What is Debian?

Debian is a free operating system (OS) for your computer. An operating system is the set of basic programs and utilities that make your computer run. Debian uses the Linux kernel (the core of an operating system), but most of the basic OS tools come from the GNU project; hence the name GNU/Linux.

Debian GNU/Linux provides more than a pure OS: it comes with more than 3950 packages, precompiled software bundled up in a nice format for easy installation on your machine.

Read more...

Getting Started

The latest release of Debian is 2.2. It was released on August 14th, 2000. Release information is available; there you can find information about what's new in Debian 2.2, notes on how to upgrade, and an Installation Manual, suitable for new users.

To get help in using or setting up Debian, see our support and our documentation pages.

News

[14 Nov 2000] Debian GNU/Linux 2.2r1 released
[25 Oct 2000] New Debian Web Site Search Engine
[15 Aug 2000] Debian GNU/Linux 2.2, the "Joel 'Espy' Klecker" release, is officially released
[26 Jul 2000] Test Cycle Three Has Officially Begun
[23 May 2000] Version 2.2 scheduled for Test Cycle 2
[21 May 2000] Debian upgrades main FTP server

For older news items see the News Page. If you would like to receive mail whenever new Debian news comes out, subscribe to the debian-announce mailing list. Debian Weekly News is an in-depth summary of what's happened in the world of Debian.

Security Alerts

[12 Nov 2000] bind - remote Denial of Service
[11 Nov 2000] tcsh - local exploit
[11 Nov 2000] gnupg - incorrect signature verification
[14 Oct 2000] php4 - possible remote exploit
[14 Oct 2000] php3 - possible remote exploit
[14 Oct 2000] nis - local exploit
[13 Oct 2000] curl and curl-ssl - remote exploit
[13 Oct 2000] traceroute - local root exploit
[09 Oct 2000] boa - exposes contents of local files
[08 Oct 2000] esound - race condition

For older security alerts see the Security Page. If you would like to receive security alerts as soon as they're announced, subscribe to the debian-security-announce mailing list.