#use wml::debian::template title="Debian Releases" #include "$(ENGLISHDIR)/releases/info"
Debian always has at least
three releases in active maintenance: stable
, testing
and
unstable
.
The stable
distribution contains the latest officially
released distribution of Debian.
This is the production release of Debian, the one which we primarily recommend using.
The current stable
distribution of Debian is version
<:=substr '
The testing
distribution contains packages that haven't been
accepted into a stable
release yet, but they are in the queue for
that. The main advantage of using this distribution is that it has more
recent versions of software.
See the Debian FAQ for more information on
what is testing
and how it becomes
stable
.
The current testing
distribution is
The unstable
distribution is where active development of
Debian occurs. Generally, this distribution is run by developers
and those who like to live on the edge. It is recommended that users
running unstable should subscribe to the debian-devel-announce
mailing list to receive notifications of major changes, for example
upgrades that may break.
The unstable
distribution is always called sid.
Debian announces its new stable release on a regular basis. Users can expect 3 years of full support for each release and 2 years of extra LTS support.
See Debian Releases Wiki page and Debian LTS Wiki page for detailed information.
—
testing— no release date has been set
bookworm) — current
stablerelease
bullseye) — current
oldstablerelease
buster) — current
oldoldstablerelease, under LTS support
stretch) — archived release, under third-party paid extended LTS support
jessie) — archived release, under third-party paid extended LTS support
wheezy) — obsolete stable release
squeeze) — obsolete stable release
lenny) — obsolete stable release
etch) — obsolete stable release
sarge) — obsolete stable release
woody) — obsolete stable release
potato) — obsolete stable release
slink) — obsolete stable release
hamm) — obsolete stable release
The web pages for the obsolete Debian releases are kept intact, but the releases themselves can only be found in a separate archive.
See the Debian FAQ for an explanation of where all these codenames came from.
Data integrity is granted by a digitally signed Release
file. To ensure that all files in the release belong to it, checksums of
all Packages
files are copied into the Release
file.
Digital signatures for this file are stored in the file
Release.gpg
, using the current version of the archive signing
key. For stable
and oldstable
an additional signature is
generated using an offline key specifically generated for a release
by a member of the \
Stable Release Team.