I tried to switch away from arch-basded distro for my main laptop but I always go crawling back for this reason. Big problem with arch is it is very difficult to avoid nonfree packages. You have to manually investigate each one (like on the web) prior to installing, the info isn't available anywhere convenient that ive found. They accept basically any package into the AUR as long as someone is willing to maintain it.

My extremely minimal netbook and server both run debian-types so I have not completely given up on it. But both require some amount of out-of-distro installs even though thats not optimal and breaks the security model.

Its a big pain in the ass writing shell scripts or workflows on one then trying to use on the other, finding that I am relying on features added last year  so not available on debian and its broken.

I also use rssguard and there is nothing else like it.





On November 28, 2025 12:53:06 PM EST, Nick Accad via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
Hi

Recently I have been noticing that more and more of my daily-use packages in Debian are old.

I am not talking about stuff in "Stable" where versions are not upgraded but fixes are backported, I am using Sid as my main workstation, and some stuff is really old

Example is rssguard, in Debian (any release), it is stuck on version 4.0.4, github is on 4.8.6.

I started digging, and I found out that there are over 4000 packages in Debian that are either orphared, or the maintainer is asking for help.

This is not sustainable, I tried looking into taking over a simple package, and honestly got overwhelmed, mostly because I am not a programmer in any way.

This is not just Debian, but any Debian derivative, including Ubuntu and its derivatives.

Take a look at https://wnpp.debian.net/ for a full list, see the packages that are orphaned and without owner, that is almost 1300. Admittedly, not all of them are critical or even important, but it should be a reason for concern.

The immediate solution for me is to use flatpaks. I find myself relying more and more on flatpaks or external repos. On my desktop is not really an issue, but I keep having nightmares about possible security problems.

The other option is of course to switch to something else, either Fedora and derivatives, or Arch and derivatives, but honestly after 20+ years of Debian, I am the old man who has no patience for new toys.

In short, Debian needs help, if you have the knowledge and the time, please consider taking over something.

Thank you

-nick