Linux in The News 8-21-23
Last Updated on August 21, 2023 by KC7NYR
Debian Turns 30 Years Old, Happy Birthday!
Today is Debian Day and the day when the Debian GNU/Linux universal operating system and the community-supported Debian Project founded by Ian Murdock turn 30 years old.
Believe it or not, it’s been 30 years since the late Ian Murdock announced the Debian Project on August 16th, 1993, and the initial release of Debian GNU/Linux a month later on September 15th, in an attempt to develop the “Universal Operating System.”
Just last month we celebrated Slackware’s 30th anniversary as the oldest GNU/Linux distribution still being actively maintained, and now it’s time to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Debian GNU/Linux.
Now, 30 years later, Debian is being used by millions of users around the world, either directly by using the Debian GNU/Linux operating system or by using one of its numerous derivatives, such as the very popular Ubuntu or Linux Mint.
Without further ado, I would like to wish the team behind Debian Project a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Parties will take place in Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Germany (CCCcamp), Portugal, and Turkey. You’re invited to join at https://wiki.debian.org/DebianDay/2023.
Meanwhile, the Debian Project continues the work on the current and future releases of the Debian GNU/Linux operating system to give us the best possible releases.
They just released Debian GNU/Linux 12.1 as the first stable update to the Debian GNU/Linux 12 “Bookworm” series, while they’re working hard on the next major release, Debian GNU/Linux 13 “Trixie”, as the first release to officially offer support for the RISC-V hardware architecture.
Devuan GNU+Linux 5 Is Here for Software Freedom Lovers Based on Debian 12
The Devuan developers announced the release of Devuan GNU+Linux 5.0 “Daedalus” distribution as a 100% derivative of the Debian GNU/Linux operating system without systemd and related components.
Based on the latest Debian GNU/Linux 12 “Bookworm” operating system series, Devuan GNU+Linux 5 is powered by the long-term supported Linux 6.1 LTS kernel series.
New features in this release include the use of the libseat1 library for rootless startx and access to input and video devices, which removes the DBus dependency from xserver-xorg-core, and the enablement of a true Wayland desktop without elogind.
The devs also note the fact that libseat1 can use either seatd or elogind as a backend, which can be set manually using the LIBSEAT_BACKEND environment variable. seatd users are reminded to ensure their user is a member of the ‘video’ group.
Even if it doesn’t ship with the systemd init by default, the Devuan GNU+Linux 5.0 “Daedalus” installation media provides users with the choice of installing non-free firmware packages during installation if they’re needed for their hardware, allowing for full compatibility.
True software freedom lovers can avoid the loading of non-free firmware imposed by the automatic installation by choosing the “Expert install” option in the installation menu.
Devuan GNU+Linux 5.0 “Daedalus” is available for download as installation, live, netboot, and Docker images right now from the official website. If you just want the live ISO, which features the latest Xfce 4.18 desktop environment by default, you can click on the direct download link below.
Existing Devuan GNU+Linux 4 “Chimaera” users can upgrade their installations directly using the instructions provided by the developers here. It is also possible to upgrade from Debian Bookworm to Devuan Daedalus.
