Kernel ABIs are pretty static so drivers can be backported for earlier kernels more easily than recompiling the entirety of Ubuntu Server for an unsupported CPU architecture - such as SPARC.
That's what I meant when I said Debian supports more architectures.
However going back to your previous point about the age of Debian, you don't have to run the default repositories. If you run "testing" or "sid" then you can be just as up-to-date as Ubuntu or even more bleeding edge. In fact it wasn't that many years ago when Ubuntu was effectively just a reskinned Debian + testing repositories (I'm talking pre Unity, upstart, etc). But at the end of the day, it's all FOSS so anything Ubuntu runs can also be run on Debian, Arch, etc. It's just Debian already ships compiled binaries for more alternative CPU architectures can Canonical do with Ubuntu. Which is why I said supporting different platforms isn't anything new to Linux nor unique to Ubuntu.
> good luck Debian / BSD like on modern laptops.*
I have done. They worked fine. In fact FreeBSD was my primary OS for a period of time and Debian has always been my primary "debian-like" platform for all bar media centres (which do run vanilla Ubuntu). I have also ran officially supported variations of Ubuntu as my primary OS for short periods of time as well. I've tried them all before I finally found what OS I felt right for me.
So I do have considerable experience backing up my claims :)
> If you run "testing" or "sid"
So you drop your stability to use beta / alpha packages that are unstable where in Ubuntu LTS you have all the recent packages / drivers that have been tested. I mean with that statement you can run anything if you can compile it.
One can complain about many things for Ubuntu but not hardware support.
I've had to build stuff for SPARC recently. I definitely care. And frankly your opinion of SPARC does not alter the point one bit.
> I'm glad the focus is on platforms that people use like x64_86 and ARM
So am I. Reread my post: I wasn't criticising Ubuntu one bit. I was disagreeing with the GP's comment that only Ubuntu supports other platforms.
> secondly BSD like and Debian don't run well on recent hardware
"Some recent hardware". Which is a tiny subset of the amount of hardware out there that all the aforementioned platforms do support. BSD and Debian aren't even remotely as bad at supporting hardware as people make out
> it's a lie to say otherwise
That's not a valid counterargument. That's just offensive to anyone who has achieved what you claimed wasn't possible.
> at best you will have terrible battery life, wifi / bluetooth that doesn't work properly, touchpad half broken ect...
Ubuntu still runs the same kernel ABIs as Debian, ArchLinux, CentOS, Slackware, etc. It's all just x86 Linux. Veteran users like myself can get Linux to run on most platforms without too much difficulty. So what you're really trying to say is "Ubuntu is easier to get running on newer hardware". Which is the crux of Ubuntu - it's designed to make Linux easier. However to say "non-Ubuntu distros cannot run on stuff Ubuntu can and anyone who says otherwise is a liar" is insulting to all those who do successfully run non-Ubuntu platforms, and insulting to those distro maintainers.
> So you drop your stability to use beta / alpha packages that are unstable where in Ubuntu LTS you have all the recent packages / drivers that have been tested
Debian Testing isn't unstable. As already stated Ubuntu used to be based on Debian Testing.
> One can complain about many things for Ubuntu but not hardware support.
Again, I wasn't making a complaint. I was making an observation that Ubuntu wasn't the only distro that supports multiple platforms (which the GP claimed) and used CPU architecture as an example to my point. I'm sorry you've had bad experiences with other Linux distros and with BSD but my point still stands.
[edit]
For what it's worth, on my last laptop I got better battery life out of ArchLinux than I did Ubuntu on the same laptop. All the other hardware was supported the same. And to follow on from my previous point: if I could have been bothered I know I could have improved the battery life in Ubuntu to match Arch. However at the time I needed the convenience more than the battery life (which was why I installed Ubuntu in the first place) so left the system unaltered until I had the time to distro-hop again.