Debian is one of the oldest Linux distributions that are still active today, with their outstanding releases and strict adherence to the philosophies of free software, there’s no wonder why Debian is so popular among Linux users. Asides from Debian itself, there has been numerous distributions based off of the Debian system, such as Ubuntu, Knoppix, Xandros, Dreamlinux and many, many others.
Debian was first announced by Ian Murdock on the 16th of August, 1993. Fed up with the numerous bugs and the poor maintenance of Softlanding Linux System (SLS) Ian Murdock was motivated to create a new Linux distribution aimed towards total freedom as in the spirit of Linux.
Murdock came up with the name for his new Linux distribution by combining the first name of his girlfriend at the time, Debra Lynn, and his own first name. Thus, the name Debian was formed.
The first 0.9x versions of Debian were released in 1994 and 1995, during which it was sponsored by the Free Software Foundation’s GNU project. The very first ports of Debian to non-i386 architectures started in 1995, and just a year later, the first 1.x version of Debian was released in 1996.
In the same year that the 1.x version of Debian was released, Bruce Perens replaced Ian Murdock as project leader. Later in the year developer Ean Schuessler suggested that a social contract should be formed between Debian and it’s users, and so the Debian Social Contract and the Debian Free Software guidelines were created.
In 1998, Bruce Perens left the project just as the glibc-based Debian 2.0 was being released.
After Bruce Perens resigned as project leader The Debian Project elected new leaders and made two more 2.x releases with each release including more packages and ports than ever before. During this time the Advanced Packaging Tool was released and Debian GNU/Hurd, the first port to a non-Linux kernel, was started.
In 2000 the 2.2 version of Debian was released and was dedicated to developer Joel Klecker, who had died of Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
In July, 2002, Debian 3.0, codenamed “woody”, was released. This release would see very few updates at all until the next Debian release. Because of so few updates the Debian Project drew a considerable amount of criticism and because of this, Ubuntu was created and has became one of the most popular derivatives of Debian to date.
Debian 3.1, codenamed “sarge”, was released in June, 2005. There was a considerable amount of changes in sarge, mostly due to how long it took to release it. Sarge had more software than any previous release of Debian, almost practically doubling in size with over 9,000 new packages. Along with all of the new packages, sarge also came with a new advance installation, including hardware detection.
In 2006 The Mozilla Corporation stated that Debian may not use the Firefox or the Thunderbird trademark if it distributes them with modifications which were not approved by the Mozilla Corporation. As a result of the dispute, Mozilla software was re-branded in Debian, Firefox became Iceweasel and Thunderbird became Icedove.
In April, 2007 Debian 4.0 (etch) was released. It included the port for AMD64 but dropped all support for m68k. The m68k port was still available to use in the unstable distribution, however.
The release of Debian 5.0 (lenny) was dedicated to developer and active member of the Debian community, Thiemo Seufer, who had died in a car accident in 2008. It included over 25,000 packages, and support for Marvell’s Orion and netbooks were added.
Debian 6.0 (squeeze) was released in February, 2011 and it included for the first time, Debian GNU/kFreeBSD, which was introduced as a technology preview.
The next Debian release, 7.0 (wheezy), is to be released sometime in 2013.
The Debian Project has had a very long and eventful history with many innovative and exciting releases. No doubt the Debian Project will continue to continue to thrive and provide an enjoyable experience for all of it’s users for many years to come.
Sources:
Debian.org
DistroWatch.com
