What are /r/debian's favorite Products & Services?

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The Debian Social Contract. Ubuntu is run by a company, Canonical. They are motivated by profit, and so they make decisions that are not best for users or for free software as a whole.

Ever? The bug introduced into the RNG used for key generator one was pretty bad, and came from a Debian patch.

• https://www.debian.org/security/2008/dsa-1571
• https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/05/random_number_b.html

I'm surprised that there's no mention of the official Debian Documentation. Specifically, the administrator's handbook and debian reference are great.

You can find both of them here: https://www.debian.org/doc/

Debian makes a point of running on a broad variety of architectures, so I doubt it. See here: https://www.debian.org/ports/.

Ubuntu has always focused on the PC, and because x86 is becoming more and more of a niche thing in favor of amd64, this move isn't too surprising.

I've used Debian for ~15 years and I have never seen an LSB application. Debian is still going to be compatible with other Linux distributions; there's no reason to change that.

I was certain that this was just a made-up persona to troll, since I couldn't imagine someone like this in real life, but apparently the person complaining seems to be Suso Baleato, a "Political Science Technologist", some sort of government drone. I'll be darned.

It's not that easy, but it also isn't particularly difficult.

do-release-upgrade is an Ubuntu thing. Debian doesn't have a direct equivalent, you are expected to follow Chapter 4 of the Release Notes.

• Sid is not stable. If care is taken by watching devel lists you can probably get along by avoiding upgrades when things are broken. Personally I gave up on trying to have the latest. My desire to have new shiny stuff had very little to do with how much newer versions actually improved over old ones for most software.

• External repos are no big deal as long as they don't conflict with Debian packages. Add a line to /etc/apt/sources.list or a file in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/. Run aptitude update and you have access to those packages. For Nvidia driver it's generally recommended to use the Debian packaged nvidia drivers.

• I'm not 100%, but I think Torvald's reference was in relation to kernel development. Debian's packaging and build systems aren't really tailored for doing development (particularly for core things like kernel, xorg, etc). I would say they are built to get packaging right, and they do that by being rather complicated and obtuse sometimes.

• AFAIK binary distribution just means binary packages are distributed as opposed to a source distribution where a machine downloads source and builds the package to be installed.

• I like Debian's large software library. Debian packages are usually well made, include good documentation and provide a consistent environment to work in. Debian's social contract outlines things that I think are important to free software and help ensure Debian remains a successful distribution so I feel like I can depend on it for a long time to come.

The Debian philosophy page was my initial reason for going Debian. While some other distros may not be corporate, I just appreciate the way Debian operates as an organization.

Debian stable does not upgrade to newer kernels with new unknown bugs. The bugs you have are known, and you can depend on them not to change during the lifetime of the debian release. This makes debian among the most reliable distos, and why it is used in the most critical applications.

Security issues/bugs get fixes backported to the kernel version in the release. So as long as you have the security repos enabled [1] you are "safe".

If you need support for newer hardware, you can use a kernel from backports [2].

[1] : https://www.debian.org/security/
[2] : https://backports.debian.org

Edit: Forgot to mention that debian stable is where i run critical servers and services. But for daily laptop/desktop use I run debian testing. This allow me to learn and use the next illteration of debian for some years until i need to run them on servers. It is a rolling release, with a laggy periode in front of stable releases. "Testing" may sound scary, but it is very reliable. I have not had any issues running debian testing for over 8 years. And issues in the past was a relativly easy fix.

> TIL I've been doing it wrong sometimes :)

No, no you haven't. This is just /u/cbmuser 's personal opinion.

The Debian project however recommends to always file bugs in the BTS (Debian's but tracking system). If necessarry, the maintainer will forward the bug upstream.

> Don't file bugs upstream

https://www.debian.org/Bugs/Reporting

I thought the Linux Journal shut down a few months ago. Or was that just the print edition?

Edit: Apparently, Private Internet Access saved them from going out of business.

See: https://www.debian.org/security/faq#testing

But Ubuntu is not Debian testing, Ubuntu is Ubuntu, so that conclusion can't really be drawn from those observations.. all you can conclude is that Ubuntu haven't updated their package.

https://www.debian.org/security/2014/dsa-2896

Current stable (wheezy) is vulnerable. Old stable (squeeze) is safe.

After installing the patched libssl you must manually restart all affected services. This includes at least Apache and OpenVPN. To get a full list of PIDs using OpenSSL use:

sudo lsof | grep -E "/usr/lib/$(uname -m)-linux-gnu/lib(ssl|crypto)" | awk '{print $2}' | uniq

OpenSSH uses OpenSSL but is not believed to be at risk because it does not use SSL.

