Debian-Project - Debian 2.0 - What's new?

Note that if you use this in any ad you have to scan for BSD-like copyrights and make a legend of legally required acknowledgements. Obviously any of the traditional BSD network clients and services fall in this category.

• The Debian Project has developed strict guidelines for free software. All packages in the main distribution have to be conform to Debian's standard definition of free software, the DFSG (Debian Free Software Guidelines).
  The benefit of Debian's strict interpretation of free software both increases awareness of the high quality of free software, and makes life easier on those who seek to redistribute or modify the software. Everything in the main component of the Debian GNU/Linux distribution is DFSG-free and neither individuals nor companies have to worry about licenses on that software curtailing their freedoms.

• Debian GNU/Linux 2.0 consists of 100% free software. The Debian Project accepts that non-free software exists. They believe that is desirable to users of Debian GNU/Linux and an infrastructure is provided for supporting software that is either itself non-free, or depends on non-free software to operate. Such software is included in the special components contrib and non-free.

• Debian contributes back to the free software community. When the maintainer of a package makes local modifications or fixes bugs, patches are forwarded to upstream author(s).

• Debian doesn't hide bugs. The bug tracking system is open to everyone. All users are encouraged to report any bug they encounter.

• The complete distribution of Debian GNU/Linux 2.0 contains over 2,000 pre-compiled binary packages and about 1,500 source packages.

• The Debian Project nowadays consists of about 400 people from all over the world. This is the largest staff of any Linux and free software project. Debian GNU/Linux is a volunteers' effort to create a free and high-quality distribution of Linux. Debian's developers are not paid by the Project, but they are free (as is anyone else) to make money from Debian on the open market, by selling Debian software and/or supporting Debian systems.

• Debian GNU/Linux 2.0 will be released for the intel architecture (i386 and its successors) and for the Motorola 68000 processor series (m68k) at the same time.
  Ports to the Alpha, PowerPC, Sparc, UltraSparc, and Netwinder architectures, and to the GNU Hurd kernel are in progress.

• Debian uses the well-designed and time-tested package format .deb together with its robust and feature-rich package manager dpkg.
  Extracting data from a .deb file does not require any unusual utility. Everyone can get the data in a .deb file by using standard *nix utilities like ar, tar and gunzip.

• Debian GNU/Linux features Strong and well-tested dependency relationships between packages as well as recognition of conflict situations. This makes it impossible to disable your system by installing the wrong combination of packages or leaving the system unusable because essential components are missing.

• Debian packages ship pre-configured. Once you have installed a package it works. There is no need to wade through some hidden documentation or look for configuration files in strange places.

• Full source of all packages in the main and contrib components of the distribution is included.

• Debian GNU/Linux is fully FSSTND compatible.

• All configuration is stored in /etc and its subdirectories. This is not only FSSTND-compliant but also presents you with an easy means of backing up all your system-specific configuration files.

• Parts of the new package maintainance tool 'apt' are already included in form of the standalone program apt-get as well as a new method for the dselect program.

• Debian GNU/Linux can be updated without taking the machine down. Just do it online -- even from a remote host, and without ever leaving multi-user mode.

• A method for upgrading from 1.3.1 to 2.0 is included in form of the autoup script. This is included on the OfficialCD's.

• The installation mechanisms doesn't overwrite configuration files but preserve the machine's integrity instead. Even movements of configuration files are well handled by the packages.

• This release is completely based on the new standard C library, GNU libc version 2 alias libc6.

• For compatibility with older or non-free software, both a runtime version and a development environment for the old C library, libc5, are included. These can be installed together with the new libc. This makes it possible to keep your old precompiled programs that are only available for libc5.

• The development of Debian GNU/Linux 2.0 took over a year of hard work. This includes about half a year of public testing and bug reporting. A lot of bugs have been fixed during this time. At the same time the amount of packages has doubled, as has the number of developers who are working on Debian GNU/Linux.

• Due to the long time it took to develop hamm, the included packages are well tried and tested. All developers have used a hamm system for quite some time already and so have many users all over the world. The release can considered very stable as it has been used on many machines for months already.

• Bugs within the libc6 package were detected and fixed before 2.0 was released.

• Debian is the only Linux distribution where everyone can contribute. The Debian Project encourages every user to become an active developer in order to improve the system as well as to write free software.

