General advice on which OS (Debian or PureOS) *I* should choose?

Software PureOS
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This is my first post here and I’m very aware that I don’t want to be the recipient of any brick-bats and that my topic heading might tend to attract them… No brick-bats please :slight_smile:

My circumstances:

  • I have recently moved to Debian Stable after using another distribution since its first iteration over a decade and a half ago;
  • My reasons for changing were two fold - I’ve been feeling that the distribution I was using had been moving away from the freedom it once espoused (but which I had always been a bit skeptical of) and I, after over 15 years, am getting to old to upgrade my system with the regularity which was required (perhaps with my aging self I was also looking for a bit more stability);
  • I’m generally very pleased with the move and wonder now why the trepidation before (the main reason I didn’t go with Debian 15 years ago was it seemed to be considered jumping in the deep end then);
  • However, I have been finding that Stable is perhaps not as up-to-date as I’d like, see here:
    https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/seahorse/-/issues/319#note_1050417
    And I’d been intending a move to Testing once my system had settled down;
  • I would like to run SELinux as my MAC system - although I run a laptop not a server, I am intending to follow the instructions here:
    https://wiki.debian.org/SELinux/Setup
  • My hardware is a HP Spectra 360 and requires blobs:
    https://support.hp.com/us-en/product/hp-spectre-13-4100-x360-convertible-pc/8499273/model/8788447/troubleshooting
  • I’m the lucky owner to be of one of these:
    https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/
    (One day.)
    :smile:

So, my questions:
Q1: what MAC does PureOS run - I’ve read some historical stuff that it was running AppArmor but I’ve searched about the repositories and find SELinux bits about the place - is it just an option or is PureOS running SELinux by default and are there desktop policies written for it? I had thought it was and so there would be and thought of poaching them for my Debian install…
Q2: Would the binary blobs required for my machine pose an obstacle to PureOS or can I simply include Debian contrib and non-free packages as needed?
Q3: I’ve found a few posts about ‘side-grading’ between Debian and PureOS:
https://forums.puri.sm/t/pureos-to-debian-how-do-i-get-back-to-pureos/7518
https://forums.puri.sm/t/changing-from-pureos-to-debian/7256
https://forums.puri.sm/t/upgrading-from-debian-to-pureos/6567
But, I’m still feeling pretty green about dpkg and apt generally - is there a /etc/apt/sources.list I can drop into or merge with mine to ease the side-grade?
Q4: If PureOS is running SELinux and as it is forked from Debian Testing - and I’m going to have a Librem 5 one day - then, installing PureOS would seem to be the sensible way to achieve my ends of moving to Testing and running SELinux - any comment?

Apologies if this is a bit of a rambling introduction :blush:
Thanks

1 Like
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IMHO, you need to do fresh install of PureOS Byzantium Live image under CSM (start there with what you are up to, by installing PureOS) from 20-Nov-2020:
$ seahorse --version
seahorse 3.38.0.1
GNUPG: /usr/bin/gpg (2.2.20)

Yes there is, but you are not to be allowed (for your own good) to have two main repositories active under one healthy OS (either Debian one or PureOS one).

And take a look, having this advantage, at your current Debian location of firmware files as you’ll need to rebuild the same ones under PureOS, actually search for and write down which non-free packages you’ll need to install afterwards (as same laptop will be used).

P.S. Otherwise I do not see reason why to be afraid of installing Debian firmware-bullseye-DI-alpha3-amd64 .iso image.

3

Thanks for coming back to me @Quarnero.

What about the use of ‘pinning’ discussed here https://forums.puri.sm/t/pureos-to-debian-how-do-i-get-back-to-pureos/7518/4
I’ve used a similar process with CentOS, dnf and the priority variable on my home server to stay with the Stream repos while maintaining my kernel on the cenosplus repo and it’s worked very well.

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This is an important advice indeed. Just my short thought is/was that for PureOS another main repo preferably should be Debian backports (not the regular one). See here: Waste of resources to ship your own OS?.

P.S. There are (many) packages that are exclusively maintained by the PureOS team and therefore exclusively part of their repo only (although carrying the same or almost the same name) or on the other side becoming the part of Debian 11 Bullseye main repo as such, like librem5-tweaks, phoc or squeekboard, just few examples here (from non-expert).

1 Like
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speaking of CentOS and migrating to another OS > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-hTbB7Cs_o

Alma-Linux seems to be the successor of CentOS > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEA7NC6ROCw

maybe consider watching those videos on an invidious instance from your geo-time-zone

kudos to LearnLinuxTV > https://www.learnlinux.tv/

text > https://wiki.learnlinux.tv/index.php/Migrating_from_CentOS_8_to_AlmaLinux

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My understanding is that many disaffected with the direction of CentOS are establishing Rocky Linux:
https://git.rockylinux.org
https://github.com/rocky-linux
But, this is a bit OT…