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
- IBM's Anderon Another Opportunity for Debt-Loading, Publicity Stunts, Maybe Hidden Layoffs
- Anderon is like Theranos
- In Praise of 7 Years of Alex Oliva in the FSF, Not IBM
- Thank you, Mr. Oliva, for 7 years of uncompressing advocacy and perseverance
- Linux Kernel Becoming a Slopfest - Part 2 - Bribes From Slop Pushers Divide Us
- Money can and does divide people
-
- General Assembly (Meeting of All Staff) Starts in Hour Ago to Discuss Strikes at Europe's Second-Largest Institution (EPO), Strikes to Last Until End of 2026 (If Not Further)
- The media absolutely does not cover this and that's intentional
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 187 Out of 200: Reminding Ourselves of the Great Damage Garrett Did to Linux (for Microsoft)
- he rejects freedom
- Cancel Culture is a Cancer That Harms Democracy, Justice, and Science. It's Designed to Help Corporations Vanish Their Critics.
- "Codes of Conduct" sounds benign; in practice, however, it is not
- Links 17/09/2026: Class Action Lawsuit Over GAFAM's "NameTag" and Automattic Hides What It Did to CEO Mullenweg (or Why)
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 17/09/2026: Google Signals the End, ROOPHLOCH Coverage, EBay Uses Offensive Bots to Falsely Accuse Users of Stuff
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 16, 2026
- IRC logs for Wednesday, September 16, 2026
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 186 Out of 200: Love (Always Commands)
- This coming Friday we celebrate our wedding anniversary
- With Half of September Finished Clownflare Radar Sees GNU/Linux at 7% "Market Share"
- On desktops/laptops
- Gemini Links 16/09/2026: Cards, Nature, and Conspiracy Theorists
- Links for the day
- Links 16/09/2026: Proprietary Chatbots Company Lets Humans Moderate Chatbots, "Putin Looking to See How Far he Can Push NATO"
- Links for the day
- The Only Still-Supported Version of Windows Breaks Itself (Again), the Microsoft Layoffs Will Carry on in Secret
- In the US they marked about 7% for removal just this past summer
- Wikileaks Turns 20 Just 18 Days From Now
- it's fair to say they've endured online, but aren't lively/active
- The Cyber Show Debunks the Alleged Intelligence in Slop
- It's shorter than usual
- Expecting Failure
- Some things would not happen to technology (tech) experts because they know how things work and what to expect (or watch out for)
- Links 16/09/2026: US Running Low/Out of Some Ammo Due to Wars, Slop Bots "Are Using an Outrageous Amount of Electricity"
- Links for the day
- "AI Slowdown" is Code Word for Bubble Imploding (Trying to Make This Slowdown Seem Wilful, an Act of Safety and Responsibility)
- They help one another by inflating the bubble and making false excuses when expansion stalls
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 185 Out of 200: What Reputation?
- Helping monopolies and working for monopolies never made anybody popular
- Gemini Links 16/09/2026: Slovenia, Catastrophe Ethics, and ROOPHLOCH 2026
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 15, 2026
- IRC logs for Tuesday, September 15, 2026
- Microsoft Layoffs in September 2026 Are Silent, Hidden
- Expect the same next month ahead of the fake results
- Links 15/09/2026: 'Smartphone', Android TV Box, Stockholm Syndrome of [Slop Plagiarism] Acceptance
- Links for the day
- Carmen-Lisandrette Maris Prepares Audiobook to Explain Software Freedom/Digital Rights to Adolescents, Needs Help From Volunteers
- needs help with narrating
- Links 15/09/2026: Putin-Connected Money for The Insurrectionist Jr. and Turkey's Crackdown on Activists
- Links for the day
- publicdomainpictures.net Seems to Have Become Fed Up With Slop Contaminating Its Database (Wasting Storage, Bandwidth), Now It's Suitably Flagged, Should Be Demoted/Delisted
- The site was redone, suffered some hours of downtime, then 'relaunched' with a new interface this week
- Gemini Links 15/09/2026: Hiking in Munții Făgăraș, Scams, and Slop Plagiarism Considered Unethical
- Links for the day
- Linux Kernel Becoming a Slopfest - Part 1 - At the Beginning (Torvalds Knew It Was Trouble)
- We still wonder if we should make and actively maintain a shame list (developer/employer) for the people who contaminate Linux the most with slop plagiarism
- EPO Staff is Preparing to Take Up a Notch the Strikes and Other Industrial Actions Ahead of October's Meeting (It Can Help Oust the Corrupt Leadership)
- mobilising perhaps thousands of workers at a critical time in the history of the Office
- unixcop.com is the Latest "Linux" Site to Have Become a Slopfarm After 2 Years of Death (Inactivity)
- Not a way to stage a comeback
- Allegedly Many PIP Layoffs in Nepal, IBM Does This Before a Known Death Toll in Avalanche (Caused by China-, Europe-, and US-Induced Global Warming)
- Fresh wounds, before the bodies are even recovered (thousands still missing)
- "Wail" by Alexandre Oliva
- This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License BY-SA (Attribution ShareAlike) 4.0 International
- This Morning The Register MS Published a Page With "AI" 83 Times in it. The Register MS Got Paid to Do This.
- The Register MS is not a serious publisher and a lot of the stuff about "AI" on the Web isn't journalism but paid-for SPAM
- While GAFAM/Microsoft Disguise Financial Crisis as "Investment in AI" the Slop Giants Make Up a Narrative of Wilful Slowdown
- A BS artist is good at the art of BS when the artist's failures or weaknesses get twisted as moral or professional leadership
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 184 Out of 200: A Tiny Law Firm That Knows Nothing But Microsoft (But Merely Pretends to Understand "IT")
- They've managed to trick some mainstream media into thinking they're "Tech" experts or "Social [Control] Media" gurus; nothing could be further from the truth
- Links 15/09/2026: Sweden’s Far Right Perishing and "Iceland Just Got Played"
- Links for the day
- It's Not About How Developers Vote
- This isn't about politics, it's about users being in control of their own computers and computing
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 14, 2026
- IRC logs for Monday, September 14, 2026
- Gemini Links 15/09/2026: Poetry, Enshittification of Ebay, and Mecha System
- Links for the day
