Debian is a freeoperating system. It is a distribution of an operating system known as theGNU operating system, which can be used with various kernels, includingLinux,kFreeBSD, andHurd. In combination with these kernels, the operating system can be referred to as Debian GNU/Linux, Debian GNU/kFreeBSD, and Debian GNU/Hurd, respectively. Debian GNU/Linux is one of the most complete and popularGNU/Linux distributions, on which many others, likeUbuntu, are based.
The Debian Project officially started on August 16th, 1993, led byIan Murdock. He was acomputer programmer. Today, in this project, Debian is developed by more than 1,000 computer specialists all over the world.
The name "Debian" was taken after Ian Murdock and his wife Debra. Some people say or pronounce 'deb-ee-n' but others also say 'de-bi-an' or 'de-bai-an' and in Japan 'de-bi-a-n' and so on.
Software packages in development are either uploaded to the project distribution namedunstable (also known assid), or to theexperimental repository. Software packages uploaded tounstable are normally versions stable enough to be released by the originalupstream developer, but with the added Debian-specific packaging and other modifications introduced by Debian developers. These additions may be new and untested. Software not ready yet for theunstable distribution is typically placed in theexperimental repository.[5]
After a version of a software package has remained inunstable for a certain length of time (depending on how urgent the changes are), that package is automatically moved to thetesting distribution. The package's move to testing happens only if no serious (release-critical) bugs in the package are reported and if other software needed for package functionality qualifies for inclusion intesting.[5]
Since updates to Debian software packages between official releases do not contain new features, some choose to use thetesting andunstable distributions for their newer packages. However, these distributions are less tested thanstable, andunstable does not receive timely security updates. In particular, incautious upgrades to workingunstable packages can sometimes seriously break software functionality.[6] Since September 9, 2005[7] thetesting distributions security updates have been provided by thetesting security team.[8]
After the packages intesting have matured and the goals for the next release are met, thetesting distribution becomes the next stable release. The latest stable release of Debian (Buster) is 10.0, released on July 6, 2019. The next release is codenamed "Bullseye".[5]
New architecture:amd64, dropped architecture:m68k.[11] Graphical installer,udev transition, modularX.Org transition. Latest update 4.0r9 was released 2010-05-22[12]
New architecture/binary ABI:armel.[16]SPARC 32-bit hardware support dropped.[17] FullEee PC support.[18] Latest update 5.0.8 was released 2011-01-22.[19]
Debian has been ported to different architectures or platforms. One version, which is based on the developer release (sid) that has been ported to theXbox is called Xebian.
↑ArchLinux.org,"Official repositories," excerpt, "A software repository is a storage location from which software packages may be retrieved and installed on a computer"; retrieved 2012-6-7.