According to the advisory, you should consider all SSL keys as compromised. It also says more details to follow.

From: https://www.debian.org/security/faq#contrib

> Q: How is security handled for contrib and non-free?

> A: The short answer is: it's not. Contrib and non-free aren't official parts of the Debian Distribution and are not released, and thus not supported by the security team. Some non-free packages are distributed without source or without a license allowing the distribution of modified versions. In those cases no security fixes can be made at all. If it is possible to fix the problem, and the package maintainer or someone else provides correct updated packages, then the security team will generally process them and release an advisory.

Per "quality and stability", patches generally can't be made to the original source to fix any upstream issues (as might be done for free packages), but otherwise, the usual standards for packaging aren't any different.

The virtualbox website has instructions for setting up apt to use their repository:

https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads

Scroll down the page about half-way and look for "Debian-based Linux distributions".

You would typically remove the backports repo (and other repos besides the main ones, any pinning, etc.) during the upgrade process, you could then add it again after the upgrade should you wish to continue using packages from backports.

FYI the docs on upgrading are well worth reading thoroughly if you want the process to be as hassle-free as possible: https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/release-notes/ch-upgrading.en.html

> Why is the version of "intel-microcode" package in the stretch-backports repo older than the one in the normal stretch repo?

There was a security update for the intel-microcode package a few days ago. Backports doesn't really get security support, so it can take a while for that newer version to make it to backports.

Depends on the release you're using, Debian stable (Jessie at the moment) is meant to be stable, so it does not track the bleeding edge of everything upstream, including the kernel.

Debian testing on the other hand has very new versions of all things, including the kernel, but sometimes some combinations of packages can be slightly broken for a while. If you use testing, I suggest also installing apt-listbugs and apt-listchanges so that you get warned of incompatibilities and bugs before you upgrade.

No, Debian Buster contains 4.19.181 (released in March) at the current moment, which is only a little bit behind the official 4.19.190 release (from May).

The Debian Kernel Team backports any fixes needed and ships newer LTS kernel versions when needed on a regular basis, either via Security Updates or when a new Point Release is made.

You can see the different branches and their versions on https://www.kernel.org/

I like that it is 'free' first. It isn't partly managed by some company that hides some functionality behind a paywall (eg Redhat/Ubuntu).

• https://www.debian.org/social_contract

I also like APT in that it solved 'RPM hell'. Having a tool that solved dependencies was wonderful. Though almost everything does it these days, when I first used Debian that wasn't the case.

I have had a long history with Debian. Over 18 years now. So I like it because I am very used to it. A long time of usage means I can be pretty productive on it and use it for the things I need to get done.

If you use Debian netinst installator, in expert mode, and unselect all options during package selection, you should get just a base Debian install without GUI, any services, etc. This is commonly used as a base for custom Debian installations, in servers, container images.

It's nice that you like Arch, but the differences you cite between the two aren't software but policy. Debian has a social contract which includes a set of Free Software Guidelines (this is what the "dfsg" part of some filenames stands for.) Certain bits of hardware require non-free software in order to work. Debian does not provide these (or any) non-free components in a default install, though it's pretty easy to set them up by hand (as you found out.)

Also, Debian has multiple releases, and different releases have different amounts of delay between upstream and distribution. There's always a tradeoff between having the newest software and having a stable distribution of software. Debian is more concerned with stability than many other projects are, and to make software stable and willing to play nice with other software takes a lot of time and effort on the part of maintainers.

I use Debian partly because it's a social phenomenon of a type I wish to support, and partly because Debian + Debian derivatives are probably the largest set of GNU/Linux installs extant. If you know Debian, you can also support Ubuntu, Mint, etc. Just as if you know Red Hat, you can support CentOS, Fedora, and so on.

Probably a hostile takeover by those upstart kids at IceWM...

But more seriously, CDE still have a Sourceforge page, with code updates a year or so ago (which for a project that old counts as recent, I guess). I'd ask there, since CDEbian doesn't appear to be maintained by anyone from Debian itself, and I doubt you'd find many users here.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/

I usually use the netinst from here: https://www.debian.org/distrib/netinst

If you want to install Debian on a laptop you would want to use the nonfree version with firmware blobs (e.g. for WLAN chips): http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/8.2.0/amd64/iso-cd/

The installer will ask you to select your desktop environment, just choose XFCE when it does so.

why would you want something like that? checkupdates seems to be for looking up if you can update Arch since it doesn't support partial updates

You don't need that in Debian, partial upgrades are supported since forever. Just do sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade (or whatever package utility you use: apt-get, aptidude, apt..)

if you can upgrade in debian, it's because you can. Programs are not going to break by design because Debian doesn't ship half-assed packages ala Arch where the sonames don't match with the dependencies (it can happen by accident in Debian, but then it's a big serious bug, that the package manager/tests would catch before uploading the package)

Couple thoughts -

• Don't use unetbootin to write a Debian image to USB. As mentioned below use dd, cp or win32diskimager. unetbootin doesn't handle hybrid ISO images well. See here - documentation specifically says not to use unetbootin :)

https://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/i386/ch04s03.html.en

• Debian's installer won't run from an NTFS partition.

