Debian 10 Buster _ The First 30 Days _ 1 Year Challenge

# Debian Buster Review: 30 Days Later

After completing my first 30 days (or one full month) with Debian Buster, I’m excited to share my experience with you. Overall, it has been a pretty darned good journey, despite some self-inflicted wounds that I’ve documented in past videos. Today, I want to wrap everything up into a nice little bow for you and share how I’m doing, what changes I’ve made, and what the future holds.

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## How Stable Is Debian?

One thing I want to address upfront is stability—Debian’s bread and butter. Let me be clear: **it’s stable. Very stable.** The Buster release has been rock-solid for me, almost to the point of being boring in its reliability. Compared to how Arch was for me with constant updates and rolling releases, Debian’s stability is nothing short of amazing.

The last two weeks haven’t had enough content to warrant a separate video, so I’ll catch you up here. First off, I cleaned up my `apt` (I made a video about that, which I’ll link below if you missed it). Then, I installed Bedrock Linux, which turned out to be a mistake. It morphed and destroyed my Debian install because I didn’t fully understand what their meta-install script would do. Thankfully, I recovered from the mess, and the recovery process is something I want to share with you in case you ever find yourself in a similar bind.

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## Recovering From a Mess-Up

If you completely mess up your Debian-based system, how do you get back on track? For me, my Time Shift Drive was on a different disk, which was good because it meant I could restore from backups without issues. However, the actual system drive wasn’t salvageable—it just wouldn’t restore properly after the installation.

The only way I could recover was to format that drive, load a vanilla version of Debian, and then restore my Timeshift files. This brought back almost all my programs and everything else—fantastic! The downside? I lost my home folder, which wasn’t a big deal because it mostly contained config files anyway.

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## Issues After Recovery

Since the restore, Kdenlive has been pretty crash-tastic on me. Every time I make a video, it crashes anywhere between four and ten times depending on how many cuts I make. This instability is costing me a lot of productivity and downtime—usually, I could edit videos in about fifteen to thirty minutes, but now it’s dragging on for almost an hour with all these crashes.

I’m considering replacing Kdenlive soon because it’s just not reliable for my workflow right now. Maybe it’s a bad update or something that will stabilize once Buster officially releases. Either way, I’ve also tried downloading the app image and using it, but I’m still running into a lot of crashes. It seems like the version of Kdenlive I have isn’t very stable—at least not for me.

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## Steam Issues

The second issue I faced after wiping my home folder was with Steam. Proton refused to install, even though most of my library was on a secondary drive that it pulled in just fine. It was frustrating because I couldn’t get Proton to launch at all.

To fix this, I installed Steam on another Linux box and exported the Proton folders out. Then, I installed them on my main machine in my home folder. This worked like a charm! I also downloaded custom Proton versions for games like Path of Exile and others, which allowed me to use those as well. While it was a bit of a pain, it wasn’t an issue per se—just something I had to work around during the recovery process.

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## Kernel Upgrade

Another thing worth mentioning is that I did go through the upgrade to kernel 5.0, but it wasn’t very stable on my system. After some trial and error, I reverted back to kernel 4.20, which has been working excellent for me so far. I’ve also done a hold on the kernel to keep things running smoothly.

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## Final Thoughts

All in all, I’m still serious about Debian—it’s incredibly stable, especially with the Buster release. I couldn’t believe how well it’s working compared to my experience with Arch. While there have been some hiccups (mostly due to my own mistakes), I wouldn’t knock Debian for them.

I’ll wrap things up here for today’s update, but I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. Whether you’re a long-time Debian user or considering making the switch, let me know what you think!

