Debian GNU/Linux
Debian GNU/Linux is a distribution produced by the Debian Project, which is governed by a social contract that requires that OSes produced by Debian will be 100% "free," as determined by the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG).
A brief history of Debian
Debian was founded in 1993 by Ian Murdock, now the chief OS platform strategist for Sun Microsystems. The name Debian is a combination of the first names of Murdock and his wife Deb (Deb+Ian).
Debian was the first distro to be open to "every developer and user to contribute their work." Most Linux distros were, and continue to be, maintained by commercial interests that give little or limited control of the distribution to the community at large.
Murdock led the project through 1996. After Murdock left the project, Bruce Perens stepped in as Debian Project Leader, and was responsible for helping Debian create its Debian Social Contract and DFSG, and also helped initiate the Software in the Public Interest, which is an umbrella organization for free software projects, including Debian.
Perens stepped down from the DPL post in 1997 and resigned from SPI in 1998. Debian, in accord with its constitution now has elections for DPL every year. The current DPL is Same Hocevar.
Debian is distinguished from other distributions in a number of ways. First, Debian is one of the few distributions that is not backed solely by any one company. Many companies support Debian, and use Debian in their products, but Debian is a truly independent project.
The Debian Project is much slower in its release cycle than most distributions. While many distros release stable versions one or more times per year, Debian releases come out "when they're ready," typically with two or three years between releases. The most recent release is Debian 4.0, codenamed Etch, which was released on April 8, 2007. The previous version, Sarge, was released on June 6, 2005.
Debian release names are taken from characters in the movie Toy Story. In addition to the stable releases, Debian also offers users testing and unstable branches, so that developers can work on the next release, and adventurous users can run the most recent versions of software in Debian. The unstable version is always known as "Sid," the malicious neighbor from the first Toy Story movie. Testing is also called by its release name. The current testing version is dubbed Lenny.
Installer and packaging system
Debian offers a GUI and text-mode menu installers. Debian's installer is not quite as automated as many Linux distributions, and requires a little more computer experience than installers used by Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE, Mandriva, and others. On the other hand, some users prefer the amount of control they get by using Debian's installer, and it is much more suitable for lower-end computers.
The Debian installation manual recommends at least 256MB of RAM and 1GB of hard drive space for a server install, and at least 512MB of RAM and 5GB of disk space for a desktop installation. You can get by with only 64MB of RAM, but it's not recommended. The RAM requirements are lower for some non-x86 platforms.
Debian supports installation from CD-ROM, USB memory sticks, over the network, and even from floppies if you just can't do your install any other way. Very few Linux distros offer this much choice when it comes to installation methods, so if your computer just can't handle installing from a bootable CD, Debian may be the best option.
The popular Debian package (dpkg) system was, as the name implies, pioneered by the Debian distro. On top of dpkg, Debian has the Advanced Packaging Tool (APT), which is a front-end for dpkg that makes managing packages on Debian very easy. APT handles searching for packages, installation and removal of packages, and performing package upgrades and even full system upgrades to new releases of Debian. Note that APT is not tied so closely to dpkg that it can't be used with other packaging systems. An independent project provides apt4rpm for use with the RPM format.
Derivative versions
The Debian distro is not just popular for end users, it's also very popular as a base for building specialized and derivative distributions. Over the years, Debian has been used to build dozens of popular and niche distros -- including Ubuntu, Xandros, Damn Small Linux, KNOPPIX, MEPIS, and Linspire and Freespire.
Distro vendors usually cite a couple of reasons for this. First, the dpkg/APT combination is very popular. Second, Debian has a repository of thousands of packages, which means that some distributors can just re-use Debian packages without having to recompile or modify them, or at the very least they can use Debian's source packages to start with.
Supported platforms
Debian GNU/Linux runs on a much wider range of hardware than most Linux distributions, which is one of the reasons that Debian is so popular. The most recent Debian release, Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 (codenamed "etch"), runs on Alpha, AMD64, ARM, HP's PA-RISC, x86, Intel IA-64 (Itanium), MIPS, PowerPC, IBM S/390, and Sun's SPARC architecture.
In contrast, most Linux distros have official ports for x86 and AMD64, and some "enterprise" distros have official support for PowerPC, S/390, and Itanium. If you're looking for Linux distro that runs on just about anything, Debian is definitely what the doctor ordered.
If you're still on the fence about trying Debian, you might look at the reasons to try Debian page on the Debian Web site. The page lists reasons you might, or might not, like Debian as your primary operating system.
http://www.linux.com/distributions/114348
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