IMHO, the remedy is straightfoward: make the big download button link to the Getting Debian page instead of the netinst ISO. Job done.

Those new to Debian will benefit from the guidance on that page. Anyone so inclined to use the netinst ISO would probably already be familiar enough with Debian to figure out which image they need and where to look.

>I really dont know why some one would still use aptitude

My answer is simple, I used patterns for scripting in the past: https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/aptitude/ch02s04s05.en.html and I don't find similar powerful functionality in today's apt, at least I am aware of.

However the drama is that I find Aptitude to be no more reliable nowadays.

I think the problem is unetbooting, the debian faq explicitly mentions it. The best way would just to 'dd' the image to a stick but then you already would have to have a linux/unix to do that. https://www.debian.org/CD/faq/#write-usb

You can find out which packages are available in (which version of) Debian here.

> With the change I want to have my system consume less energy and to be faster while using the same desktop environment and apps that I have been using under Ubuntu. I also want the system to be in small in size so my customised distro eats up less storage.

Do you have any reason to assume that switching do Debian will achieve that? Debian is great, but if you're essentially using the same software, I wouldn't expect big differences regarding performance or usage of power or storage.

Here's the problem:

http://lwn.net/Articles/570485/

It's a violation of DFSG to distribute the API Keys so Debian isn't going to do it. They are going to ship a broke Chromium package instead.

Use the binary chrome package from Google. That way you can watch Netflix.

To your question, use the netinst option. Then install Xorg and a light weight windows manger (like LXDE, Openbox, FWWM) of your choosing.

Just keep in mind a number of newer applications will be slow as hell and you might need to settle for older builds. ( For example, I can barely use Firefox these days on a G4 1.33 iBook.)

https://www.debian.org/security/faq

> how often is this really done?

You can check the security tracker if you want.

> are there any processes that help minimize the potential for severely vulnerable packages not being updated by a maintainer?

Nothing that is specific to Debian, AFAIK.

> I wonder how standard desktop apps and environments compare in regards to their security status

You can check the security tracker if you want.

Nobody knows in advance.

Generally, the odds are relatively slim that something crucial will break.

Or, if it does, fixing it might be relatively easy.

Just follow https://www.debian.org/releases/bullseye/amd64/release-notes/ch-upgrading.en.html to the letter, don’t skip anything, read the linked articles and also read https://www.debian.org/releases/bullseye/amd64/release-notes/ch-information.en.html in advance.

You should be fine by doing so.

I think it's good that Debian remains free by default. The non-free images should be easier to find though, and perhaps made more official. There should be links to them on https://www.debian.org/distrib or https://www.debian.org/CD, at least.

The manual doesn't say aptitude is deprecated or on life support in any way, shape or form.

aptitude isn't recommended (!) anymore for release upgrades (!), i.e. when going from Debian 7 to 8 or from 8 to 9. See the upgrade manual chapter 4.4. People reading a manual for one scenario and then applying partial and incorrect conclusions to something applicable to another scenario entirely are plain wrong.

FAI is waay overkill. All you need is PXE boot and preseed.

I'm not sure why you think preseed looks like a nightmare - it's the direct equivalent of kickstarter, and works almost identically for loading via the network.

1. Configure your DHCP/TFTP server.

2. put the netboot files and the preseed in the tftp root

3. edit the default syslinux config file to add url=tftp://... pointing at your preseed

Chromium in Wheezy was receiving updates through security.debian.org, but this was discontinued in January:

https://www.debian.org/security/2015/dsa-3148

So you shouldn't use Chromium under Wheezy anymore if you care about security.

That's it. You have to remember that Debian predates wikis and similar platforms by about a decade. Most documentation is therefore either static web content or files under /usr/share/doc.

https://www.debian.org/doc/

As you correctly surmise, debhelper (dh) will help you a lot when the package uses standard Python setup tools. For the rest of the files, maybe you'll find help in the New Maintainers' Guide.

Elected by the developers.

There's the Debian Constitution [1].

And maybe it isn't organized. At least in the formal sense. People work on what matters to them.

