Debian 10.1 Buster

Claiming to be the universal distribution, Debian should good for everyone. Neil Bothwick wonders if this is true.

- Neil Bothwick

Debian has a reputation, somewhat deserved but no longer so accurate, of being way out of date in terms of software versions. A few years ago it had a huge gap in its release cycle, but things are much better these days.

No, you won’t get the latest versions in the stable version, but that’s not what it is about. The main Debian tree is called stable for a reason: it remains relatively static rather than always chasing the latest versions. That makes administering a Debian system so much easier as you don’t have a continual stream of changes to deal with – to the point of being the difference between manageable and unmanageable with a large number of computers. So what is the latest release like?

Getting it on the disk

There are DVD installation images available, but these generally result in you downloading more than you use. Unless you need an image to install on a machine with no net connectivity, the much smaller nest image is a better choice, as it only downloads what you choose to install. Another advantage of this method is that you get the current version of everything, eliminating the need to install updates as soon as the system is running.

There were a couple of minor issues when running the installer on a Dell XPS laptop. The first was that the trackpad wasn’t recognised, but the graphical installer can be fully controlled from the keyboard. More significant is that because of Debian’s dedication to free software, there were no binary blobs, such as the one needed by the Intel wireless card. One solution is to download the firmware files separately, or copy them from an existing distro, put them on a USB stick and tell the installer where to find them. We took the easier way out of plugging in a USB Ethernet interface, which worked perfectly. With a wired setup, it is unlikely you would have any such issue.