I am using Debian 12 (also tried it on debian 11). I want to play some windows-only games via steam / proton. I have tried that some month ago with the same graphics card (gtx 1070) on Ubuntu 18.04 and it works perfectly. However, on debian, i always get directx errors while trying to start directx games.
Ubuntu is based off of Debian, only it gets more updates and has a longer LTS schedule (4 years instead of 2 years with Debian). Ubuntu server is nothing like Ubuntu Desktop; it has nowhere near the amount of bloat.
For me it's simple: in Debian you either have stable, reliable environment or ever changing rolling-release type OS. In Ubuntu you have neither. Debian is also much closer to upstream projects, it follows a clear, comprehensible development path. Ubuntu tries to do some innovating things, but they end up more like experiments.
Is this too old your you? At some point, you'll need to choose between "latest software" and "stability". But it's kinda tricky, as Ubuntu is not really bleeding-edge and yet not really unstable :) I'd say you may go with either one. I'm more used to Ubuntu and i'm a sucker for newer software versions, so i prefer it over Debian.
Ubuntu supports more non-free things out of the box, e.g. wifi works out of the box, nvidia drivers can be easily added etc. . Debian does not do that on purpose for freedom reasons. Ubuntu has ppa's, i.e. repos by small teams/random people offering software.
Of course, you can try Ubuntu and see for yourself, but I would recommend, if you liked XFCE, to get Debian with XFCE (or some other DE) on it and try that out. 1. level 1. 6C6F6C636174. · 4y. Debian is too much of a headache for daily desktop use. You'll get stability, at the expense of having ancient packages.