Debian, one of the most renowned and respected Linux distributions, has recently unveiled its latest major release, Debian 12.0, codenamed “Bookworm.” As a significant milestone in the Debian project’s long and illustrious history, this release brings a plethora of new features, improvements, and updated software packages.
With its commitment to stability, security, and openness, Debian 12.0 once again sets the standard for a reliable and versatile operating system.
A Testament to the Debian Philosophy
Debian 12.0 embodies the core principles that have defined the Debian project since its inception. Maintaining a steadfast focus on stability, Debian ensures that each release undergoes rigorous testing, allowing users to rely on its robustness.
The Debian community’s dedication to free and open-source software is evident in Bookworm’s extensive collection of software packages, offering users an extensive range of options for all their computing needs.
After 1 year, 9 months, and 28 days of development, Debian 12 has become stable and is now available to all users.
Although it is impossible to release software in a state of absolute perfection, it is true that when Debian considers a development stable it is because it is very stable.
This version will have 5 years support that although it is not the same amount as Ubuntu (5 years, in principle, plus the possibility of 5 more years), I believe that it is a good time of support to cover many needs.
Although there are many new features, this release stands out for two: first the inclusion of the 6.1 kernel, which has great support for modern hardware; second is that most non-free firmware packages have been moved from non-free to non-free-firmware. This makes it much easier to handle proprietary drivers, facilitating installation and hardware recognition. Another advantage is that it allows you to build a better variety of images.
Of course, if you are upgrading from Debian 11 to Debian 12 you must add the new non-free-firmware repository in your sources.list file. This is so that the upgrade will be compatible and bug-free.
Undoubtedly, you are witnessing one of the most important and outstanding releases of Debian.
What’s new in Debian 12
In terms of desktop environments, Debian 12 includes GNOME 43, KDE Plasma 5.27, LXDE 11, LXQt 1.2.0, MATE 1.26 and Xfce 4.18. So, you can choose from the most popular, including Cinnamon.
For the appearance, don’t worry either because Debian 12 debuts an artwork created by Juliette Taka called Emerald Also included are updates to the fonts so that there is consistency in the environments.
We have already talked about it, but the presence of kernel 6.1 guarantees support for modern hardware. Because it is an LTS kernel, it will be maintained along with Debian for many years.
Debian 12 is one of the Linux distributions that supports more architectures, in total there are 9:
- 32-bit PC (i386) and 64-bit PC (amd64),
- 64-bit ARM (arm64),
- ARM EABI (armel),
- ARMv7 (EABI hard-float ABI, armhf),
- little-endian MIPS (mipsel),
- 64-bit little-endian MIPS (mips64el),
- 64-bit little-endian PowerPC (ppc64el),
- IBM System z (s390x)
However, the support for i586 architectures has been removed and now the minimum requirement for 32-bit architectures is i686.
The developers also report that there is a lot of news with packages and 67% of them have been updated.
In the servers and sysadmin section, there are many new features with Apache 2.4.57, BIND DNS Server 9.18, Cryptsetup 2.6, Dovecot MTA 2.3.19, MariaDB 10.11, Nginx 1.22 and lighthttpd 1.4.69.
If you are a developer, you will also appreciate that OpenJDK 17 is the default Java version. Also featured with OpenJDK are Python 3.11.2, Rustc 1.63, Perl 5.36 and PHP 8.2.
Get Debian 12
Debian 12 is already available for download through its website and the many variants you can find.
An example of this are the live images, which allow you to test the operating system without installing it. You can use one of the available live images, which load and run the complete operating system in a read-only state via your computer’s memory.
If you’d like, you can opt to download the Net version, which is smaller and if you have a stable connection, you should not resent it.
The option recommended by the Debian developers is to use BitTorrent. This option does not saturate the servers and also allows you to download more complete images such as the DVD to have a more complete environment.
Conclusion
Debian 12 is an ideal release for those users who love the stability and robustness that only Debian can offer. With many updated components, it becomes a viable alternative on the desktop and on servers, it continues to follow in its wake.
Already using Debian 12? Please let us know how it’s going?
Official News – https://www.debian.org/News/2023/20230610
