Truly these are glorious days.

All hail the church of Nix 🙏

Why not-a? It-a worked for Nana Bou's African bistro-a!
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Debian is just Ubuntu without all the annoying parts.

Manjaro.

Throws the table

Get out you corporate sellout!

Why? I really enjoyed Mankato while slowly breaking it (Arch is just not for people like me)

It's the best of both worlds

ubuntu because my brain is so small

the name comes from the Bantu word "ubuntu" which loosely translated means, "debian is too hard"

While I agree about the annoying Ubuntu parts, Ubuntu Server LTS does seem to ditch those annoying parts also. Besides, I'm running CasaOS over the top. So I haven't needed to deal with Ubuntu directly after setup. And hopefully, it stays that way until that old laptop dies.

Im still surprised that opensuse still exists. We had to give it a try for networking classes back in ~2007 and it was very server oriented and totally didnt have a desktop feel.

That was almost 20 years ago. It is nothing like that anymore I would say. Some things are still more complicated to configure but then, other things just work that don't work for example on my other system that runs pop-os, in general openSUSE is just as easy to install as any user friendly distro. And among the rolling release distros, openSUSE Tumbleweed is probably the most stable of them all.

opi is a great tool, even when just looking for applications in the regular repository. But then you can also very easily access the open build service with it as well.

There were still plenty of annoying parts left when I ditched Ubuntu Server as my default server OS for plain Debian. In fact, increasing annoyances was one of the reason I made the switch. This was around 2018 or so, during the 16.04 LTS to 18.04 LTS switch, and I haven't looked back. I'm quite happy with Debian 13 that's currently powering my VMs.

Fair game not wanting to change a running setup of course, but do yourself a favor and look into Debian the next time you're doing a new install of something.

Oh, I've run Debian a number of times over the years. I have 2 issues with it, I want newer software and I'm just not into going to the work needed to get the things I want running and still being easy to maintain. I've also spent years running Ubuntu off and on also.

Ubuntu Server with CasaOS was fast and easy to setup. Maybe 15 minutes to get he basic file server I want. And honestly, the first set of setup instructions for my repurposed laptop server that actually made sense as I read through them was for Ubuntu. So, Ubuntu it is - at least for now. Perhaps I might switch to Fedora at some point.

I want newer software and I’m just not into going to the work needed to get the things I want running and still being easy to maintain

I don't really get the "newer software" argument ... they just leapfrog each other every year or so, if you stick to LTS versions. For example, when Trixie came out it was more up-to-date than Noble Numbat (24.04 LTS), and then Resolute Racoon (26.04 LTS) leapfrogged Trixie again, and next year Forky will leapfrog Resolute Racoon.

Also, with Debian, if the stable release is getting a bit stale, you always have the option to start off with Debian Testing, and get something that's near bleeding edge up-to-date, and then follow testing until the next stable release and then stay on stable.

Ubuntu Server with CasaOS was fast and easy to setup. Maybe 15 minutes to get he basic file server I want

Never used CasaOS, but how would the setup process be any different on Debian? From an admin perspective, they're nearly identical ...

I had a quick glance at the CasaOS getting started page, and not only does Debian have official support but it's recommended over Ubuntu, and the installation instructions appear to be exactly the same.

To me it just sounds like you're a little bit stuck in your ways.

I've used Debian and I'm just not a fan. It's doubtful that will ever change.

To me it sounds like you just want to be right about what's "better". I never said I would run Ubuntu server forever. It's just where I started. It works and does all I need it to do right now. If I decide I need something different, I will find something different at that time. Until then, Ubuntu is working just fine.