The "ftp masters" [2] include and reject software on the archive.

1 - https://www.debian.org/devel/constitution

2 - https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/FTPMaster

> I think Debian could really leverage the familiarity of almost all developers with github/gitlab to attract more contributions.

GitHub? More openly?... It's not because developer don't use the same tools as you that their workflow is less open.

> Are there any initiatives or plans to improve the (IMO convoluted) infrastructure?

It just look complicated because you probably miss some informations.

> are there and plans to make Debian more accessible for people that want to contribute?

You can report bugs on the bug tracker or become a Debian Maintainer/Developer all the informations are here : https://www.debian.org/intro/help

You can also join #debian-welcome on irc.debian.org. They'll be more than happy to answer your questions :)

Sorry for being a bit nit-picky here, but just for the reference (from the Debian Policy Manual):

2.2.1 The main archive area

The main archive area comprises the Debian distribution. Only the packages in this area are considered part of the distribution. None of the packages in the main archive area require software outside of that area to function. Anyone may use, share, modify and redistribute the packages in this archive area freely.

Every package in main must comply with the DFSG (Debian Free Software Guidelines).

In addition, the packages in main must not require or recommend a package outside of main for compilation or execution [...].

2.2.2 The contrib archive area

The contrib archive area contains supplemental packages intended to work with the Debian distribution, but which require software outside of the distribution to either build or function.

Every package in contrib must comply with the DFSG.

[...]

Examples of packages which would be included in contrib are: free packages which require contrib, non-free packages or packages which are not in our archive at all for compilation or execution, and wrapper packages or other sorts of free accessories for non-free programs.

2.2.3 The non-free archive area

The non-free archive area contains supplemental packages intended to work with the Debian distribution that do not comply with the DFSG or have other problems that make their distribution problematic. They may not comply with all of the policy requirements in this manual due to restrictions on modifications or other limitations.

Packages must be placed in non-free if they are not compliant with the DFSG or are encumbered by patents or other legal issues that make their distribution problematic.

The main thing to take away from Debian, is exactly that article. If you don't break Debian, it will serve you for years to come. Stick with the official repositories. If you want a package that's not in the stable branch yet, have a search through the package directories, and see if you can backport it. Other than that, I've installed Debian time and time again, and its just worked. If you ever run into a problem, just stop by and ask.

Which ISO did you use?

For what it's worth, I almost always use the network installer, and haven't had many problems with it. It often makes things easier if you can plug into ethernet during the install.

https://www.debian.org/distrib/netinst (under 'Small CDs or USB sticks')

Fedora is kind of a 'technology preview' that also works pretty well as a distro (if you don't mind having to upgrade from release to release rather often).

Debian Sid (Unstable) will tend to get new versions of packages reasonably quickly, but as the purpose of Testing and Sid is ultimately just to develop the new Stable, they won't necessarily adopt new technologies ahead of the curve in the way Fedora is famed for doing.

But yes, you can use Testing or Sid (or a mixture of both) as an OS. You aren't guaranteed timely security updates, and things can break, so don't do it on a mission critical system. On a desktop / workstation where the odd day or two of "Eeek, it broke" is acceptable, it's great.

Read this for the problems with Testing and Sid respectively,

https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-faq/ch-choosing.en.html

And read this for the method of mixing the two together, thereby somewhat ameliorating said problems.

http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=15612

Install apt-listbugs and apt-listchanges too.

You need a bit of experience with Debian package management. If you haven't got that, try Stable + Backports. It really isn't as bad as people make it out to be.

Also, Siduction might be worth looking into - it's supposed to smooth the edges off pure Sid.

I’m glad I could help!

For what it’s worth, it’s always a good idea to read the release notes before upgrading. Debian 11 will enter full freeze soon, which informs my implication that Bullseye will be stable soon.

Pithily, because Debian has standards.

The difference between a .deb repository and Debian is almost entirely down to the Debian Policy Manual which demands quite a lot of work on the part of the package maintainer in order to fulfil its promises to the user. This is backed up by lintian tags that are capable of detecting quite a lot more sub-optimal, but permitted practices - very approximately, Errors are not allowed (arch-dependent-file-in-usr-share), Warnings are worth fixing (no-manual-page), Info can be helpful (duplicate-short-description) and Pedantic is an opinion (very-long-line-length-in-source-file).

So if someone created a .deb to share with others, it's entirely reasonable to consider it will work ok and could be uploaded to DUR but they may not have the time to spend "perfecting" it for Debian. I say perfecting, because Debian is not short of software that is worth packaging, nor even to some extent people willing to put in that initial effort - Debian is desperately short of people who will stick around for the long term and keep the package updated and stable, often triaging bugs on behalf of upstream to provide more detail etc.

