So they are now kind of like Fedora or Linux Mint. On the upside, that could mean that if (any of) the Debian forks would somehow collapse, it should be easier for users to go “back” to Debian.
Maybe this is a nail in Ubuntu’s coffin
The benefit using Linux Mint (at least what I have seen) is that multimedia codecs are optional on install, which is totally fine in my opinion.
Mint is a fine distro. My comment was more like a “what if” scenario.
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Maybe you can find something in this list? https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.en.html
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Keep in mind that this doesn’t stop you from easily making a fully free system and debian still has a clear separation between free and non-free components, the difference is just collapsing the confusing installer situation into one and what that offers you by default.
I understand if you’d prefer a more pure approach and I respect that, but it doesn’t seem that impactful to an existing debian user unless you’re against the idea of your distro more clearly offering non-free firmware options. For many users, this isn’t even a matter of a performance hit…it’s being able to boot into debian and use it for anything in the first place.