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Debian provides a rock solid, stable, distribution which is highly
recommended for those running servers that must be reliable. This
distribution has been thoroughly tested. Software included in this
distribution is not leading edge, but instead it is mature software,
unlikely to crash, ever!
But many people like to stay up-to-date with the latest and greatest.
An alternative Debian distribution, the []unstable
distribution, is where you will find the latest and the greatest--it
is a pretty solid distribution (and is particularly suited to those
who live at the bleeding edge). Avoid doing any updates, though, just
after a new release of Debian (every couple of years) since it really
does become somewhat unstable at these times as a backlog of package
start making their way into the distribution.
The []testing distribution is a compromise between
stability and bleeding edge. Packages in this distribution have not
been through the rigorous testing of the stable distribution, but are
generally stable enough to not have serious bugs reported against
them. This distribution is the stepping stone to the next
[]stable distribution.
Administering a Debian system and maintaining up-to-date package
installations is easy with Debian's apt-get and dpkg tools, and
especially wajig. A lot of effort has been devoted to
ensuring the system works as a whole, rather than providing a lot of
glitz.
The name Debian comes from Deb and Ian Murdoch. It first appeared in
1993, pre-dating Red Hat and many other distributions.
Debian satisfies the needs of both system administrators who require
rock solid software and hobbyists who like to live at the cutting edge
and don't mind the occasional bumpy road. The stable releases have
proven to be extremely stable. Only packages that have been thoroughly
tested by the Debian team become part of a stable release. These
releases are sometimes called dinosaurs even before they get released.
By the time they are released the rest of the GNU/Linux world has
moved on (often to introduce new bugs). You can be confident, though,
that you will have a solid Linux installation. And if you want to have
the latest and greatest, or even just update some packages to their
latest release, you simply ask Debian to go grab it and install it for
you.
The stable distribution of Debian is found at
https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/ and the unstable
distribution, where you will find the latest and the greatest, is
found at https://www.debian.org/releases/unstable/. Despite its
name, the unstable distribution is very stable, although at times you
might find an aberrant package in transition, but it won't be there
for long! Administering the system and maintaining up-to-date package
installations is easy with Debian's apt-get and
dpkg tools. With these tools and the Debian package
structure a lot of effort has been devoted to ensuring the system
works as a fully integrated whole, rather than providing a lot of
glitz.
Copyright © 1995-2006 [email protected]
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