Debian
Debian is a Linux-based operating system, and one of the oldest.
Debian is developed and/or maintained in 6 branches:
Stable is the current release and receives periodic updates to software.
Oldstable is the previous release. It receives only security updates, and even then for just a year.
Testing is the next release. Kernels and software have been tested but not thoroughly, so both instability and frequent updates should be expected.
Unstable, codenamed Sid, is the active development branch. While it is expected to boot and run, code changes are checked in without testing.
Experimental is not even expected to boot and run.
The releases other than unstable have rotating codenames. Currently they are:
Debian 10 (oldstable: support ended 9/10/2022) is Buster
Debian 11 (stable: support ends 7/2024) is Bullseye
Debian 12 (testing) is Bookworm
Contents
Installation
Upgrading