Debian GNU/Linux basiert auf der ehrenamtlichen Arbeit vieler Menschen unter einer demokratischen Verfassung. Der soziale Vertrag garantiert, dass Debian immer frei bleiben und die Rechte der Nutzer achten wird.
Dieses Kapitel erklärt die Grundlagen eines Debian-Systems: Wie man Programmpakete installiert und entfernt, Benutzer verwaltet, Netzwerkverbindungen einrichtet, Partitionen anlegt, Dateisysteme verschlüsselt, Systemdienste startet und die graphische Oberfläche einrichtet.
Sowohl marktorientierte Unternehmen als auch gemeinnützige Organisationen bündeln den Linux-Kernel mit Programmen aus dem GNU-Projekt (und vielen weiteren Quellen) zu sogenannten Distributionen. Diese unterscheiden sich durch Paketformate, Werkzeuge zur Installation, der Empfehlung von Dateisystemen, Bibliotheken und Anwendungsprogrammen und durch die Ausgestaltung der graphischen Oberfläche. Selbst Microsoft liefert mit dem WSL eine unixoide Umgebung.
| Name | Paket | Tool | Filesys. | Runtime | Userland | Boot | Init | Auth | Desktop |
| Debian | deb | apt | ext4 | glibc | coreutils | grub | systemd | pam | gnome |
| Ubuntu | " | " | " | " | " | " | " | " | " |
| RedHat | rpm | dnf | " | " | " | " | " | " | " |
| SuSE | " | yast | btrfs | " | " | " | " | " | " |
| Arch | txz | pacman | ext4 | " | " | bootctl | " | " | – |
| Slackware | " | tar | " | " | " | lilo | sysv | login | – |
| Alpine | apk | apk | " | musl | busybox | extlinux | openrc | pam | – |
| Stali | – | git | " | " | ? | ? | sinit/runit | login | dwm |
| Windows | MSI | WSUS | NTFS | MSVCRT | WSL | NTLDR | SMSS | LSASS | metro |
Der Zeitstrahl stellt die Verwandschaftsbeziehungn bekannter Distributionen dar. Darunter zum Vergleich die Geschichte von Windows NT.
| 92 | 93 | 94 | 95 | 96 | 97 | 98 | 99 | 00 | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |
| SLS | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Slackware | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| SuSE | SLES | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| openSUSE | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Debian | 1.1 | 2 | 2.1 | 2.2 | 3 | 3.1 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | ||||||||||||||||
| Ubuntu | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Mint | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Progeny | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Corel | Xandros | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Red Hat | RHEL | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| CentOS | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Fedora | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Mandrake | Mandriva | Mageia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Caldera | SCO | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Arch | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Manjaro | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gentoo | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Google Chrome OS | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Android | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Windows NT | 2000 | XP | Vista | 7 | 8 | 10 | 11 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Datum | Version | Codename | Pakete | Kernel | Gnome | Neu |
| 1996-06-17 | 1.1 | buzz | 474 | 2.0.0 | ELF | |
| 1996-12-12 | 1.2 | rex | 848 | 2.0.27 | ||
| 1997-06-05 | 1.3 | bo | 974 | 2.0.29 | ||
| 1998-07-24 | 2 | hamm | 1500 | 2.0.34 | libc6 | |
| 1999-03-09 | 2.1 | slink | 2250 | 2.0.36 | APT | |
| 2000-08-15 | 2.2 | potato | 2600 | 2.2.16 | 1.0.56 | GDM, SSH, LDAP |
| 2002-07-19 | 3 | woody | 8500 | 2.2.20 | 1.4 | KDE |
