90 lines
4.6 KiB
Markdown
90 lines
4.6 KiB
Markdown
---
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date: 2022-06-20T14:10:48Z
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draft: true
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aliases: []
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categories: ['documentation']
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series: ['apprentice']
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tags: ['linux', 'os']
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chroma: false
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toc: true
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title: Debian
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description: All about ye ol' relaiable Debian Linux distribution!
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docs:
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- url: https://debian-handbook.info/browse/stable/
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name: Debian Administrator's Handbook
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---
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Debian is a classic free and open source Linux distribution.
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It's one of the oldest Linux OSes and the basis of many other distros.
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Most notably Ubuntu.
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Debian has three foundational documents.
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The [Debian Social Contract](https://www.debian.org/social_contract)/[OG Version](https://lists.debian.org/debian-announce/1997/msg00017.html),
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the [Debian Constitution](https://www.debian.org/devel/constitution) and
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the [Debian Free Software Guidelines](https://wiki.debian.org/DebianFreeSoftwareGuidelines).
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Debian version code-names are famously named after characters from the [Toy Story](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Story_(franchise)) films.
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It's unstable rolling release branch is named Sid, who in the Toy Stories regularly destroys his toys.
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## Early History
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The first ever Debian release was on September 15th, 1993.
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It was an internal release of version 0.01.
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The first public release, version 0.90, included the "[Debian Linux Manifesto](https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/project-history/manifesto.en.html)".
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That document outlining, the Debian founder, Ian Murdock's view for the Debian OS.
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Calling for Debian to become an openly maintained distribution, in the spirit of GNU/Linux.
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During 1994 and 1995 Debian released 0.9x versions and was sponsored by the [Free Software Foundation](https://fsf.org).
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During this time Ian Murdock would delegate the base system and core package management to Bruce Perens, while Murdock focused on the management of the growing project.
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In 1996 dpkg was already an essential part of Debian and Bruce Perens got the project leadership.
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He was a controversial leader and drafted the Debian Social Contract.
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During this time the Free Software Foundation would pull their sponsorship for the project.
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And Perens would go on to create the organization "[Software in the Public Interest](https://spi-inc.org)".
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He also wrote BusyBox to make it possible to have a Debian installer on a single floppy drive.
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From 1999, the project leader was elected yearly.
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The number of applicants was overwhelming, and the project established the new member process.
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After this Debian slowly evolved into what it is today.
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## Packages, Branches and Branding
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Package management on Debian is done mainly through APT, the "Advanced Packaging Tool".
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Although there are loads of alternative methods and apt GUI frontends.
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APT uses dpkg under the hood, and this dpkg is the program responsible for managing all installed packages.
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As long as snap, flatpak, (home)brew or any other alternative package manager isn't installed beside it.
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Those examples however are often installed in conjunction with whatever package manager your distro of choice is.
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Because they install either in their own segregated environment.
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Or with all dependencies bundled and binaries that are statically linked.
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The official Debian repos have several "areas" and only the free one is enabled by default.
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The DFSG/Debian Free Software Guidelines define what is and isn't free software in this context.
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But it's pretty trivial to add the *non-free* and *contrib* areas for installing official packages that may not be entirely free and open source.
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The non-free contains packages that doesn't comply with the DFSG.
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And contrib contains packages that do comply, but fail other requirements, like depending on non-free packages.
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The Debian "swirl" logo is said to represent [magic smoke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_smoke).
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## Development and Features
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Debian is available in 75 languages with widely varying support.
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The installer itself is available in 76 languages.
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As of 2022 anyway.
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## Derivative works
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As of writing, Aug. 18th 2022, [DistroWatch](https://distrowatch.com) lists 118 active Debian based distros.
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And 404 also counting discontinued Debian based distros.
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Debian GNU/kFreeBSD only had one official stable port with the release of Debian 7.0 (Wheezy).
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That would of course be Debian with GNU user land utilities using the FreeBSD kernel.
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And Debian GNU/Hurd using the GNU Hurd microkernel.
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It has been developed since 1998, but has never had an official Debian release.
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Still it's maintained and developed as an unofficial port.
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In my opinion [Devuan](https://devuan.org) is the best Debian fork, but that may just be the systemd hate speaking.
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It has been mirroring Debian since 2017, but with systemd removed and sysvinit, runit or openrc as supported init system alternatives.
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