I think for many some of the appeal of Ubuntu is in Ubuntu LTS, which gets more attention than the Debian alternative.

Have a look at the Ubuntu LTS page: https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop

And then look at the Debian equivalent: https://www.debian.org/lts/

(though the differences are perhaps because the latter is comparatively more unofficial)

But hey, many people prefer more stable distros with somewhat long life times, so that's a valid preference nonetheless.

Disclaimer: mostly a Debian user, i dread having to migrate from 10 to 11, but hey, at least i can use Ansible for all of my servers this time around.

Better marketing doesn't make it better. If you compare the actual releases I think you will find Debian to be more stable overall.

Ahh, but the difference here is not in the stability of Debian vs Ubuntu, but rather the fact that Debian's LTS offering is just a community effort, as opposed to Ubuntu having an official LTS release.

Many aren't even aware that Debian has LTS releases in the first place.

I would prefer to use Debian if it was more stable. It worked fine on my workstation but if I try to use it on my laptop it would not ever resume from suspend making it unusable.

I think Ubuntu has the benefit of the large user base making it more likely that your problem is solved.

My laptop is also a 5 year old thinkpad x1 gen 4 so it should be supported, and Debian is the only linux that gave me this problem.

Odd, I own this exact laptop, and haven't experienced any suspend/resume issues on either debian 10, nor 11.

While unlikely, it could've been that the kernel version was too old or you were missing non-free drivers for something? On my experience, if it worked in Ubuntu, it would work on Debian, and if it didn't, using the latest backported kernel would solve it.

My choice too, but with Pop Shell added. Coming from i3, then sway, the transition to Pop Shell was seamless. The natural integration with Gnome, which is always a pain with i3/sway, is a great selling point.

I second the recommendation for using Debian as a rolling distro, under testing or unstable.