Noob Question Thread: Ask Any Questions About Linux!
I thought I'll make this thread for all of you out there who have questions but are afraid to ask them. This is your chance!
I'll try my best to answer any questions here, but I hope others in the community will contribute too!
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Unlike other commenters, I agree with you. Debian based systems are less suitable for desktop use, and imo is one of the reasons newcomers have frequent issues.
When installing common applications, newcomers tend to follow the windows ways of downloading an installer or a standalone executable from the Internet. They often do not stick with the package manager. This can cause breakage, as debian might expect you to have certain version of programs that are different from what the installer from the Internet expects. A rolling release distro is more likely to have versions that Internet installers expect.
To answer your question, I believe debian based distros are popular for desktop because they were already popular for server use before Linux desktop were significant.
That's a bad example, Debian is bad because people use it wrong and it breaks is not a really strong argument, same can be said about every other distro.
I believe Debian based distros are popular because Ubuntu used to be very beginner friendly back in the early 2000s, while other distros not so much. Then a lot of us started with it, and many never switched or switched and came back.
Debian is not bad. It is just not suitable for newcomers using it for desktop. I think my arguments hold this stance.