I don't know what you are talking about (except that Debian lags big time) because when you install the latest stable Debian you can install a rather proper Lazarus and FPC.
Where does Debian lag? Except for its more conservative nature
You gave the answer yourself.... I exclusively use Debian or Debian derivatives, unless I am instructed to do otherwise.
But I am a pro and can see that beginners or amateurs are not always up to the extra work to have a more current Lazarus/FPC.
They read about features that may not be in the Debian distro.... That's all.
I Actually like the conservative approach of Debian, but that can be misleading in the context of this forum and the online documentation
I agree. It's the one thing that Linux developers are doing against themselves, or against Linux, not just Debian. Every change (including incompatible) is released immediately (the kernel in particular) and because of the immediate availability, people believe they need to update/upgrade to have the latest cutting-edge. This is a mistake and it works against Linux, which is why I believe it never became a prominent desktop OS. I said it for years. If a new Debian comes out, the kernel itself is already considered 'old' being three subversions behind. Still, it doesn't mean that it lacks and it raises the question what is more preferable: a stable system or having the very latest.
A couple of months ago I tried openSUSE Tumbleweed for exactly this reason. It is the most up-to-date rolling release distro and in fact it worked quite well and pretty stable. Unfortunately, the package maintainers don't seem too eager to update Lazarus still being at version 1.6.2. But if one wants to compile the latest Lazarus and FPC, openSUSE Tumbleweed may be a better choice, but I have no experience there.
In any case, knowing that Linux requires more know-how to work with and cannot be compared to Windows or OSX in this respect, I don't understand the negative nature of this thread. Linux is much more a do-it-yourself system. So why bother installing it let alone using it as a development platform. It's either for professionals or professional hobbyists who know how to fix and (re)compile things if necessary.
Maybe the title of this thread should have been "Newbies Impression of Lazarus on Linux)."