That's an interesting display glitch. Usually digital display connections work properly or not at all.

For any kind of graphics issue, it is really helpful to know which specific graphics chip is being used. Although in a laptop a model-number usually allows that to be looked up from the manufacturer. Although even which GPU family (Intel, Nvidia, or AMD) is a good start.

If it is a newer laptop, one general issue you may have is that Debian only issues official updates for security issues (and not new hardware compatibility) over the lifetime of a release. Right now, we are pretty near a new stable release (Debian 10) and Debian 9 is almost 2 years old. So less than perfect support for newer hardware is not surprising.

Debian does offer a way of updating for new features (and hardware) in the form of Debian Backports but we don't do a great job of promoting it. Trying the updated kernel from backports is a good first step in troubleshooting a hardware-support issue in Debian. Follow the "Add backports to your sources.list" instructions from the linked instructions page, run sudo apt-get -t stretch-backports install linux-image-amd64, and reboot.

Packages are moved from testing to stable in the next major release, so every few years (give or take). See https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-faq/ch-ftparchives#s-frozen

Security patches are explicitly backported to stable as needed between major releases.

As the FAQ says, if you care about security, stick with stable. What other distos do with testing is their problem to solve with their own security teams/policies.

You can submit a "Request for Package" (RFP). Debian maintainers are constantly monitoring them and, if there is interest in the community, it will turn into a ITP (intent to package) soon.

More info:

• https://wiki.debian.org/RFP
• https://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/

ppc64el is 64-bit little-endian PowerPC, which won't work on the PowerMac G5. The arch your hardware needs is powerpc, but note that it is no longer an official port: https://www.debian.org/ports/#portlist-other

Looks like there's a netinstall ISO here: https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/9.0/powerpc/iso-cd/

Relevant to Debian 9: https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/release-notes/ch-information.en.html#limited-security-support

tl;dr: try the package debian-security-support. It might be close to what you want.

You should try a LiveCD first.

https://www.debian.org/CD/live/

or go for the (non-official) non-free firmware drivers included version.

http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/

Have you any experience with the Linux kernel?

That isn't how distros work. The Debian package is maintained by a volunteer in the Debian project, upstream projects don't push updates straight into Debian or other distros. Think of it more as a pull model.

Besides, Debian policy is that the stable release remains stable, it will usually only receive security patches (which might be backported, i.e. the upstream only applies them to a newer version, but the Debian maintainers take that patch and adapt it to whatever version is in Debian themselves) and exceptionally fixes for other critical bugs.

See https://www.debian.org/releases/ and https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-faq/ch-choosing.en.html

See A Brief History of Debian where it is explained that the naming convention began when Bruce Perens was also working at Pixar.

Since there is generally not copyright protection for names, short words or phrases, any claim would have to be based in Trademark. It's unclear whether Pixar has tried to individually TM the names of each character, but even if so, Debian's usage would have to be done commercially in a manner that causes consumer confusion. While Debian enables enormous commercial activity, it's an interesting question whether giving away a free OS is a commercial "use" under TM law at all. Even if so, it's hard to imagine that consumers of Debian are somehow confused about Pixar's (non)-relationship to the OS. Anyone that spends half a moment learning anything about Debian would learn that it is created by a worldwide group of volunteers and not by any one corporation that makes movies.

So... I think there's both practical and legal reasons why this has not and should not become an issue.

Nyxt - https://nyxt.atlas.engineer/

Out of the box Nyxt ships with tens of features that allow you to quickly analyze, navigate, and extract information from the Internet. Plus, Nyxt is fully hackable- all of its source code can be introspected, modified, and tweaked to your exact specification.

To be part of debian a software needs to be free as in the debian way of freedom (which is a bit different than free as the FSF would say, see the Debian free software guidelines DFSG). The license of VSCode seems not free to me (https://code.visualstudio.com/license). It's thus a no go right at the beginning.

What do you want out of multitouch? For gestures install touchegg. For a decent multitouch screen keyboard I used onboard. Unfortunately neither are in the repos, but they're quite easy to install.

I used to use the python-libavg games to test my touchscreen on ubuntu, but it looks like they don't work with python-libavg > 1.7.

Usually, when an ESR stops getting support, the security team releases the most up to date ESR version. They originally did this when updating from 17 to 24 (there was a period of time in which iceweasel 24 was only available on the security archive, while the normal ones only had 17). I suppose they keep the previous version while it is still being maintained by mozilla (the release cycles overlap, as you can see in the Mozilla FAQ page for ESR ).

