A new wiki entry has been added to Debian's website

May 8, 2015 13:37 GMT  ·  By

The Debian project has just updated their official Wiki with a new entry called DontBreakDebian, which provides some helpful tips on how not to ruin your Debian installation by doing stuff that you're not supposed to be doing.

You might be tempted to think that Debian is a free and open source operating system and that you can do what you want with it, and that is completely true. The problems occur when users make mistakes and then complain about Debian, saying that it's not working properly, or they submit bugs that are not fixable by the developers.

Linux OSes, Debian included, are secure and stable for the most part, but that doesn't mean that you can mess with them. In fact, it's quite easy to transform your nice Debian experience into a horrible one just by installing something that you shouldn't have or in a way that's not recommended.

DontBreakDebian advice could apply to most Linux OSes

Blaming Debian for something that you've done is not always helpful, and this wiki will help people understand if they actually did something to break their installation. Most of the stuff in this entry could apply to other Linux OSes, at least as a matter of principle.

"Debian is a robust and reliable system, but it's still very easy for new users to break their systems by not doing things the Debian way. This page lists common mistakes made by new users. Some of the things listed here can be done safely, but only if you have enough experience to know how to fix your system when things go wrong. The general theme to the advice here is that consequences are not always immediate, and can make future upgrades impossible without a complete reinstall," reads the new wiki.

Some advice is pretty straight forward, like don't compile packages unless you don't have any other alternative, don't install proprietary drivers from official websites (use the Debian repos), and so on.