I’m not having any issues with my current setup

There’s your answer.

If your current setup is satisfying your needs don’t change it. Linux Mint is quite similar to Debian when it comes to the base.
If you want to try and learn new thing maybe look into Bash scripting or Docker. Think of something useful you would like to have and try creating it.

My recommendation is Debian for a server (real or virtual), or Proxmox. The former is perfectly reasonable and excellent experience; the latter is more flexible and more complex.

Debian is the parent distro of numerous Linux flavours (including *buntu, which aren’t suitable as a server OS, IMHO), so administration and services are all common (apt, etc). No need to learn dnf, pacman/yay, etc.

It’s still my preferred server OS, despite other options and being experienced.

Though I do also have a NUC running Proxmox (for VMs and LXCs), and both a NAS and RasPi running Docker. 🤷‍♂️ My Debian server is a VM inside one of them.

Should I be using Debian?

That’s unanswerable but …

I’ve used Debian exclusively for many years. There are several aspects that have served me well:

• debian is one of the older, more popular distros - huge community and catalogue of solved problems.
• it just makes sense to run the same OS on my desktop and on servers, no oddities between them.
• it’s stable and boring.

On that last point, before switching to debian I (like everyone) enjoyed different DE’s and distros because they look great and the constant change gives a feeling of progress. However, at some point I realised that I didn’t want my OS to be a distraction from what I’m actually doing. Like I want to get my work done, and something not working quite right with the OS due to some bug or update is a huge distraction. Debian’s release cycle mitigates that problem.

In the before times it used to be annoying that the software in Debian’s repos lagged a long way behind the current releases, but that’s not really a problem with the advent of flatpak, nix, and (my preference) AppImages.

Recently I was tempted to switch to NixOS, but I didn’t.

Don’t tear down your server just to have fun - setup a vm (or get one of those minipcs), call i “playground” and have fun there.

Redo your server after you’ve tried different things, and only if you feel like you found something that is worth it.

Experimenting with different distros can teach you a lot (especially if you try very different ones - mint and debian aren’t that much different) and I do recommend you do it, just don’t do it in production :)

My personal journey:

• arch is annoying to maintain and whil it is mostly stable, you do get some breaking updates here and there. It’s not a bad choice, it just doesn’t makeuch sense for a headless server.
• Ubuntu server, just why? Works fine but why?
• a not headless fedora, worked fine but still annoyed me sometimes
• proxmox (debian based) works great, annoyed me to manage vm resources.
• headless debian. Just works, I rarely if ever encounter OS issues. The only downside is that not everything can be found in the debian repos, but there is almost always an option to add a repo for whatever you want.

My setup is mostly dockers so keep that in mind.

But really, if something works for you go with it. If you are looking to change, I would recommend debian.

Mint is based on Ubuntu which is based on Debian. If you were spinning up a new server from scratch, I would definitely recommend Debian over Mint, but realistically if you’re not currently having any issues there’s no reason to rearchitect your whole server just for that.

Debian is stable. It works well, but the software in its apt/deb repo are relatively outdated compared to what might be in Fedora.

You probably know this, but Mint is kind of just Debian with extra stuff (some might call it bloat, but that’s a matter of use case). So a switch to Debian from Mint should be very straightforward, if not seamless. The package manager is the same, and that’s usually the biggest part of switching distros. Debian is also ideal for hosting specifically; many, many production servers run on Debian. It’s also arguably the best-supported distro out there, so whatever question you have had probably already been answered.

TL;DR you should totally try Debian out (especially a headless version). It mostly like won’t be an issue.

I’m not having any issues with my current setup

I’m lazy. I just want things to work. So in your shoes, I wouldn’t go trying to create work if things work fine.

I run Debian on my home server and my VPS, but I chose it for familiarity and stability. I wouldn’t say Debian is inherently barebones; you can add/build whatever you want. It is a longstanding, capable distro that is the base of many other distros. It’s a solid choice that favors stability. And if things are working with Mint, why break them?

By contrast, I run CachyOS on my laptop because it’s a newer laptop and the rolling release model of CachyOS (and Arch, which it’s built on) gets the updates and hardware support I need to make my laptop work. It’s simpler, better, and less work, and significantly more functional than it’s be with Debian, because the rolling release distro moves fast. My home server is 10 year old hardware, so the more stable Debian is fine.

If nothing is broken don’t fix it…

If it works on mint, it’ll most likely work on debian, with the caveat that debian is a lot more CLI and a lot less handholding. Depending on your setup, debian might be a better choice for you, as Mint is desktop oriented.

But don’t fix something that already works. If there’s no issues with your Mint setup, I’d say keep it. Next time you set up a server, you can go for debian instead.

Source: I use both extensively. Mint on desktop, debian on headless stuff.

lights fuse* Proxmox! runs*

If your current setup works well for you, there’s no reason to change it.

You could try Debian in a VM (virtual machine) if you want to. If you’re running a desktop environment, GNOME Boxes makes it pretty easy to create VMs. It works even if you don’t use GNOME.

If you want to run it as a headless server (no screen plugged in to it), I’d install Proxmox on the system, and use VMs or LXC containers for everything. Proxmox gives you a web UI to manage VMs and containers.

Start playing with nixos in a VM

You’ll get the idea I’m sure