Definition of the Distribution and Its Features:
Debian is known for its large and prestigious community, which has had a significant impact on system development. The distribution is aimed at users seeking great stability in their system and provides everything they need. Many distributions are based on Debian, with popular examples being Ubuntu and Kali Linux.
Debian is a very successful operating system that plays a more significant role in our digital lives than people may realize. A few numbers illustrate this fact. Debian is the most popular GNU/Linux distribution on web servers; according to W3Techs statistics, over 10% of the web relies on Debian. To put it into perspective, 66.5% of servers rely on Unix-like systems, with Linux at the forefront, while Windows holds 33.5%, according to the same site. Debian is not limited to servers; it also has various other applications:
- Debian is the operating system used on the International Space Station.
- Debian is widely used in research labs and universities.
- Debian is used on many navy ships and submarines.
- Countless major international companies, universities, and government offices rely on Debian daily to carry out their work and provide services to millions of users worldwide, including in space!
- Debian embodies the freedoms that people should have in a world where our daily activities increasingly rely on software. Debian is the result of the idea of software freedom, where people should control their computers, rather than computers controlling them.
According to the specialized site DistroWatch, there are currently around 300 active free software distributions, with approximately half of them, about 140 distributions, based on Debian or derived from it. This means that developers of these distributions start with Debian, then modify the distribution to suit the needs of their users by adding, modifying, and rebuilding packages, usually releasing the final product. The potential to reach new users of free software through derivative distributions is significant.
Additionally, I would like to add that there are two main categories of Linux distributions: commercial and community-based.
- Commercial distributions are developed by specialized companies and sold with commercial technical support services.
- Community-based distributions are developed by volunteer developers, following the same open development model used in free software that makes up the distribution.
Commercial distributions tend to release new versions faster to market updates and accompanying services better, with the success of these distributions being directly tied to the commercial success of their companies. Many commercial distributions have disappeared in the past (e.g., StormLinux, Caldera Linux).
Community-based distributions do not follow external release schedules. Like the Linux kernel, new versions are not released until they are stable, and not before that. The sustainability of these distributions is guaranteed as long as they have a sufficient number of individual developers or supporting companies.
Downloading Debian:
Each Debian release starts as a constantly evolving distribution known as the “testing” version. However, as you read these lines, Debian Jessie should be the latest “stable” version of Debian.
The choice of Debian Jessie is justified by the fact that any system manager concerned with the quality of their servers will naturally be drawn to the stable version of Debian, which will be supported for five years with updates and security fixes.
In the Debian Jessie release, the systemd boot system was officially adopted. Additionally, Debian developers have placed all the source code for the programs that come with Debian on their website, allowing you to browse and search through them without downloading them. There are 20,000 packages occupying 130 GB of data.