| 2005-06-06 | 3.1 | sarge | 15400 | 2.6.8 | 2.8 | |
| 2007-04-08 | 4 | etch | 18200 | 2.6.18 | 2.14 | X.org |
| 2009-02-14 | 5 | lenny | 23200 | 2.6.26 | 2.22 | |
| 2011-02-05 | 6 | squeeze | 29050 | 2.6.32 | 2.30 | |
| 2013-05-05 | 7 | wheezy | 37493 | 3.2 | 3.4 | EFI |
| 2015-04-25 | 8 | jessie | 43512 | 3.10 | 3.14 | Systemd |
| 2017-06-17 | 9 | stretch | 51687 | 4.9 | 3.16 | |
| 2019-07-06 | 10 | buster | 57703 | 4.19 | 3.30 | Secure Boot |
| 2021-08-14 | 11 | bullseye | 59551 | 5.10 | 3.38 | |
| Testing | 12 | bookworm | ||||
| Unstable | +1 | sid |
| Datum | Version | Codename | Kernel | Gnome | Neu |
| 2004-10-26 | 4.10 | Warty Warthog | 2.6.8 | 2.8 | Human Theme |
| 2006-06-01 | 6.06 LTS | Dapper Drake | 2.6.15 | 2.14 | NetworkManager |
| 2008-04-24 | 8.04 LTS | Hardy Heron | 2.6.24 | 2.22 | Upstart |
| 2010-04-29 | 10.04 LTS | Lucid Lynx | 2.6.32 | 2.30 | Light Theme |
| 2012-04-26 | 12.04 LTS | Precise Pangolin | 3.2 | (3.4) | Unity Desktop |
| 2014-04-17 | 14.04 LTS | Trusty Tahr | 3.13 | (3.10) | SSD TRIM |
| 2016-04-21 | 16.04 LTS | Xenial Xerus | 4.4 | (3.18) | Systemd |
| 2018-04-26 | 18.04 LTS | Bionic Beaver | 4.15 | 3.28 | Wayland |
| 2020-04-23 | 20.04 LTS | Focal Fossa | 5.4 | 3.36 | ZFS |
| 2021-10-15 | 21.10 | Impish Indri | 5.13 | 40 | Firefox Snap |
| Datum | Version | Codename | Kernel | Gnome | Neu |
| 2003-11-05 | 1 | Yarrow | 2.4.22 | 2.4 | |
| 2004-05-18 | 2 | Tettnang | 2.6.5 | 2.6 | X.org |
| 2004-11-08 | 3 | Heidelberg | 2.6.9 | 2.8 | Grub |
| 2005-06-13 | 4 | Stentz | 2.6.11 | 2.10 | Xen |
| 2006-03-20 | 5 | Bordeaux | 2.6.15 | 2.14 | Mono |
| 2006-10-24 | 6 | Zod | 2.6.18 | 2.16 | Compiz |
| 2007-05-31 | 7 | Moonshine | 2.6.21 | 2.18 | |
| 2007-11-08 | 8 | Werewolf | 2.6.23 | 2.20 | PulseAudio |
| 2008-05-13 | 9 | Sulphur | 2.6.25 | 2.22 | Upstart |
| 2008-11-25 | 10 | Cambridge | 2.6.27 | 2.24 | Plymouth |
| 2009-06-09 | 11 | Leonidas | 2.6.29 | 2.26 | ext4 |
| 2009-11-17 | 12 | Constantine | 2.6.31 | 2.28 | |
| 2010-05-25 | 13 | Goddard | 2.6.33 | 2.30 | SSSD |
| 2010-11-02 | 14 | Laughlin | 2.6.35 | 2.32 | |
| 2011-05-24 | 15 | Lovelock | 2.6.38 | 3.0 | Systemd |
| 2011-11-08 | 16 | Verne | 3.1 | 3.2 | Grub 2 |
| 2012-05-29 | 17 | Beefy Miracle | 3.3 | 3.4 | UsrMerge |
| 2013-01-15 | 18 | Spherical Cow | 3.6 | 3.6 | Secure Boot |
| 2013-07-02 | 19 | Schrödinger's Cat | 3.9 | 3.8 | |
| 2013-12-17 | 20 | Heisenbug | 3.11 | 3.10 | ARM |
| 2014-12-09 | 21 | 3.17 | 3.14 | ||
| 2015-05-26 | 22 | 4.0 | 3.16 | DNF | |
| 2015-11-03 | 23 | 4.2 | 3.18 | ||
| 2016-06-21 | 24 | 4.5 | 3.20 | GCC 6 | |
| 2016-11-22 | 25 | 4.8 | 3.22 | Wayland | |
| 2017-07-12 | 26 | 4.11 | 3.24 | MP3 | |
| 2017-11-15 | 27 | 4.14 | 3.26 | Samba AD | |
| Rolling | +1 | Rawhide |
| Datum | Version | Codename | Kernel | Neu |
| 1994-03-29 | 3/94 | 1.0 | Slackware | |
| 1996-05 | 4.2 | 2.0.0 | jurix | |
| 1997-07 | 5.0 | 2.0.30 | ||
| 1998-12-21 | 6.0 | 2.0.36 | ||
| 2001-10-13 | 7 | 2.2.16 | ||
| 2002-10-01 | 8 | 2.4.18 | ||
| 2004-08-035 | 9 | 2.4.21 | ||
| 2006-06-17 | 10 | 2.6.16 | ||
| 2009-03-24 | 11 | 2.6.27 | ||
| 2014-10-27 | 12 | 3.12 | ||
| 2018-07-16 | 15 | 4.12 |
| Datum | Version | Codename | GUI | Neu |
| 1993-07-27 | 3.1 | NT 3.1 | Win3.1 | x86, mips, alpha |
| 1994-09-21 | 3.5 | NT 3.5 | " | NetWare Client |
| 1996-08-24 | 4.0 | NT 4.0 | Win95 | Clustering |
| 2000-02-17 | 5.0 | 2000 | " | Active Directory |
| 2001-10-25 | 5.1 | XP | Luna | Endanwender |
| 2007-01-30 | 6.0 | Vista | Aero | UAC |
| 2009-10-22 | 6.1 | 7 | " | Snap |
| 2012-10-26 | 6.2 | 8.0 | Metro | Secure Boot |
| 2013-10-17 | 6.3 | 8.1 | " | Startmenü |
| 2015-07-29 | 10.0 | 10 | " | Virtuelle Desktops |
| 2021-10-05 | 11.0 | 11 |