this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2025
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Is there a good alternative to Ubuntu that’s deployment ready for a small to medium business that doesn’t require paying for support like Red Hat? I don’t use it on my own machines, but when I’m working with clients it’s pretty much all I recommend. I could maybe be won over by Mint, but I’m still a little skeptical about the polish and reliability there.
Debian stable
That's always been my go to, rock solid OS that will just chug along. My son (Arch user) likes to joke that mine is always out of date, but I like to joke that he's the beta tester.
When LMDE was dropped I started recommending that to the Windows Expats I meet because its UI is familiar to them and Debian just runs.
I’ve been encouraged by 12 and 13 making progress towards out of the box usability. But it still takes too much tweaking to make it work smoothly for desktop users at scale. This isn’t a shot at Debian by the way. I use it on at least some of my own machines. Just have a hard time recommending it depending on the situation.
Good joke
Install mint/fedora (classic or atomic)
Not fedora, it's too much like Arch (bleeding edge). Although I do enjoy their immutable spins, using Aurora on my laptop for over a year.
Mint debian edition or MX ahs edition would be my goto solutions. Specially mx, since you can prepare your own custom iso so easily as install, customize, use their tool, get iso. Then you can install in all your other machines ;)
I don't even think that Ubuntu for desktop isn't even that bad. It's not what I would use though on my personal home rig, but it seems to be a solid option in professional server business. I would say, if your clients are happy, then you did a good choice so far.
One of the biggest strength pro Ubuntu is the big community and help you can get from. Mint is probably a good choice too, but I'm not sure if that is a good one for business. Me making fun of Ubuntu is more about the perception from the community and home user, less about professional users. I think especially in business if you are in doubt, recommend Ubuntu.
Edit: Nothing important.
Hell yeah makes sense. I get where you’re coming from. Just throwing that question out into the universe half expecting to get flamed lol.
If you want something in the RHEL family, Fedora. If you want something in the Debian family, Debian. Or Mint if you're okay with a little deviation for better OOTB.
I love Fedora, but it’s way too chaotic and shit breaks all the time. Maybe break is the wrong word, but it’s too unstable for the type of users I’m talking about at least. I already explained my reasons for Debian. Mint could win me over, but I’m not quite there yet.
Does Fedora not have a stable LTS type of thing?
I haven't had any trouble with Debian. I just switched my own desktop from Windows about a week ago and I didn't find there was much that needed changing. If you feel there is, you could probably add it into the installer, or configure with something like ansible post-install.
Nope. Red Hat is as close as you’ll get. Maybe CentOS Stream but I’ve never tried it. Debian is workable with some tweaking but at scale that becomes a little annoying. If Ubuntu ever broke a workflow with their changes, I would 100% offer Debian as an option.
Have you given LMDE a go? All the benefits of Mint, the stability of Debian, all without having to deal with snaps sneaking in.
I have not! I’ll have to look into it. I appreciate the suggestion. I thought Mint also had snaps stripped out. I don’t exactly love snaps, but they can also be kind of nice from a user experience perspective. I’d prefer if Ubuntu used Flatpaks instead, but beggars can’t be choosers.
this! i prefer flatpak but for some apps the sandboxing fucks up things, having snaps or native packages available if you want to have them isn't the worst thing
I'd say fedora or centos
KDE Neon has been working fine as my daily driver for the last two years, it's Ubuntu-based but has the latest KDE packages on top. Though I've heard KDE wants to phase it out in favour of their own distro