Debian is old and mature Linux distribution. Debian uses versions in order to distinguish. In this tutorial we will learn and list Debian Releases and Names.
Version Names
Debian provides different releases as versions. There are version, code name.
Version
is the numerical presentation of the Debian release.Code Name
is the name of the release which is more human friendly. This code names are chosen from the movie namedToy Story
.
Unstable, Testing, Stable
As packages of debian is developed by different parties in anarchical manner they are not always stable as expected. Debian uses 3 phase to specify the package stability.
Unstable
is the first phase where package enters to the debian ecosystem. This is unstable as it named.Testing
is second phase and provides more stability. Testing can be used for most of the cases.Stable
is a rock. It can work without any problem and used for production systems. One disadvantage of stable is packages are generally outdated.
Release List
Here is the release list which provides information like Version
, Code Name
, Release Data
and Toy Story Character
.
Version | Code name | Release date | Toy Story character |
---|---|---|---|
1.1 | Buzz | 1996-06-17 | Buzz Lightyear |
1.2 | Rex | 1996-12-12 | Rex (the T-Rex) |
1.3 | Bo | 1997-06-05 | Bo Peep |
2.0 | Hamm | 1998-07-24 | Hamm (the pig) |
2.1 | Slink | 1999-03-09 | Slinky Dog |
2.2 | Potato | 2000-08-15 | Mr Potato Head |
3.0 | Woody | 2002-07-19 | Woody the cowboy |
3.1 | Sarge | 2005-06-06 | Sarge from the Bucket O’ Soldiers |
4.0 | Etch | 2007-04-08 | Etch, the Etch-A-Sketch |
5.0 | Lenny | 2009-02-14 | Lenny, the binoculars |
6.0 | Squeeze | 2011-02-06 | Squeeze toy aliens |
7 | Wheezy | 2013-05-04 | Wheezy the penguin |
8 | Jessie | 2015-04-26 | Jessie the cowgirl |
9 | Stretch | 2017-06-17 | Rubber octopus from Toy Story 3 |
10 | Buster | not yet released | Andy’s pet dog |
11 | Bullseye | Not yet released | Woody’s horse |
Sid | “unstable” | The next door neighbour |
Check Debian Release Version and Code Name
We may want to check our current Debian system release version and code name . the easiest and most compatible way is printing the /etc/lsb-release
file which provides detailed information like
DISTRIB_ID
for distributions name which is DebianDISTRIB_RELEASE
for versionDISTRIB_CODENAME
for code name in human compatible format
$ cat /etc/lsb-release
