On Thursday 14 August 2025 20:01:03 dep via tde-users wrote:
"Debian-based" pretty much always means "uses the .deb package management and will run things from the Debian repository," kind of like television shows that are "based on a real story." There's always a catch. I learned that from Canonical, which was fine for awhile and well loved in the community, but then started charging for security updates and forcing "snap" packages, controlled by Canonical, onto its users. If it were based on Debian in a meaningful way, I should have been able to simply switch the entries in /etc/apt/sources.list from Ubuntu to Debian, do an update and upgrade, and be switched to Debian. But no. Can't trust any of the "based-on" distributions -- there's no guarantee.
That's why it pretty much *has* to be Debian, and for power and ease of use it pretty much *has* to be TDE. Talking people who have been on Windows through installing Linux and TDE would be a daunting task, which is why I'm so hoping to find a Debian/TDE respin.
Like yourself, I got tired of wrestling with Ubuntu (actually, Kubuntu) to keep control of my machines. That's why I changed over to Debian.
But it's also why I changed from Debian over to Devuan, because Debian may yet go the same way as the 'Buntus; although I think that's a long way off. The way systemd was forced on users, even though (as I understand it) some felt that it went against the principles or philosophy of Debian. I don't know all the details, just what I gleaned in the corners of the internet some years ago. Anyway, like I always tell people, Devuan seems more true to Debian than Devuan itself; at least, for me, it runs better than Debian ever did. I hear that one can run Debian without systemd, just use init again, but I haven't felt inclined to give it a try.
There is, however, one good reason to recommend Devuan, which is that a number of Devuan distros come with TDE pre-installed, which is what you wanted. I am thinking of AntiX and MXLinux. I don't run them myself, but I know that some here on the mailing list do run them, so they would know more than I.
Myself, I would like to find a vanilla Devuan OS with TDE pre-installed, as I want to stick with that for now, and TDE installs on top of that just fine.
Just my two cents' worth.
Bill