What is Debian?
Debian is a free operating system (OS) for your computer. An operating system is the set of basic programs and utilities that make your computer run. Debian uses the Linux kernel (the core of an operating system), but most of the basic OS tools come from the GNU project; hence the name GNU/Linux.
Debian GNU/Linux provides more than a pure OS: it comes with over 18733 packages, precompiled software bundled up in a nice format for easy installation on your machine.
Getting Started
The latest stable release of Debian is 4.0. The last update to this release was made on August 15th, 2007. Read more about available versions of Debian.
If you'd like to start using Debian, you can easily obtain a copy, and then follow the installation instructions to install it.
If you're upgrading to the latest stable release from a previous version, please read the release notes before proceeding.
To get help in using or setting up Debian, see our documentation and support pages.
Users that speak languages other than English should check the international section.
People who use systems other than Intel x86 should check the ports section.
News
[17 Aug 2007] Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 updated
[25 Apr 2007] Debian participates in Google's Summer of Code
[08 Apr 2007] Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 released
[07 Apr 2007] Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 updated
[18 Feb 2007] Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 updated
[10 Jan 2007] Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 archived
For older news items see the News Page. If you would like to receive mail whenever new Debian news comes out, subscribe to the debian-announce mailing list.
Security Advisories
[17 Sep 2007] DSA-1375 openoffice.org - buffer overflow
[11 Sep 2007] DSA-1374 jffnms - several vulnerabilities
[11 Sep 2007] DSA-1373 ktorrent - directory traversal
[11 Sep 2007] DSA-1371 phpwiki - several vulnerabilities
[09 Sep 2007] DSA-1372 xorg-server - buffer overflow
[09 Sep 2007] DSA-1370 phpmyadmin - several vulnerabilities
[06 Sep 2007] DSA-1369 gforge - missing input sanitising
[04 Sep 2007] DSA-1368 librpcsecgss - buffer overflow
[04 Sep 2007] DSA-1367 krb5 - buffer overflow
[01 Sep 2007] DSA-1366 clamav - several vulnerabilities
[01 Sep 2007] DSA-1365 id3lib3.8.3 - programming error
[01 Sep 2007] DSA-1364 vim - several vulnerabilities
For older security advisories see the Security Page. If you would like to receive security advisories as soon as they're announced, subscribe to the debian-security-announce mailing list.