• Improved system integration for packages compared to 1.3.1. This includes better update-rc.d, better update-inetd, better update-ispell-directory, new update-menus, better handling of .el files for all four Emacs packages.

• The whole installation procedure has been rewritten. Included is a mechanism for pre-selecting a set of packages.

• Special boot floppies for laptops and machines with small amounts of memory are included.

• The GNU readline library contains working support for the Latin-1 character set and countries outside North America.

• Security fixes are uploaded very fast once they are reported.

• Debian GNU/Linux 2.0 ships nearly all available window managers for X11, including fvwm1/2/95, icewm, KDE, c/v/twm, afterstep, window-maker, scwm, ol(v)wm etc. This gives the user a tremendous amount of freedom and diversity.

• Debian comes with a new system for users' menus. This provides generic /Debian menus for all window managers for X11. Each and every user program is able to install itself in the menus. For non-X-based applications this system is even available on the text console.

• Local additions to the generic /Debian menu can be provided both on a system-wide and on a per-user basis. Simply put menu files in ~/.menu/

• Debian GNU/Linux 2.0 features a new source packaging scheme. Source packages are now distributed with pristine source tarballs (where possible) and a diff file. This honors authors' copyright covering distribution of pure source. This also makes it possible for anyone to make use of Debian packages and diffs without any unusual utility, as one only needs tar, gunzip, mkdir and patch (all standard *nix utilities) to extract the whole package or the Debian-specific diff.

• Gnome is not yet included because of the intense pace of its development, but current packages can be installed directly from the /dists/slink/ directory which reflects the current development distribution.

• Fast and free support through both the world-wide debian-user and regional mailing lists (like debian-user-de for Germany) as well as real-time support on IRC (irc.debian.org) on the channel #Debian, also linked to the major IRC networks EFnet, IRCnet and Undernet.

• Support for all known package formats like .rpm, .slp and .tgz through unique software developed by Debian called alien. This makes Debian compatible with other distributions such as RedHat, Slackware, SuSE, Stampede etc.

• A consistent approach to the keyboard (for instance, the backspace key does the same thing in an xterm as it does in the Linux virtual console).

• Convenient upgradeability through open development of upcoming releases. You want to keep your system current? Just update through the net once a week, no problem. This process is made particularly easy with the aforementioned "apt-get" tool.

• To install Debian one can use several different media types such as CD-ROM, an MS-DOS or Windows hard disk partition, FTP, NFS, or a pre-mounted hard disk.

• The OfficialCD's are bootable and provide floppy-less installations with different kernels addressing different hardware configurations.

• Strong support for different packages that provide the same functionality (such as: smail, sendmail, and exim or elvis, nvi, vim, and ae). Alternative packages are managed through /etc/alternatives/.

• Transparent support for two boot techniques: standard SysV and the new technique through /etc/runlevel.conf instead of /etc/rc?.d/ as implemented by the file-rc package by using update-rc.d.

• Automatic update mechanism for installation of info files. The main database gets updated automatically when installing or removing such files.

• A new installation guide for Debian GNU/Linux 2.0 has been written.

• dwww makes all installed documentation visible to the user. This includes manpages, info files, html documentation and plain text documentation.

• The OfficialCD set consists of:

  Binary i386 CDROM

  Bootable for Intel/AMD/Cyrix/IBM
  Programs for Intel/AMD/Cyrix/IBM (section main)

  Binary m68k CDROM

  Programs for m68k Machines (section main)

  Binary alpha CDROM

  Programs for alpha Machines (section main)

  Source CDROM

  Bootable for Intel/AMD/Cyrix/IBM (Laptop Boot)
  Source of section main, except subdir x11

  Contrib CDROM

  Source and Programs for i386, alpha and m68k (section contrib)
  Optional included:
  Cryptografic Programs for i386, alpha and m68k (section non-US)

• Any vendor can pick up the distribution and distribute it on CD-ROM with no fee assessed by the Debian Project.

• New versions of software. Due to the large amount of software developers it is easier to keep track of current development in the free software community. Package highlights include:
  • Stable Kernel 2.0.34
  • XFree86 3.3.2, public patch 2
  • Gimp 1.0.0
  • Apache 1.3.0
  • GNU cc 2.7.2.3
  • Experimental egcs 1.03a
  • GNU Emacs 20.2 and Xemacs 20.4
  • Roxen 1.2beta2
  • KDE in contrib
  • Java Development Kit 1.1.5v5 in non-free