Debian GNU/Linux
Debian GNU/Linux is a free operating system, developed by thousands of volunteers from around the world, collaborating over the Internet.
Debian's dedication to free software, its volunteer base, its non-commercial nature, and its open development model set it apart from other GNU operating system distributions. All these aspects and more are collected in the so-called Debian Social Contract. Debian is characterized by not having the latest developments in GNU/Linux, but it does have the most stable operating system possible. This is achieved by means of old packages and libraries but with many months of testing, ensuring maximum stability for each version that is released by the Debian community.
It was born in 1993, hand in hand with the Debian project, with the idea of creating a GNU system using Linux as the kernel. The Debian Project is the organization responsible for its maintenance today, and also develops GNU systems based on other kernels (Debian GNU/Hurd, Debian GNU/NetBSD, and Debian GNU/kFreeBSD).
One of its main objectives is to separate free software from non-free software into its versions. The development model is independent from companies, created by the users themselves, without depending in any way on commercial needs. Debian does not directly sell its software, but rather makes it available to anyone on the Internet, although it does allow individuals or companies to commercially distribute this software as long as its license is respected.
Debian GNU/Linux can use different installation mechanisms, such as: DVD, CD, USB, and even directly from the network (the latter depends on the speed of the user's network).
The Debian Project
The Debian project was founded in 1993 by Ian Murdock, after having studied at Purdue University. He wrote the Debian manifesto, which he used as the basis for the creation of the Debian Linux distribution. Within this text, the notable points are: keep the distribution open, consistent with the spirit of the Linux kernel and GNU.
His name is based on combining his then-girlfriend's (later wife) name "Deborah" with his own name: "Ian& #34;, forming the acronym: Debian, pronounced like the corresponding syllables of these names in American English: /dɛbˈiːjən/.
The project grew slowly at first, releasing its first 0.9x versions in 1994 and 1995. The first ports to other architectures were in early 1995, with Debian's first 1.x version being released in 1996.
In 1996, Bruce Perens replaced Ian Murdock as project leader. At the suggestion of developer Ean Schuessler, he led the process of updating the Debian Social Contract and the Debian Software Guidelines freely, defining the foundational points for development of the distribution. He also initiated the creation of the organization's legal software license.
Bruce Perens retired in 1998, before the release of the first glibc-based Debian version, dubbed Debian 2.0. The project proceeded to elect new leaders and make two revisions of version 2.x, each including more ports to other architectures and more packages. It was conveniently released during this period and the first port to a kernel not based on the Linux kernel, Debian GNU/Hurd. The first Debian-based Linux distributions, Corel Linux and Stormix's Stormix's Linux, were started in 1999. Although they were not developed for very long, these distributions were the first of many distributions. Debian-based.
In late 2000, the project made the biggest change to the file structure and version organization, reorganizing software package release processes with new "package pools" and creating a relatively stable test branch for the next release. In 2001, developers began holding an annual conference called: Debconf, with talks and workshops for developers and technical users.
Features
Debian is characterized by:
- Availability in several architectures. The Debian 11 (Bullseye) version includes official support for nine architectures:
- i386 - x86-32
- amd64 - x86-64
- arm64 – ARM ARMv8-A Architecture (64 bits)
- armel – ARM Architecture of little-endian
- armhf – ARM Hard-float Architecture
- ppc64el – PowerPC Architecture of little-endian
- mips, mipsel – MIPS Architecture (big-endian and little-endian)
- s390x – Architecture IBM ESA/390 and z/Architecture
- Other architectures are supported in a.
- A wide collection of software available. Version 11.0 comes with more than ≈ 51,000 packages.
- A group of tools to facilitate the installation and updating of the software (APT, Aptitude, Dpkg, Synaptic, Dselect, etc.) They all get information from where to download software from /etc/apt/sources.list, which contains repositories.
- Your commitment to the principles and values involved in the Free Software movement.
- It does not have any graphical environment in particular, and can not be installed, or install GNOME, KDE, MATE, Xfce, LXDE, Enlightenment or another.
Launches
The names of the Debian Linux versions are taken from the movie Toy Story. To date, there have been 12 stable releases (with their respective revisions), the current one being 11.0 "Bullseye". With its release: "Buster", it became the old stable version ("oldstable"), and the current version in testing ("testing") is called "Bookworm".
