandatory presence of systemd.
That resulted in the Devuan fork, but each version of Devuan is harder to install and adds more options and obfuscation.
There is also MX Linux, but it is clearly aimed at desktops and desktop users, while Debian is strong in the server market.
There is no single clear best answer, but the Debian developers bear some responsibility for these problems.