Debian GNU/Linux Birthday : A 23 Years of Journey and Still Counting…

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][/b]Debian GNU/Linux Birthday : A 23 Years of Journey and Still Counting

 

On 16th August 2016, the Debian project has celebrated its 23rd anniversary, making it one of the oldest popular distribution in open source world. Debian project was conceived and founded in the year 1993 by late Ian Murdock. By that time Slackware had already made a remarkable presence as one of the earliest Linux Distribution.

 

 

Ian Ashley Murdock, an American Software Engineer by profession, conceived the idea of Debian project, when he was a student of Purdue University. He named the project Debian after the name of his then-girlfriend Debra Lynn (Deb) and his name. He later married her and then got divorced in January 2008.

 

 

Debian (as Slackware) was the result of unavailability of up-to mark Linux Distribution, that time. Ian in an interview said – “Providing the first class Product without profit would be the sole aim of Debian Project. Even Linux was not reliable and up-to mark that time. I Remember…. Moving files between file-system and dealing with voluminous file would often result in Kernel Panic. However the project Linux was promising. The availabwility of Source Code freely and the potential it seemed was qualitative.”

 

I remember like everyone else I wanted to solve problem, run something like UNIX at home, but it was not possible…neither financially nor legally, in the other sense . Then I come to know about GNU kernel Development and its non-association with any kind of legal issues, he added.

 

He was sponsored by Free Software Foundation (FSF) in the early days when he was working on Debian, it also helped Debian to take a giant step though Ian needed to finish his degree and hence quit FSF roughly after one year of sponsorship.

 

Debian Development History

• Debian 0.01 – 0.09 : Released between August 1993 – December 1993.
  
• Debian 0.91 – Released in January 1994 with primitive package system, No dependencies.
  
• Debian 0.93 rc5 : March 1995. It is the first modern release of Debian, dpkg was used to install and maintain packages after base system installation.
  
• Debian 0.93 rc6: Released in November 1995. It was last a.out release, deselect made an appearance for the first time – 60 developers were maintaining packages, then at that time.
  
• Debian 1.1: Released in June 1996. Code name – Buzz, Packages count – 474, Package Manager dpkg, Kernel 2.0, ELF.
  
• Debian 1.2: Released in December 1996. Code name – Rex, Packages count – 848, Developers Count – 120.
  
• Debian 1.3: Released in July 1997. Code name – Bo, package count 974, Developers count – 200.
  
• Debian 2.0: Released in July 1998. Code name: Hamm, Support for architecture – Intel i386 and Motorola 68000 series, Number of Packages: 1500+, Number of Developers: 400+, glibc included.
  
• Debian 2.1: Released on March 09, 1999. Code name – slink, support architecture Alpha and Sparc, apt came in picture, Number of package – 2250.
  
• Debian 2.2: Released on August 15, 2000. Code name – Potato, Supported architecture – Intel i386, Motorola 68000 series, Alpha, SUN Sparc, PowerPC and ARM architecture. Number of packages: 3900+ (binary) and 2600+ (Source), Number of Developers – 450. There were a group of people studied and came with an article called Counting potatoes, which shows – How a free software effort could lead to a modern operating system despite all the issues around it.
  
• Debian 3.0 : Released on July 19th, 2002. Code name – woody, Architecture supported increased– HP, PA_RISC, IA-64, MIPS and IBM, First release in DVD, Package Count – 8500+, Developers Count – 900+, Cryptography.
  
• Debian 3.1: Release on June 6th, 2005. Code name – sarge, Architecture support – same as woody + AMD64 – Unofficial Port released, Kernel – 2.4 qnd 2.6 series, Number of Packages: 15000+, Number of Developers : 1500+, packages like – OpenOffice Suite, Firefox Browser, Thunderbird, Gnome 2.8, kernel 3.3 Advanced Installation Support: RAID, XFS, LVM, Modular Installer.
  
• Debian 4.0: Released on April 8th, 2007. Code name – etch, architecture support – same as sarge, included AMD64. Number of packages: 18,200+ Developers count : 1030+, Graphical Installer.
  
• Debian 5.0: Released on February 14th, 2009. Code name – lenny, Architecture Support – Same as before + ARM. Number of packages: 23000+, Developers Count: 1010+.
  
• Debian 6.0 : Released on July 29th, 2009. Code name – squeeze, Package included : kernel 2.6.32, Gnome 2.3. Xorg 7.5, DKMS included, Dependency-based. Architecture : Same as previous + kfreebsd-i386 and kfreebsd-amd64, Dependency based booting.
  
• Debian 7.0: Released on may 4, 2013. Code name: wheezy, Support for Multiarch, Tools for private cloud, Improved Installer, Third party repo need removed, full featured multimedia-codec, Kernel 3.2, Xen Hypervisor 4.1.4 Package Count: 37400+.
  
• Debian 8.0: Released on May 25, 2015 and Code name: Jessie, Systemd as the default init system, powered by Kernel 3.16, fast booting, cgroups for services, possibility of isolating part of the services, 43000+ packages. Sysvinit init system available in Jessie.
  
• Debian 8.5: Released on June 4, 2016....................
  

 

http://www.tecmint.c...bian-gnu-linux/

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Still one of the finest Linux distributions in existence, and my 2nd favorite.

 

LONG LIVE DEBIAN!

[Hedon James]

In the world of linux distros, are there any currently-existing distros older than Slackware and Debian? Maybe even put SUSE in that category, but I think Slack & Deb are older. Any thoughts on the oldest currently running linux distros?

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Slackware is the oldest. Debian is the 2nd oldest by just a few months. Next after those two?

 

• 1993: Over 100 developers work on the Linux kernel. With their assistance the kernel is adapted to the GNU environment, which creates a large spectrum of application types for Linux. The oldest currently (as of 2015) existing Linux distribution, Slackware, is released for the first time. Later in the same year, the Debian project is established. Today it is the largest community distribution.
  
• 1994: Torvalds judges all components of the kernel to be fully matured: he releases version 1.0 of Linux. The XFree86 project contributes a graphical user interface (GUI). Commercial Linux distribution makers Red Hat and SUSE publish version 1.0 of their Linux distributions.
  

*

 

* from Wikipedia --> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux

[Hedon James]

Interesting. So it sounds like Slackware, then Debian, then Red Hat & Suse; all currently available and still being actively developed. Looks pretty much like I guessed it would, although I thought Red Hat came much later. (pats self on back)

[Guest LilBambi]

Debian is my all time favorite! Happy Birthday Debian!