See you on the next video!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enso I just completed the first 30 days or the first month of Debian Buster and it has been pretty darned good except for some self-inflicted wounds which you've seen in past videos but I'm about to go over and wrap all that up into a nice little bow for you guys and let you know how I'm doing today things I've changed and what the future looks like so just to get this out of the way how stable is Debian its stable very stable the buster release is so stable I'm almost bored stable it's amazing compared to how arch was for me with the constant updates and things like that there has been some issues which I'm gonna get to here in a few but just to kind of recap the last two weeks because I didn't do last week's video on Debian just because it wasn't enough content first off I did clean up my apt I made a video about that I'll link it up here if you didn't watch it I then also installed bedrock Linux which is an entire distribution and basically morphed and destroyed my Debian install because I didn't know exactly what I was getting into before running their meta install script that basically morphed it into bedrock which I have a couple videos over that one too but needless to say I recovered from that and the recovery process is something I kind of wanted to go over if you completely mess up your Debian based system how do you get back from it especially if you have time shift for me my time shift Drive was on a different Drive which was good but the actual system drive it was on was just no way it was no way it was restoring with that installation and the only way I was able to get it back was to format that drive load a vanilla version of debian in and then restore my Timeship files this brought back almost all my programs and everything which was fantastic however I did lose my home folder there wasn't any really a thing of substance in there other than config files which I've kind of been paying for cents so getting to the issues here with Debian since this restore happened kaida live has been pretty crash tastic on me I make a video and it usually crashes anywhere between four and ten times depending on how many cuts I make so Kayden lives been very very unstable so I'm gonna probably have to kick it to the curb soon it's just costing me a lot of productivity and downtime or just making my cut edits a lot longer usually I could get through my edits and about you know fifteen to thirty minutes and now it's dragging on it's almost an hour with a lot of these crashes and other shoes I'm having with it so that's Kate alive it's its own beast maybe it was just a bad update and it'll fix itself once stable or Buster gets officially released I've also tried to download the app image and use it that I'm still running into a lot of crashes so I think just the version that Caden lives on right now it's just not very stable at least not for me and the second thing since I wiped out my home folder steam is been so jacked up oh God so proton just refuses to install even though most of my library was on a secondary drive it pulls all that in just fine but it just wouldn't launch so what I ended up doing to fix the steam not downloading proton when reinstalling these games was to just simply install Steam on another Linux box and then just export the proton folders out and install it on my main box in my home folder and it seems to work just fine I also downloaded custom proton versions which I used for like path of Exile and other games so I could also use those as well it was just kind of a pain in the butt to fix so not really an issue per se that was obviously from the recovery so both these things are kind of normal things I really wouldn't knock Debian forum just the only things I could dig up after doing a whole bunch of bad stuff in the past couple weeks now I did go over the actual upgrade to kernel 5.0 it wasn't very stable on my system so I reverted back to 4.20 and then just did a hold on the kernel because that one is working just so excellent for me and that is it for today's update guys let me know what you guys think in the comments below I am serious about Debian it is very very stable surprisingly stable the buster release I can't believe it is working as well as it is and when that said guys I'll see you on the next videoso I just completed the first 30 days or the first month of Debian Buster and it has been pretty darned good except for some self-inflicted wounds which you've seen in past videos but I'm about to go over and wrap all that up into a nice little bow for you guys and let you know how I'm doing today things I've changed and what the future looks like so just to get this out of the way how stable is Debian its stable very stable the buster release is so stable I'm almost bored stable it's amazing compared to how arch was for me with the constant updates and things like that there has been some issues which I'm gonna get to here in a few but just to kind of recap the last two weeks because I didn't do last week's video on Debian just because it wasn't enough content first off I did clean up my apt I made a video about that I'll link it up here if you didn't watch it I then also installed bedrock Linux which is an entire distribution and basically morphed and destroyed my Debian install because I didn't know exactly what I was getting into before running their meta install script that basically morphed it into bedrock which I have a couple videos over that one too but needless to say I recovered from that and the recovery process is something I kind of wanted to go over if you completely mess up your Debian based system how do you get back from it especially if you have time shift for me my time shift Drive was on a different Drive which was good but the actual system drive it was on was just no way it was no way it was restoring with that installation and the only way I was able to get it back was to format that drive load a vanilla version of debian in and then restore my Timeship files this brought back almost all my programs and everything which was fantastic however I did lose my home folder there wasn't any really a thing of substance in there other than config files which I've kind of been paying for cents so getting to the issues here with Debian since this restore happened kaida live has been pretty crash tastic on me I make a video and it usually crashes anywhere between four and ten times depending on how many cuts I make so Kayden lives been very very unstable so I'm gonna probably have to kick it to the curb soon it's just costing me a lot of productivity and downtime or just making my cut edits a lot longer usually I could get through my edits and about you know fifteen to thirty minutes and now it's dragging on it's almost an hour with a lot of these crashes and other shoes I'm having with it so that's Kate alive it's its own beast maybe it was just a bad update and it'll fix itself once stable or Buster gets officially released I've also tried to download the app image and use it that I'm still running into a lot of crashes so I think just the version that Caden lives on right now it's just not very stable at least not for me and the second thing since I wiped out my home folder steam is been so jacked up oh God so proton just refuses to install even though most of my library was on a secondary drive it pulls all that in just fine but it just wouldn't launch so what I ended up doing to fix the steam not downloading proton when reinstalling these games was to just simply install Steam on another Linux box and then just export the proton folders out and install it on my main box in my home folder and it seems to work just fine I also downloaded custom proton versions which I used for like path of Exile and other games so I could also use those as well it was just kind of a pain in the butt to fix so not really an issue per se that was obviously from the recovery so both these things are kind of normal things I really wouldn't knock Debian forum just the only things I could dig up after doing a whole bunch of bad stuff in the past couple weeks now I did go over the actual upgrade to kernel 5.0 it wasn't very stable on my system so I reverted back to 4.20 and then just did a hold on the kernel because that one is working just so excellent for me and that is it for today's update guys let me know what you guys think in the comments below I am serious about Debian it is very very stable surprisingly stable the buster release I can't believe it is working as well as it is and when that said guys I'll see you on the next video\n"