When iceweasel 24 gets End-Of-Life-ed (and maybe a new vulnerability is found), the security team will make the first emergency update (if a patch is not possible to backport), and eventually iceweasel 31 will reach out into the stable archive, I suppose.

you can block certain websites with the hosts file and use a blocklist specifically made for bad stuff of certain categories.

Or much easier, use a DNS server that blocks malicious websites such as Cloudflare Family DNS.

I wouldn't trust Azure to host my VPSes, especially considering the fact that they don't know how to build a network without major outages occuring nearly every day.

Larger providers like Digital Ocean and Linode have significantly fewer issues every month despite having many more customers. Microsoft also charges a massive premium over other, more reliable providers for their inferior service.

Internet is the preferred method, however in your case you will have to mount the dvd, then add the dvd to your sources list and then run update upgrade. All you need is the DVD update. Do some research, and also see here for a more detailed answer: http://superuser.com/questions/320737/how-to-upgrade-debian-no-network-or-direct-access

> Maybe Debian needs an extra year release cycle.

The problem was well-known before the release, and it's documented in the release notes: https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/release-notes/ch-information.en.html#entropy-starvation

You could have said the same about Linux back in the 90s.....

We have Minix, what's the point of Linux? https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/comp.os.minix/dlNtH7RRrGA/SwRavCzVE7gJ

The Point, mind you, is that people working on their free time on FLOSS does it because they enjoy doing that, not because they think it can be useful for you.

> 3.1 Which Debian distribution (stable/testing/unstable) is better for me? > > The answer is a bit complicated. It really depends on what you intend to do. One solution would be to ask a friend who runs Debian. But that does not mean that you cannot make an independent decision. In fact, you should be able to decide once you complete reading this chapter. > >- If security or stability are at all important for you: install stable. period. This is the most preferred way. >- If you are a new user installing to a desktop machine, start with stable. Some of the software is quite old, but it's the least buggy environment to work in. You can easily switch to the more modern unstable (or testing) once you are a little more confident. >- If you are a desktop user with a lot of experience in the operating system and do not mind facing the odd bug now and then, or even full system breakage, use unstable. It has all the latest and greatest software, and bugs are usually fixed swiftly. >- If you are running a server, especially one that has strong stability requirements or is exposed to the Internet, install stable. This is by far the strongest and safest choice.

https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-faq/ch-choosing

Were these 32-bit installs by any chance? Differences in the processors targeted make a much bigger difference there. As of Etch, Debian still supported the original 80486 (from 1989!), so a Gentoo system targeting i686 only would have had a major performance advantage.

Optimisations for slightly different amd64 microarchitectures have a great deal less potential.

to add to that debian is more or less the worlds largest anarchist project. also they have a social contract and software guidelines https://www.debian.org/social_contract which is pretty much keep free software free, and a code of conduct https://www.debian.org/code_of_conduct which more or less keeps the pieces of shit out. additionally they did have a hurd kernel which was dope but nothing more than a kvm toy.

Don't use unetbootin

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=775689

The instructions actually recommend win32diskimager.

https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch04s03.html.en

The beginning of that chapter is awkwardly phrased, as it implies it only applies to Linux systems. Ho hum.

> On the other hand, if you installed MySQL from Debian’s own package repos and then go ahead and upgrade to Debian 9, Debian will simply yank out MySQL and forcibly replace it with a different database system, with no advance warning.

Uhm...

> with no advance warning

Wheezy is using 3.2, that is maintained by Ben Hutchings. He is the ubuntu team that does long term support for the kernel. This means they can give 3.16 the same support they are giving 3.2 even if it isn't declared stable upstream.

• Less drama (notice I am not saying no drama)
• If you decide to contribute, all contributions eventually trickle down downstream
• Community driven (as opposed to business-driven, Canonical being the main driver behind Ubuntu dev/features/direction) - see https://www.debian.org/social_contract

That's a big oversimplification. Personally I use both, but I tend towards Aptitude for normal maintenance.

Apt is capable of doing anything Aptitude can do (with the possible exception of minesweeper) and more, you just have to do a lot of it manually. Aptitude is cleverer, which perversely also makes it make stupider suggestions.

Major advice for new Aptitude users? Learn the curses interface. It's brilliant. If you don't want to do that, learn what typing stuff like 'r3' or 'a2' does at the solutions prompt. It allows you to converge on a sane solution much quicker.

https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/aptitude/index.en.html

The plan is for all releases, though it's done on a 'best effort basis' (only some software, only some architectures), and it's still early days yet (Squeeze was the first, and the announcement for Wheezy and Jessie was quite recent https://www.debian.org/News/2015/20150424 ), so no doubt things may change.

