Skip Navigation

Spiral Linux: Debian with Flatpak, Backports, presets and no-CLI Tooling

https://spirallinux.github.io/

BTRFS, GUI Flatpak manager, Theming, nonfree codecs etc., printer support, timeshift preconfigured

Their goal is to make vanilla debian usable, with only debian tech. It is just a config, no "small distro dies and users need to switch"

Might not be the most secure (loose printer configs, preinstalled drivers for random stuff that is not normally a problem)

17 comments
  • SpiralLinux is my Son; I love it so dearly. I install it on anything first, since it has some of the drivers my devices need the most. It makes Debian fun instead of a chore.

    • Debians UX really sucks.

      Great base, used and administered it. It tought me how to upgrade Linux Mint when their way too late updater is broken or nonexistent.

      APT on Debian is also hella stable. 11->12 just worked.

      Fedoras DNF is just garbage. 39->40 just didnt work, even though their change is way smaller.

      And nala makes apt look nice too.

    • What do you like about it? I'm still deciding where I'm going to land post-Windows.

      • It requires the least amount of troubleshooting on my end. It has drivers I know connect to my Bluetooth headphones and it’s has a Calamares installer that I find intuitive. It comes with Flatpak (Linux’s app-store equivalent) enabled. It has snapshots, which store previous versions of your OS*; if something updates poorly, you always have something to switch back to.

        It’s not without foibles. Every distro has some wonky-ness to it. But the problems in Spiral fixable and less obnoxious, I think, because it has so little branding.

        It’s not like some distros that brag about being ā€œCUTTING edgeā€ or ā€œUNBREAKABLEā€ while hard-crashing after an update. That’s expected. I’m not expecting perfection, and Spiral steps out of the way (to let Debian take all the blame lol). Thankfully Debian has a very long and stable history and I rarely have that problem.

        Just one man’s long ramble. All anecdotal, so my final suggestion would be to test a variety, and don’t listen to weirdos on the Internet.

        *kernel; whatever I’m still learning too

  • Does it really ships with everything? That's bad. I prefer to have custom GUI installers for anything I want (e.g. enabling a samba share for Windows). This is how it's done in MX Linux (I have the "ahs" version for the nonfrew goodies)

    • I am not sure, but it seems a lot is just already set up.

      I agree that a good, cross-distro GUI for advanced configuration, is a better way to do this.

17 comments