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Debian - Wikipedia

Debian

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Debian (/ˈdɛbiən/)1 is a free, general-purpose operating system developed by the Debian Project, a worldwide association of volunteers founded by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993.23 It is the second-oldest Linux distribution still being developed (only Slackware is older)4 and forms the base of many others.5

It is deployed across servers, personal computers, and embedded devices. Among Linux distributions, it ranks second only to Ubuntu (which is itself derived from Debian), with 16% of the overall market. According to the 2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey, 11.4% of developers use it as their primary personal operating system and 10.4% professionally.6 Its emphasis on stability and long-term support over frequent package updates has made it prevalent in server and embedded deployments.7

Development is led by the Project Leader8 and guided by two foundational documents: the Debian Social Contract, a summary of the project’s commitments that includes the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG),910 and the Debian Constitution, which describes the organizational structure.11 The project publishes three concurrent development branches: stable, testing, and unstable, which correspond to different levels of software maturity. The current stable release, “Trixie”, released on August 9, 2025,12 includes tens of thousands of packages maintained by more than a thousand active contributors.1314

Since 1997, the project has operated independently through Software in the Public Interest (SPI), a non-profit corporation founded by project members to hold its assets and trademarks.15216 It previously received support from the Free Software Foundation (FSF) between 1994 and 1995, a sponsorship that ended due to disagreements.1718

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. “1.7. How does one pronounce Debian and what does this word mean?”. Debian. Retrieved May 20, 2026. ↩

  2. “Chapter 1. Introduction — What is the Debian Project?”. Debian. Retrieved May 20, 2026. ↩ ↩2

  3. “WHAT is Debian?”. Debian. Retrieved May 20, 2026. ↩

  4. Peacock, Graeme (August 18, 2025). “These Are the 7 Oldest Linux Distros Still Being Developed”. How-To Geek. Retrieved May 20, 2026. ↩

  5. Byfield, Bruce (October 2020). “Distro Walk - Debian Derivatives”. Linux Magazine. Retrieved May 20, 2026. ↩

  6. “Computer operating systems”. Stack Overflow. 2025. Retrieved May 22, 2026. ↩

  7. Willie (December 15, 2025). “Linux Distribution Market Share”. Command Linux. Retrieved May 22, 2026. ↩

  8. “Debian Project Leader”. Debian. Retrieved May 20, 2026. ↩

  9. “Debian Social Contract”. Debian. October 1, 2022. Retrieved May 20, 2026. ↩

  10. “1.2. The Foundation Documents”. The Debian Administrator’s Handbook. Retrieved May 20, 2026. ↩

  11. “Debian Constitution”. Debian. March 26, 2022. Retrieved May 20, 2026. ↩

  12. “Debian 13”trixie”released”. Debian. August 9, 2025. Retrieved June 17, 2026. ↩

  13. “Debian Contributors list”. Debian. Retrieved May 20, 2026. ↩

  14. “2.2.10. Desktops and well known packages”. Debian. Retrieved May 20, 2026. ↩

  15. “SPI”. Software in the Public Interest. Retrieved May 20, 2026. ↩

  16. “Debian”. Software in the Public Interest. 2025. Retrieved May 20, 2026. ↩

  17. Perens, Bruce (April 30, 1996). “Debian and FSF”. Debian Mailing Lists. Retrieved May 20, 2026. ↩

  18. Weisshaus, Melissa; Chassel, Robert J.; Tower, Leonard H. Jr. (July 21, 1996). “FSF and Debian Separate Amicably”. GNU. Retrieved May 20, 2026. ↩

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