Another day, another Linux distribution. While many distros are yawn-worthy, Debian demands attention. The wildly popular operating system is used by many people, and it is used as a base for many projects. Most notably of late, Raspbian, the often-used operating system for the Raspberry Pi, is based on Debian.
Today, after a long wait, the operating system finally reaches 8.0 with a code name of "Jessie". This gender-neutral named Linux distribution has as ton of changes, with ISOs available featuring multiple desktop environments such as GNOME, KDE and Xfce to name a few. Will you try it?
"After almost 24 months of constant development the Debian project is proud to present its new stable version 8 (code name Jessie), which will be supported for the next 5 years thanks to the combined work of the Debian Security team and of the Debian Long Term Support team. Jessie ships with a new default init system, systemd. The systemd suite provides many exciting features such as faster boot times, cgroups for services, and the possibility of isolating part of the services. The sysvinit init system is still available in Jessie", says The Debian Team.
The team shares the following updated packages.
- Apache 2.4.10
- Asterisk 11.13.1
- GIMP 2.8.14
- an updated version of the GNOME desktop environment 3.14
- GNU Compiler Collection 4.9.2
- Icedove 31.6.0 (an unbranded version of Mozilla Thunderbird)
- Iceweasel 31.6.0esr (an unbranded version of Mozilla Firefox)
- KDE Plasma Workspaces and KDE Applications 4.11.13
- LibreOffice 4.3.3
- Linux 3.16.7-ckt9
- MariaDB 10.0.16 and MySQL 5.5.42
- Nagios 3.5.1
- OpenJDK 7u75
- Perl 5.20.2
- PHP 5.6.7
- PostgreSQL 9.4.1
- Python 2.7.9 and 3.4.2
- Samba 4.1.17
- Tomcat 7.0.56 and 8.0.14
- Xen Hypervisor 4.4.1
- the Xfce 4.10 desktop environment
- more than 43,000 other ready-to-use software packages, built from nearly 20,100 source packages.
The team further explains, "with this broad selection of packages and its traditional wide architecture support, Debian once again stays true to its goal of being the universal operating system. It is suitable for many different use cases: from desktop systems to netbooks; from development servers to cluster systems; and for database, web, or storage servers. At the same time, additional quality assurance efforts like automatic installation and upgrade tests for all packages in Debian's archive ensure that Jessie fulfills the high expectations that users have of a stable Debian release".
True, many of the available packages are not the most up-to-date, but this operating system does not focus on the bleeding edge. Instead, Debian is a good distro if you want reliability and dependability. While this may seem too slow or boring for some, others will surely put a premium on not being so exciting (and potentially buggy/unstable).
If you want to try Debian 8.0 Jessie, you can download the appropriate ISO here.
Which desktop environment will you use? Tell me in the comments.
Photo Credit: Serg Shalimoff/Shutterstock
Dave: It was something that a friend suggested. They were like "what do you guys plan on doing?", and we said were thinking of maybe getting somebody to invest or possibly signing to a label of some sort, or a distribution deal and doing it independently. They mentioned Kickstarter, and we didn't just say that is what we were going to do. We investigated it and looked at different projects that were happening there, and what's the whole crowd-funding thing was about, what Kickstater was about. We kept that to the side, as an option, and then looked around. We were offered deals here and there, people approached us about doing distribution deals and record deals. It just didn't feel good, it just didn't feel right. It felt like we were going back to our old Tommy Boy days, and we just felt like, let's give this a shot, let's see what it's about, see if we can do this. Sitting down, talking about it, and really analyzing how it's beneficial to us, it was perfect. It was like, let's do it.
Dave: It's an introduction to that individual, and so many of us who exist, the people who don't walk around looking for a pat on the back or a spotlight. The individuals who put themselves in front of adversity and try to overcome it -- not only for the benefit of themselves, but for the benefit of everyone or whoever is in the room if that's the case. The individual who might not be recognized, but is there doing the job daily to keep the machine running or things moving smoothly. That person who selflessly stands up for something for the better of us all. That's what it's really about. I think this project kind of encompasses that. We have a lot of musicians and a lot of people behind the curtain making this whole thing run and I think people are doing it because they want to see something succeed and they want to see a change or they want to see the opportunity for new soil to be laid and something new grows. I think that's what "And the Anonymous Nobody" is about. That individual who isn't looking to be recognized, but is definitely looking to be involved and make something happen or bring forth some change.
Dave: No pressure at all. I think this is why we also came to Kickstarter, because we felt like we had something phenomenal. I don't know if everybody is going to get into this record, and I say that because, I think this record is beyond what's happening today. I think a lot of listening ears are just so focused on the sound of today, and we have a little bit of that, but this project kind of like, explores so much in music. And I think to the effect that we have something phenomenal is why we also came to Kickstarter, because I think that's what people, who are in that community, are looking for -- something amazing. I want to invest in something that I'm going to be wowed by. That's the confidence we have. People are going to really appreciate this. It's interesting, not only the way we recorded the record, but the songs as well.