More general info here, and at the mailing list.

https://wiki.debian.org/LTS

If you really want bleeding edge software I think you are better off with sid or using a rolling release distro like Arch or OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. If Arch wasn't to your taste, maybe try Antergos which automatizes a lot of the installation and stays closer to the Arch philosophy than Manjaro.

The difference between testing and sid in terms of stability is that sid breaks more often but is also fixed much more quickly. While testing breaks rarely but when it does, the fixes are much slower to come.

And here is the download page for testing: https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/

> How can the Jessie default init system not have project-wide blessing?

Did you read the resolution page? Because the GR has never been about systemd being or not the default, but about other packages having a hard dependency on its features (coupling). The fact that systemd is the default for debian has been decided by the TC back in Feb 2014

> So as of right now, and for the foreseeable future, it would be basically impossible for any debian Jessie package outside systemd to require systemd? Because that would be against some debian rule, or ruling?

That's basically the complete opposite... There is no rules preventing depending on systemd features

In addition to packages.debian.org, there's also the (in progress) What's new in the distribution? section of the Release Notes and it's also probably worth checking the Noteworthy obsolete packages.

No.

https://www.debian.org/social_contract

> 1. Debian will remain 100% free > > We provide the guidelines that we use to determine if a work is "free" in the document entitled "The Debian Free Software Guidelines". We promise that the Debian system and all its components will be free according to these guidelines. We will support people who create or use both free and non-free works on Debian. We will never make the system require the use of a non-free component.

I'm guessing it'd be possible to make a partition with a newer system in (or just use a Live system), then use debootstrap to create a system based on Stable but with a backported kernel?

https://www.debian.org/releases/buster/amd64/apds03.en.html

Might be a pain in the backside or an educational challenge, depending how you look at it...

P.s. It isn't a correct assumption that if something doesn't work in the Live system it won't work installed - the Live system is subject to lots of weirdness sometimes. If you can install it but not boot it, you might be able to just chroot in from a Live system and upgrade the kernel, which'd be easier than debootstrap I think.

I haven't tested this yet, but I think what you need to do is this:

• Verify that you're booting via UEFI. The presence of /sys/firmware/efi would confirm this.
• apt install shim-signed grub-efi-amd64-signed to get the signed shim and bootloader. If you installed your kernel from the kernel metapackage, you should already have a signed kernel.
• Turn on Secure Boot.

Source: https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/release-notes/ch-whats-new.en.html#secure-boot

contrib itself meets DFSG, but depends upon nonfree

main meets DFSG and has no dependencies upon nonfree

Why? If one doesn't want nonfree or dependencies thereupon, then don't use/include contrib, and same for nonfree

But it's good to know what's in contrib, both for the above, and also if a package in contrib no longer depends upon nonfree (e.g. that/those packages change to main), then contrib package(s) likewise freed of nonfree dependencies also get to move to main.

That's at least the gist of it - I may be leaving out some finer details.

Right from the Debian website: https://www.debian.org/releases/sid/

> Please note that security updates for "unstable" distribution are not managed by the security team. Hence, "unstable" does not get security updates in a timely manner.

The USB option isn't missing, from https://www.debian.org/CD/ :

> On i386 and amd64 architectures, all CD/DVD images can be used on a USB stick too.

You get to the page I've linked by clicking on the "CD/USB ISO images" link just below the "Getting Debian" header on https://www.debian.org/

Of course nobody read manuals, I'm telling that you don't need "to be in the know" because this is another example of the good ol' RTFM.

It's mentioned now and it was mentioned for Jessie.

https://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/amd64/ch06s04.html.en

From https://www.debian.org/CD/faq/#why-jigdo

> Today, there are nearly 300 Debian mirrors (which contain the complete Debian distribution as .deb files), but far fewer machines serving Debian CD images. As a result, the CD image servers are constantly overloaded. > > Additionally, nobody is very enthusiastic about setting up more CD servers because of the tremendous amounts of wasted bandwidth (some people keep restarting failed downloads instead of resuming from the point where the connection was closed) and because a regular mirror is more attractive (it allows continuous upgrades of Debian, or using the "testing"/"unstable" distribution instead of the "stable" one). > > jigdo tries to make the most out of this situation, by downloading the data for the CD images from one of the 300 mirrors. However, these mirrors only hold individual .deb files, not the CD image, so some additional manipulation of the data is necessary to produce one big CD image file from the many small .deb files.

So it helps the project to make people use Jigdo.

If somebody is installing when connected to the internet (with enough speed + bandwidth) they only need the smaller netinst anyway.

