alt Hacker NewsThe current "stable" distribution of Debian is version 13, codenamed trixie. It was initially released as version 13.0 on August 9th, 2025 and its latest update, version 13.3, was released on January 10th, 2026.
So as of today the latest "stable" release of Debian is a month old.
By contrast the last stable release of Fedora is Fedora 43, released on October 28, 2025 which four months old at this point.
Really once you get software that works all of this is pointless anyway, you have working software and you update once every year or so, or when you find you need to.
When you "need" to update is so personal that it cannot be predicted, but your FUD about Debian being universally old and outdated is clearly misleading at best and deliberately misleading at worst.
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The Kernel was released in 2024...
Have you used Fedora? After using Fedora I was actually offended how bad Windows was and how bad Debian family was.
Its the best OS I've used in my lifetime by what feels like an order of magnitude.
My only terminal commands were to unblock some minecraft ports for my kid. You won't find a Ubuntu/Debian user with that experience.
> you update once every year or so
We're so fucked from a security perspective.
You are getting too worked up about this, not to mention cherry-picking.
Debian Trixie, to my knowledge, comes with Linux kernel 6.12 LTS. Many people with more modern hardware want the most modern Linux kernel -- currently 6.18 -- to support their devices. There are also countless stabilization patches (I heard some of my acquaintances praising their Linux kernel upgrades as finally giving them access to all features of various Bluetooth periphery but did not ask for details).
Having a modern kernel is important. With Debian though, it's a friction.
Can it still be done? Sure, or at least I hope so as I want to repurpose my gaming machine as a remote worker / station and the only viable choice inside WSL2 is Debian. I do hope I can somehow make Debian install a 6.18 kernel.
Furthermore, you putting the word "need" in quotes implies non-determinism or even capriciousness -- those two cannot be further from the truth.
Arch and Fedora can't come to WSL2 soon enough.
...and none of that is even touching on the issue of much older versions of all software in there. I want the latest Neovim, for example. For objective developer experience reasons.
Debian stable is for purists or server admins. Not for users.