Day-to-day development takes place on the unstable version ("unstable"); branch that is permanently hardcoded with the name "sid".
Includes auto-configuration of the graphics system on most existing hardware, full NTFS file system support, auto-configuration of most media keys, support for Adobe's Flash file format via swfdec or Gnash plugins, proprietary tools for laptops (such as built-in support for CPU frequency scaling), among other features.
| Color | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Red | Old version; not supported |
| Yellow | Old version; still supported |
| Green | Current version |
| Blue | Future version |
| Version | Key name | Date | Architectures | Packages | Support | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.1 | buzz | 17 June 1996 | 1 | 474 | 1996 | dpkg, transition to ELF, Linux 2.0. |
| 1.2 | Rex | 12 December 1996 | 1 | 848 | 1996 | |
| 1.3 | bo | 2 June 1997 | 1 | 974 | 1997 | |
| 2.0 | hamm | 24 July 1998 | 2 | ≈ 1.500 | 1998 | Transition to glibc, new architecture m68k. |
| 2.1 | slink | 9 March 1999 | 4 | ≈ 2.250 | 2000-12 | APT, new architectures: alpha, sparc. |
| 2.2 | potato | 15 August 2000 | 6 | ≈ 3.900 | 2003-04 | New architectures: arm, powerpc |
| 3.0 | woody | 19 July 2002 | 11 | ≈ 8.500 | 2006-08 | New architectures: hppa, ia64, mipsel, s390 |
| 3.1 | sarge | 6 June 2005 | 11 | ≈ 15.400 | 2008-04 | Modular installation, semi-official support for AMD64 |
| 4.0 | etch | 8 April 2007 | 11 | ≈ 18,000 | 2009-09 | Graphic installer, transition to udev. |
| 5.0 | Lenny | 14 February 2009 | 12 | ≈ 23,000 | 2012-02 | New architecture: armel. |
| 6.0 | squeeze | 6 February 2011 | 9+2 | ≈ 29,000 | 2016-02 end-of-life DebianSqueeze | New architectures/cores: kfreebsd-i386, kfreebsd-amd64, abandoned architectures: alpha, hppa, OABI arm. eglibc instead of glibc. Starting the system in parallel. Removing old libraries like GTK 1. Non-free firmware deleted from your kernel. |
| 7.0 | wheezy | 4 May 2013 | 11+2 | ≈ 37,000 | 2016-04-26 Releases » 2018-06-31 LTS LST | Removing old libraries like Qt 3. |
| 8.0 | jessie | 25 April 2015 | 10 | ≈ 43,000 | 2018-06-06 Releases » 2020-06-30 LTS end-of-life | The 32-bit s390 adaptation has been discontinued and replaced by s390x.
In addition, the adaptation of IA-64 and Sparc have been eliminated from this publication because there is not enough support from the developers. |
| 9.0 | stretch | 17 June 2017 | 10 | ≈ 51,000 | approx. 2020 (full) / approx. 2022 (LTS) | The Linux kernel of version 3.16 to 4.9, GNOME is updated from 3.14 to 3.22, KDE Plasma 4 is updated to Plasma 5, and Qt updated from 4.8 to 5.7. LXQt is added. |
| 10 | Buster | 6 July 2019 | 10 | 57.703 | 2022 (full) / 2024 (LTS) | Support UEFI Secure Boot, has default-enabled AppArmor, uses LUKS2 as the default format of LUKS and usage of Wayland in GNOME by default. |
| 11 | Bullseye | 14 August 2021 | 2024 (full) / 2026 (LTS) | It is updated to the 5.10 LTS kernel, support to the microsoft exFAT file system, printing and scanning support without controllers. | ||
| 12 | Bookworm |
Development versions
Software packages under development are uploaded to branches called: unstable and experimental. Typically, software packages are pushed to "unstable" by versions released "stable" by the original developer of the application., but with packaging and other Debian-specific modifications introduced by the developers. Software that is "unstable" or not ready for the unstable branch is typically put on "experimental".
Linux distributions based on Debian GNU/Linux
- See also: Debian-based distributions
Debian GNU/Linux timeline and related projects, until 2012.