The disks are ordered so that the packages are placed on them by popularity so the first few disks cover most people's installations.

The easiest way to get it to install, is to get the CD image with firmware pre-loaded on it. You can grab those here:

http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/

There's also more information in the official installation manual: https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/ch06s04.html.en

Low-impact issues not qualifying for a DSA can be fixed in the next release of Debian, in a point release of the current stable or oldstable distributions, or are included in a DSA when that is being issued for a more serious vulnerability. https://www.debian.org/security/faq

While there was a wheezy release of kfreebsd-* made by the release team it was not officially supported. It had its own "tech preview" status. Please read the release notes: https://www.debian.org/releases/oldstable/kfreebsd-i386/release-notes/ch-whats-new.en.html#idp157648 Note the lack of mention of any kfreebsd flavor in the officially supported list and see the chapter below noting the status.

TL;DR kfreebsd (or hurd) has never been officially supported.

> Proposed Updates are pretty much similar in functionality to backports, but with less testing.

Actually, proposed updates are the updates that will go into the next stable point update and are individually reviewed with high scrutiny before they are allowed to be part of the next stable update. Backports, OTOH, are usually not tested at all.

Proposed updates are used for important functionality updates and only for those. If your proposed patch does not address a really important issue, it's not accepted for PU.

> Security Updates are important hotfixes for when any package has a breaking bug and needs to be prioritized.

I'm not sure what you mean with "needs to be prioritized", but SU just include updated packages where security issues have been fixed.

I know that TAILS, which is Debian based, does it.

In TAILS, you can have a partition containing the live cd ISO on the usb, and an encrypted second partition for all the persistence. It has a GUI program that lets you update the ISO with a new image, overwriting the 1st partition, and keeping all the custom configs and packages on the second partition.

I know it's kinda cool to install an OS over the network, but...

I'd suggest just asking your provider if they could give you a Debian template. Failing that, you could always switch providers - VPSes are a dime a dozen, and my favorite has a few different Debian templates from which you can choose.

If you decide to go through with the installation, keep in mind that many VPS providers install their own software on their images (or, they might have proprietary Xen client packages or kernel modules or something). You should take a look around (both at the filesystem and at the installed package list) one of their Ubuntu Server images and see if anything looks like it didn't come from an Ubuntu repository - you'll probably want to make sure that ends up on your Debian installation, too.

One last piece of despair... if you ever break your package list or want to do a fresh upgrade to the next stable version of Debian or something like that, you're going to have to go through all of this again if you keep the same provider.

All that said, guzo is right: debootstrap is the way to go if you really want to try this out.

The hypervisor they are using for intercepting the GPU calls (running the bare metal as a guest!) is some truly next level shiz. Been a long time since I've seen software that made me think "wow is that even possible?!"

https://asahilinux.org/2021/08/progress-report-august-2021/

Introductory step-by-step guides seem to be anathema within the debian community...nice work op!

Another simple path is an iso from SparkyLinux originally based on debian testing and now includes a stable issue along with unstable inclusions where necessary to install just about anything.

Depends on how you installed. 3.19.0 is a peculiar and deprecated version. If you installed from source, make headers_install should do the trick. If from backports, apt-get -t jessie-backports install linux-headers.

(or something along those lines, too lazy to check)

If you want, you can integrate any kernel seamlessly with Debian's package system by building it "the Debian way". It's actually fairly easy. This should get you started: https://www.debian.org/releases/squeeze/i386/ch08s06.html.en

Based on my experience in #debian on IRC, I think it's worth noting that apt preferences and pinning really should not be used with Debian Stable. The stuff discussed on that wiki page should only be used to mix Debian Testing with Unstable, or experimental if you know what you're doing or just like breaking things.

The Debian Reference warns against mixing Debian versions (it calls them suites). The Debian Reference is pretty awesome.

This page on the Debian Wiki also warns against creating a "FrankenDebian", along with some tips for new Debian users. It was inspired by the most common questions in the #debian IRC channel.

I have installed Debian on machines with 256 MB RAM and a PIII 800 MHz without problems, If it lacks a USB port and/or BIOS USB support (highly likely) burn a CD.

Debian on CDs

Which exact version of OpenSSL 1.0.1e do you have installed?

https://www.debian.org/security/2014/dsa-2896 > For the stable distribution (wheezy), this problem has been fixed in version 1.0.1e-2+deb7u5.

Well, according to the Debian FAQ page under Which Debian distribution (stable/testing/unstable) is better for me? it says Unstable is fine for desktop users with some experience in Linux and want the latest software. Assuming Testing is a little more solid than Unstable, it would seem Testing is a decent choice.