Debian icon
Debian icon

Debian

The Debian Project is an association of individuals who have made common cause to create a free operating system. This operating system that we have created is called Debian.

Debian 9 gnome.

Cost / License

  • Free
  • Open Source

Application type

Platforms

  • Windows  Available on the Windows Store
  • Linux
  • BSD  Debian has been ported to work with the FreeBSD kernel
  • Self-Hosted
Debian screenshot 1
Debian screenshot 2
+2
Debian screenshot 3
Debian alternatives  
1199likes
215alternatives
29articles

Features

Properties

  1.  Customizable
  2.  Lightweight
  3.  Privacy focused

Features

  1.  Low memory usage
  2.  No Tracking
  3.  Package Control
  4.  Ad-free
  5.  Based on Debian
  6.  No registration required
  7.  Works Offline
  8.  Command line interface
  9.  Multiple desktops
  10.  Debian package compatible
  11.  Dark Mode
  12.  Portable

 Tags

Debian News & Activities

Highlights All activities

Recent News

Recent activities

  • Linux PataOS icon
    alessandropatane added Debian as alternative to Linux PataOS
  • Vinix icon
    POX added Debian as alternative to Vinix
  • Shadow5964 rated Debian  
  • Shadow5964 liked Debian
  • magicscraper liked Debian
  • kootenay_eric liked Debian
  • Mainstream OS icon
    SudoVanilla added Debian as alternative to Mainstream OS
  • POX added Debian as alternative to PorteuX
  • bitstreammedia liked Debian
  • Spaced Linux icon
    rhY added Debian as alternative to Spaced Linux

Comments and Reviews

   
Comment summary: Debian earns strong praise for rock-solid stability, security, flexibility, broad hardware support, extensive repositories, low resource use, and suitability for both servers and desktops. Users value its community, documentation, privacy-oriented philosophy, and role as the foundation for distributions such as Ubuntu and Mint. Some note slower updates, while one user reports a severely problematic installation experience; Debian’s mailing-list and IRC-based communication also draw criticism.
Top Positive Comment
Cora
8

Debian is super stable and highly customizable. If you want a Linux distribution that provides guaranteed stability and a great community, you should check out Debian.

George
0

Debian is currently a truly universal GNU/Linux Operating System, however for more advanced users. It is rock stable, it has excellent hardware compatibility (free and non-free) and very vast software repositories.

Review from a new or low-activity account — shown here, but not counted in the app rating.
Kelson V
1

My second choice distro for both desktop and servers. More reliable than Ubuntu, more stable than Fedora, easier to install than Arch, though a bit slower to update. Bigger than Alpine, but uses the more typical glibc. Runs on just about any architecture.

dszalkowski
0

I like Debian Testing to run Apache Web servers.

Ivan Alessandro Sala
0

I started with Ubuntu in 2009, and I tried various Debian derivatives, before switching to their mother distro! Over the years the installer has improved: very easy to use! I even use it on an old 32-bit laptop born with Windows XP... and it still works! You can install it practically everywhere! Its official software park (so without third-party repositories, such as AUR for Arch Linux) is the largest of all! I have been on the Testing/Unstable branch for almost ten years, and in the meantime I had the opportunity to do distro hopping to experiment with other package managers on other base distributions, such as Fedora, Arch Linux and Gentoo. No way, APT is very simple, and Synaptics has no equal among graphical frontends. If hundreds of distributions use Debian or one of its derivatives, the reason is clear: Debian is a guarantee of stability and reliability... and I who use development branches, I can guarantee that certain packages have nothing to envy to those of Arch Linux, in terms of updates. Stable is not for me, I like to experiment, and with Debian Testing/Unstable I never get bored.

veddev
-2

Personally, i have never used plain Debian. It looks nice, though. Its the foundation for Ubuntu as well.

Sam Lander
-1

Stable and secure. My recommendation for anyone new to Linux.

A bit bloated, but I guess you could technically do a net install and replace things like systemd with runit.

7 of 22 comments

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What is Debian?

The Debian Project is an association of individuals who have made common cause to create a free operating system. This operating system that we have created is called Debian.

An operating system is the set of basic programs and utilities that make your computer run. At the core of an operating system is the kernel. The kernel is the most fundamental program on the computer and does all the basic housekeeping and lets you start other programs.

Debian systems currently use the Linux kernel or the FreeBSD kernel. Linux is a piece of software started by Linus Torvalds and supported by thousands of programmers worldwide. FreeBSD is an operating system including a kernel and other software.

However, work is in progress to provide Debian for other kernels, primarily for the Hurd. The Hurd is a collection of servers that run on top of a microkernel (such as Mach) to implement different features. The Hurd is free software produced by the GNU project.

A large part of the basic tools that fill out the operating system come from the GNU project; hence the names: GNU/Linux, GNU/kFreeBSD, and GNU/Hurd. These tools are also free.

Of course, the thing that people want is application software: programs to help them get what they want to do done, from editing documents to running a business to playing games to writing more software. Debian comes with over 51000 packages (precompiled software that is bundled up in a nice format for easy installation on your machine), a package manager (APT), and other utilities that make it possible to manage thousands of packages on thousands of computers as easily as installing a single application. All of it free.

It's a bit like a tower. At the base is the kernel. On top of that are all the basic tools. Next is all the software that you run on the computer. At the top of the tower is Debian — carefully organizing and fitting everything so it all works together.

Debian information

AlternativeTo Categories

OS & Utilities, Security & Privacy, Education & Reference

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Our users have written 22 comments and reviews about Debian, and it has gotten 1199 likes

Debian was added to AlternativeTo by Valentin on and this page was last updated .