In an announcement late last week, the Debian Project released its much anticipated Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 distribution. Debian is well known for its high level of stability, as well as powerful package (software) management tools.
While the new release doesn't have all of the glitzy, cutting edge versions of software that other distributions have, the release nicknamed “Woody” promises to be a big step up for Debian. The distribution's last major release took place nearly two years ago.
Included in the release are the fairly recent Linux kernel 2.4.18, last year's KDE 2.2.2, GNOME 1.4, XFree86 4.1, and Apache 1.3.26. The new release also promises compatibility with the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) and Linux Standard Base (LSB), although the statement from the project did note that Debian had not yet been LSB certified.
While Debian 3.0 does not yet have an easy-to-use installation tool, it still is a good choice for deployment, especially if someone familiar with GNU/Linux internals can help get things started. Once going, Debian continues to be virtually the only operating system anywhere in existence that takes upgrades gracefully. Some of Open for Business' sources report keeping Debian based systems going for over six years, upgrading the systems frequently, without any problems.
Debian also features more software packages than other distribution, with an increase of 4,000 this release, to a total of 8,710. With such a large library of software, Debian can uniquely offer one click downloading and installation of most popular (and not-so-popular) GNU/Linux software.-Timothy R. Butler