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Platform

Debian 13, the long-term kernel, systemd, apt with Flatpak, and the firmware that makes hardware just work.

Base distribution: Debian 13 "trixie"

Alternatives: Ubuntu LTS, Fedora, Arch Linux, openSUSE, NixOS, building everything from source (Linux From Scratch).
Why: Debian stable is the most conservative and widely trusted base. It has about 60,000 packages, a dedicated security team and years of support per release. Ubuntu is itself derived from Debian, but ships snaps and its own branding, which we would have to undo. Fedora and Arch move faster than a "just works" desktop needs. NixOS is powerful but alien to most users and tutorials. From-source builds would make us responsible for every security fix in thousands of packages.

Alternatives: Debian backports (newer kernels), Liquorix, XanMod, a custom build.
Why: it is a long-term-support kernel, signed for Secure Boot, and patched by Debian's security team. Performance kernels such as Liquorix and XanMod are unsigned and follow a separate release stream. Users who need newer hardware support can install the backports kernel with one command (see Versions).

Alternatives: OpenRC, runit, s6.
Why: everything else relies on it: logind (seat and power management), user sessions, socket activation (Docker starts on demand), timers, zram, journald. Leaving it out would mean patching around dozens of packages.

Alternatives: Snap, AppImage only, Nix.
Why: .deb gives the whole Debian archive and vendors' own packages. Flatpak adds thousands of desktop apps from Flathub in a sandbox, with the latest versions, without touching the system. Snap relies on a single proprietary store backend and loads slowly, so Aurora doesn't ship it. AppImages still run if you download them.

Choice: Debian's firmware-linux (free and non-free firmware), Mesa with Vulkan and VA-API, the Intel media driver, and nvidia-detect with a one-click install of the proprietary NVIDIA driver in Settings.
Why: since Debian 12 non-free firmware is an official part of the archive, so Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPUs and audio work on real laptops out of the box. NVIDIA's driver is offered rather than preinstalled, because it has to match the card and kernel.