Ask HN: What is the best Linux distro for a development laptop?
Debian and I'm surprised more people aren't saying so.  Ubuntu or Mint, which are built on Debian do not add much value these days, IMO and Ubuntu's 6 month release cycle is intolerable.  If you get behind with upgrades you are screwed.<p>Even after all these years it's hard to beat apt-get.  I think a lot of people dismiss Debian as unmodern or some how less than the distros built on it but that's hardly the case.  Debian "testing" has all the latest software and yet is still very stable.  Many people are scared away by the "testing" release but this is what Ubuntu and Mint are based off of.<p>I find Arch, Gentoo and many others to be a lot of work.  I don't have time to spend fiddling around with the OS.<p>Don't get me started on Fedora/CentOS/RedHat.  yum/rpm is just horrible if you've used nearly anything else.  I think the only reason this OS family is still alive is because RedHat managed to sell so many copies to big corps and universities.  I think people still use it mainly because they were exposed to it at school or work and don't know any better.