News About Debian and Its Derivatives
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-04-08 09:36:17 UTC
- Modified: 2014-04-08 09:36:17 UTC
Package Managers
Synaptic is a graphical package management program for apt. It provides the same features as the apt-get command-line utility with a GUI front-end based on GTK+. Most importantly, users can install, remove, upgrade and downgrade single and multiple packages.
16 years old and still ever changing: Not even the name remains stable. What used to be called "deity" was announced as "Apt", first released as "APT" [1], shipped as "apt-get" and "apt-cache", interpreted as "A Package Tool" and "Advanced Package Tool" and is now also available as "apt" … But the initial wisdom holds: "it's still a good word in its own right". And this word has surely influenced the way we manage our software on phones, servers and space stations.
“We need ensure that we cater to our users, and there's millions of them. From those running the latest software in unstable, to people who simply want a rock solid core release. The size of Debian is increasing, and will reach a point where we're unable to guarantee basic compatibility with other packages, or the length of time it takes to do so becomes exponentially longer, unless something changes,” said Neil McGovern.
Software
Mutter can replace Openbox in LXDE, and bring a modern, elegant look to your desktop. To experiment with it, install the software package and start it...
Comparison
Threehosts.com compares Mint, Ubuntu and Debian to show which is the best Linux Distribution.
All benchmarking for this article was done from the same Intel Core i7 4770K "Haswell" system with HD Graphics 4600, 16GB of RAM, and 120GB Samsung SSD 840. No hardware or settings changed between the clean installs of the different Linux distributions. The operating systems tested from this Intel Core i7 desktop were:
- Debian 7.4 "Wheezy" stable with the Linux 3.2 kernel, GNOME Shell 3.4.2.1, Mesa 8.0.5, and GCC 4.7.
- Debian 8.0 "Jessie" testing with the Linux 3.12 kernel, GNOME Shell 3.8.4, Mesa 9.2.2, and GCC 4.8.2.
- Debian "Sid" unstable with the Linux 3.13 kernel on top of the Jessie changes.
- Ubuntu 14.04 with the Linux 3.13 kernel, Unity 7.1.2 desktop, and Mesa 10.1-rc3.
Init Systems
Branches Debate
So there you have it. There is a simple summary for all of this:
Debian Stable if your first priority is a rock-solid system, and you don't necessarily need to support the very latest hardware. This is often the case if you are setting up a server of some sort, but it may also be true if you are going to use a bit older .system as a desktop workstation,
Debian Testing if you want or need to have the latest hardware support, kernel dvelopments and advanced filesystems
Derivative distributions if you want a lot of additional packages included in the base distribution, thus saving you the time and effort of installing and configuring them.
Installer
The Debian Installer team has just announced that the first Alpha build of the Debian 8 "Jessie" version is now available for download and testing.
Wheezy
The Debian project has just released the Live CD version of the recently launched Debian 7.4 in several separate images with various flavors.
“At the moment it seems likely that an extended security support timespan for squeeze is possible. The plan is to go ahead, sort out the details as as it happens, and see how this works out and whether it is going to be continued with wheezy. The rough draft is that updates will be delivered via a separate suite (e.g. squeeze-lts), where everyone in the Debian keyring can upload in order to minimise bottlenecks and allow contributions by all interested parties," said Moritz Muehlenhoff in the official mailing list.
Derivatives
Parsix GNU/Linux, a live and installation DVD based on Debian, aiming to provide a ready-to-use, easy-to-install desktop and laptop-optimized operating system, is now at version 6.0 Test 3 and is ready for testing.
Tails, The Amnesic Incognito Live System, version 0.23, is out.
Clonezilla Live is a Linux distribution that is designed to do bare metal backup and recovery on a wide variety of file systems and operating systems. It's very similar to other older cloning software, such as True Image or Norton Ghost.
The distribution is based on Debian and, as usual, the developers have upgraded the underlying GNU/Linux operating system and the release is now based on the Debian Sid repository, as of March 31, 2014.
Grml is not a regular Linux distribution for regular users. It’s packed with a sysadmin's favorite tools and allows admins with packages for installation, deployment and system rescue. This latest version has been dubbed Ponywagon and it comes with a couple of interesting features.
LMDE
-
Only the Cinnamon and MATE editions of Linux Mint Debian Edition 201403 were released. If there’s going to be a KDE edition, it probably will be released in about a month. Prominent features of this release are support (in the installer) for computers with UEFI firmware and for GPT partitions. But the installer, as you will read in the next section, is the weakest part of this distribution, a problem it shares with most distributions that are based on Debian. And the cause of that weakness is that it does not use the Debian Installer. Rather, the installer is a custom application that does not belong on a modern desktop operating system.
