Debian Sid
Ranked 47 of 63 Linux distributions by recommenders
Debian's rolling unstable branch, favored for fast upstream updates and access to Debian packages, and used on desktops for years. Caveat: things can break, and fixing them takes Linux knowledge.
Debian's rolling unstable branch, favored for fast upstream updates and access to Debian packages, and used on desktops for years. Caveat: things can break, and fixing them takes Linux knowledge.
14 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 8
- criticize it
- 6
- approval share
- 57%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 8 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 1.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Fast rolling upstream updates
“I like the structured rolling updates of sid and having access to the debian ecosystem too much to switch to something else at this point.”
Comment from 5 Apr 2026 in “Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11” “Or Debian Sid, which gets upstream updates almost instantly but requires more Linux knowledge in case something gets broken.”
Comment from 2 Jan 2026 in “Linux is good now; to feel like you actually own your PC, put Linux on it” Seen as stable despite its name
“NixOS unstable, openSUSE Tumbleweed, and Debian Sid are all more stable than Arch.”
Comment from 16 May 2026 in “I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows” “It was never unstable except maybe in a very relative sense.”
Comment from 18 Nov 2025 in “Windows 11 adds AI agent that runs in background with access to personal folders” Long-term daily desktop use
“I've been running Debian unstable on my desktops for something like 20 years.”
Comment from 12 May 2026 in “CERT is releasing six CVEs for serious security vulnerabilities in dnsmasq” “I run sid (debian's unstable branch) on all my systems, it's great!”
Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “Simplifying Vulkan One Subsystem at a Time”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Frequent bugs and issues for daily use
“which has caused a lot of issues for me early on”
Comment from 21 Apr 2026 in “MNT Reform is an open hardware laptop, designed and assembled in Germany” “they're simply too buggy for daily use”
Comment from 15 Nov 2025 in “A brief look at FreeBSD”
Other Linux distributions people recommend
The four most recommended other Linux distributions, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu | 560 | 493 | 53% | 12 | 10 yrs116 owners | — |
| Debian | 552 | 191 | 74% | 13 | 10 yrs62 owners | Approved |
| NixOS | 454 | 112 | 80% | 13 | 2 yrs69 owners | Approved |
| Fedora Linux | 437 | 131 | 77% | 12 | 2 yrs72 owners | Approved |
| Debian SidThis page | 8 | 6 | 57% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
14 of the 15 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“packages are too new and not sufficiently vetted”
“NixOS unstable, openSUSE Tumbleweed, and Debian Sid are all more stable than Arch.”
“I've been running Debian unstable on my desktops for something like 20 years.”
“In many cases, Debian unstable is also a good choice.”
“developers are stuck running an emulator/docker of some particular vintage of Debian sid”
“which has caused a lot of issues for me early on”
“Snap drove me to debian sid and haven't looked back.”
“I like the structured rolling updates of sid and having access to the debian ecosystem too much to switch to something else at this point.”
“is usually 50/50 on whether the machine will reboot on a working display after a kernel upgrade”
“I run sid (debian's unstable branch) on all my systems, it's great!”
“Or Debian Sid, which gets upstream updates almost instantly but requires more Linux knowledge in case something gets broken.”
“When I drag the window, it freezes in place until a few seconds later”
“It was never unstable except maybe in a very relative sense.”
“they're simply too buggy for daily use”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.