When I wrote about the Linux Mint Debian Edition Release Candidate last week, I promised to look at it in more detail when the final release was made.
Knoppix
Version 7.3.0 of Knoppix is based on the usual picks from Debian stable (wheezy) and newer Desktop packages from Debian/testing and Debian/unstable (jessie). It uses kernel 3.13.0 and xorg 7.7 (core 1.15.0) for supporting current computer hardware.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Links 02/01/2026: Science, Patent Maximalism, and Public Domain Day
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 02/02/2026: Books, Scams, and mkscript (a Script to Make Scripts)
- Links for the day
- Strong Start for GNU/Linux This Year
- based on statCounter
- More Tools, Factorising Code
- If some things in the site of Gemini capsules don't behave as expected, then that's likely due to a bug
- State of Tech Journalism in 2026: Follow the Money
- in order to understand what motivates an opinion piece one must follow the money
-
- In 2025 We Contributed to the Headlessness of the OSI, But It's Not Over Yet
- By airing some 'dirty laundry' about the OSI last year we contributed to its current state
- Africa's Largest Population Sees Diminishing Impact of Windows
- less than 1 in 10 Web requests in Nigeria comes from Windows
- Russia Cuts Finnish Cables ("Hybrid War"), Finland Cuts Off Microsoft
- the birthplace of Linux
- Free Software is More Naturally Inclusive
- large, intolerant, violent companies get painted as a glorious example of United Colours of Benetton
- Europe in 2026: Over 5% GNU/Linux, Not Counting Chromebooks
- 2026 has started strongly
- Slopfarm Says Microsoft's "Biggest Business" is the 'Business' Where It Loses Tens of Billions of Dollars
- TOI still pretends to have a lot of output
- At the Start of January 2025 Microsoft President Said Microsoft Would Spend 80 Billion Dollars on "AI" Data Centres. That Didn't Happen. Microsoft Laid Off 30,000 Workers, Debt Surged.
- Maybe this coming Monday Microsoft will come up with more false promises and vapourware
- Links 02/01/2026: Insurrectionist Attacks Musicians Critical of Him With Lawfare, Project Gutenberg Now Has Over 75,000 Books
- Links for the day
- Decline in LLM Slop About "Linux" is a Good Start for 2026
- When the only remaining proponents of slop are slop, which is pretty much what's happening right now, the bubble is popping
- EPO People Power - Part XXII - Contact Officials and Inform Your National Representatives (Delegates) of the EPO's Cocainegate
- Europe's largest media intentionally covers up serious scandals in Europe's second-largest institution
- Slopwatch Still Dead, Not Enough LLM Slop About "Linux"
- this is the desirable thing
- LibXML2 Will Carry on (Without or With the Name "LibXML2")
- The proprietary software boosters are projecting
- Gemini Links 02/01/2026: ThinkPad, SHARP Zaurus, Lagrange Handheld Support
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, January 01, 2026
- IRC logs for Thursday, January 01, 2026
- Links 01/01/2026: "Biophobia" and Renewed Effort to Locate MH370
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 01/01/2026: Bot Accounts Online and Reading in 2025
- Links for the day
- IBM’s and Red Hat’s "Operation Evolution initiative" Just Long, Fancy Term for Bluewashing, Redundancies, Layoffs
- Gerstner is still alive, but he's shorter and more arrogant
- Designing a Better Mousetrap or Tools for the SSG
- Static Site Generators (SSGs) - unlike all modern Content Management Systems (CMSs) - are so simple that extending them is easy
- Links 01/01/2026: 1930 Works in the Public Domain, Electricity Pricing 'a Mystery'
- Links for the day
- Firefox is Toast Because It Got Toasted by Mozilla
- Firefox cannot keep above 2% and hasn't been able to for quite some time
- Ignore the LLM Slop and the Noise, Microsoft is in a Death Spiral
- So what does Microsoft have left to sell?
- Red Hat is Vanishing Before Our Eyes
- With some Red Hat staff "transitioning" we wonder if it's an HR hack, wherein they "reset the clock" on employment duration so as to lessen severance obligations
- In 2025 Microsoft Lost Palau
- Palau now has GNU/Linux at steadily high levels
- Microsoft Mocked UNIX/Linux for Not Handling Dates After 2038, Microsoft Breaks Down on 2026!
- Only a truly moronic company would design it that way
- Another New Year's Resolution: Public Domain Sources, Credits
- In addition to our first one
- Combatting Slop Images (and ClownFlare)
- we won't use or reuse slop images
- The End of Red Hat
- expect many more layoffs soon
- A New Year's Resolution: Maximal Transparency
- We'll do our very best to be transparent about everything that's going on, even legal matters
- Gemini Links 01/01/2026: 2025 Comes to a Close and Capsular Gemlog Manager
- Links for the day
- Free Software Foundation (FSF) Raised About 1.3 Million Dollars in the Past Couple of Months!
- the FSF's Board now has 10 people in it
- 2026 IBM Phaseout of Red Hat
- Red Hat won't fare any better than most IBM acquisitions
- Microsoft Budget Issues, XBox Thrown Under the Bus
- They're cutting budget. Soon they'll cut the staff.
- Only Hours Into the New Year People Already Discuss the Next Round of Layoffs at Red Hat/IBM
- 2026 will be another tough year for Red Hat and IBM
- EPO People Power - Part XXI - Europe's Second-Largest Institution Became a Corrupt For-Profit Company Run by Drug Addicts
- it'll be the demise of the Rule of Law in Europe and maybe a death blow to the EU (eventually), not just the EPO
- Another Very Productive Year Commences
- "a total of over 17,000 pages in a year"
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, December 31, 2025
- IRC logs for Wednesday, December 31, 2025
- Fiji: GNU/Linux Has Risen From Almost Nothing to Almost 5% in Recent Years
- It's not as small as people are led to believe
- Gemini Links 31/12/2025: Blogosphere is Growing and New Year Begins
- Links for the day
- Recruiters Don't Use Microsoft LinkedIn, Spammers Use LinkedIn
- One of my best friends, a university professor, lost all of his life's savings due to Microsoft LinkedIn
- You've Only Wasted Your Life in Social Control Networks
- In a sense, social control media is a giant delusion
- 2025 Was a Very Bad Year for Social Control Media
- statCounter sees a gradual demise in Social Control Media access
- Don't "Go Paperless", Go Paperful [sic] (for What Really Matters)
- Why should we favour paper use sometimes? Well, many reasons.
- Complexity Considered Harmful: We Used to Run an Operating System on 64KB of RAM, Not 64GB of RAM (a Million Times More)
- "Initially confined to single-tasking on 8-bit processors and no more than 64 kilobytes of memory"
- The Slop Industry is Failing So Badly (Mountains of Debt, Losses) That It's Merging With the SPAM Industry
- we reckon that Google will eventually delist all slopfarms, recognising they're just a form of SPAM
- Links 31/12/2025: Cheeto Pushing for More Wars, ‘Security is a Shared Responsibility’
- Links for the day
- Enshittification of Postal Services Isn't Technological Advancement
- Societies that say the aim is to "go digital" and eliminate paper trail aren't advanced; they're moving backwards
- IBM Starts 2026 a Much Smaller Company (Not Homage to Gerstner)
- People who get bluewashed out of their job (or bluewashed into unemployment) are gagged by NDAs
- XBox is Likely Dead Already, But the Threat It Posed to Us All for Two Decades Isn't Over
- "the Xbox was never about gaming and merely served as a test bed for DRM in commodity systems."
- Ahead of 2026 Mass Layoffs at Microsoft the Tree Gets Shaken to See Who 'Falls' (Resigns/Retires)
- "We had a quiet meeting last week about budget realignment. No one said layoffs, but it’s clear where the focus is shifting."
- Almost 6,5000 Pages in 2025, Aiming Higher in 2026
- if we can keep focused, then quantity will increase
- Microsoft XBox Having a "Dog Ate My Homework" Moment: No New Console Until 3 Years From Now... Because "RAM Prices"
- Who will ever remember this in 2028? Nobody.
- Gemini End of Year Capsules Tally (Based on Lupa) Shows About 10% Growth
- What a difference a year makes
- Gemini Links 31/12/2025: New Resolution, Reverse Hexdump, and Programming Languages
- Links for the day
- Dr. Andy Farnell Explains Why Chatbots Became Dishonesty on Top of Dishonesty (Hiding Usage of Dishonest Salads of Words)
- new article from CyberShow
- Links 31/12/2025: Nvidia Faces Bubble-Bursting Moment, Saudi Oil Money Pumped Into Chatbots to Keep the Energy Waste Going (Circular Financing Again)
- Links for the day
- Richard Stallman's First Talk in a U.S. College Since 2018
- Greetings from Georgia Tech!
- EPO People Power - Part XX - Why António Campinos Chose to Put His Cokehead Friend on 'Sick Leave'
- EPO Cocainegate will be covered for months to come
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, December 30, 2025
- IRC logs for Tuesday, December 30, 2025
