Installing Debian 12, codenamed Bookworm, I was struck by how much the distribution has changed in the 24 years since I first installed it (Figure 1). Around the turn of the millennium, Debian already had a formidable reputation. It was one of the half dozen leading distributions, but it was widely viewed as an expert's choice, and its developers were viewed as members of an elitist club obsessed with radical forms of governance. In fact, I once heard Eben Moglen, the lawyer behind the GNU General Public Licenses, describe the project as an example of syndicalist anarchism in action. By contrast, in 2023, Debian has mellowed, quietly becoming more accessible, with even its once notoriously vicious mailing lists functioning more responsibly.

Figure 1: Recently released, Debian 12 shows how much the distro has changed over the years.

Part of the reason for the change may be that while many of the original developers are still involved, they are now middle aged, rather than adolescents. A large part of the reason is likely the rise of Ubuntu, which from its first release in 2004 has been viewed as having many of Debian's advantages in a more user-friendly environment. In Ubuntu's early days, it even seemed that Ubuntu might replace Debian in popularity. But instead, many developers contributed to both Debian and Ubuntu. While remaining popular in its own right – consistently within the top 10 page hits on DistroWatch [1] – Debian gained influence as the foundation of other distributions, many of which, like Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and MX Linux, became popular in their own right. Today, 122 of the distributions on DistroWatch, just under two-thirds of all distros, derive from Debian or a major derivative. Debian maintains a page on the DistroWatch site [2] and also develops the Med [3] and Astro [4] blends for specialist users, as well as Debian Edu for the classroom [5]. With such influence, a broader perspective was inevitable. I have found no sign that the strategy was deliberate, but the change could have come from no more than the changing interests of users.

Many aspects of Debian remain the same, of course. Like previous releases, Debian 12 comes approximately two years after the previous release and yet again increases what was already the largest assortment of packages. However, today's Debian has become more accessible than its predecessors in at least three major ways: installation, packages, and its non-free firmware policy.

Install Options

In its early days, Debian had a well-deserved reputation for being hard to install. That reputation softened with the release of the Debian Installer, but lingered to an extent because the Debian Installer requires too many choices to be comfortable for new users, although many distros offer it for troubleshooting installs. Debian also addresses accessibility issues, including a voice synthesizer installer for the blind. For new users, the Calamares installer offers a basic, graphical or command line install, while those with more experience can use the Debian Installer from the Advanced Options menu, which reduces the amount of maintenance required, but helps to make Debian more welcoming for as many users as possible.

Packages Worth Noting

Throughout Debian's history, users have chosen it for stability, security, and its high level of testing. In fact, Debian's testing and, sometimes, its unstable repository are often said to be more reliable than other distributions' repositories. A number of derivatives, including Ubuntu, are based on one or both. Historically, no one would choose Debian for its new applications, the way they would Fedora, for the simple reason that, by the time a new Debian release came out, other distributions had long ago showcased what was new.

That perspective was never wholly true. Debian regularly includes scripts, such as adequate, a checklist for new packages that have not even reached the major derivatives. However, in the last few releases, Debian has had a handful of new applications with a potentially broad appeal. Often, these applications have been developed in-project for package maintenance while being useful to general users as well. For example, diffoscope, which can be useful when using version control tools like Git is also handy for writers who want to compare texts in binary formats like LibreOffice's Open Document Format or PDF (Figure 2). Similarly, debvm (detailed elsewhere in this issue) allows testing different hardware architectures without changing machines, while providing a sandbox for anyone to test scripts or packages quickly and easy. More generally, several reviews of Debian 12 have singled out fnt, a command-line tool for browsing Google fonts (Figure 3). Such examples seem to suggest that Debian is beginning to broaden its appeal.

Figure 2: One of the recent apps featured in Debian 12, diffoscope compares binary files. Here, it compares two LibreOffice Writer files (.odt).

Figure 3: Also new in Debian 12 is fnt, which views Google Fonts from the command line.

The Changing Policy on Non-Free Firmware

Undoubtedly, the biggest change has been the new position on non-free software. From its earliest days, Debian had a non-free section of each repository, as well as a contrib section that contains free software that depends on non-free software. However, these sections were never official parts of a release and were not enabled by default during installation. Moreover, license issues have always been argued passionately in the Debian Legal forum, and, unlike most distributions, Debian has never automatically accepted the Free Software Foundation's decisions on whether a license was free. For example, in 2006, Debian only accepted the GNU Free Documentation License (FDL) as free if no invariant section was included [6].

Given this history, Debian's General Resolution in October 2022 came as a surprise [7]. In the resolution, developers voted to amend section 5 of the Debian Social Contract [8] by adding, "The Debian official media may include firmware that is otherwise not part of the Debian system to enable use of Debian with hardware that requires such firmware." As a result of this change, Debian 12 became the first release to install with a new non-free firmware section enabled by default. For convenience, other proprietary packages remain unenabled in non-free.

This compromise acknowledges what the distro's previous policy deliberately ignored: Because of the state of free drivers, most users were already using non-free drivers to get the most from their hardware. For instance, without proprietary drivers, the highest resolution of many monitors could not be used. And, of course, most Debian derivatives already provided non-free drivers during installation. The resolution simply acknowledged the existing situation and provided greater convenience.

What makes the General Resolution interesting, though, is that it is an indicator of how much Debian and free software in general has changed. Admittedly, one of the options in the resolution was "Installer with non-free software is not part of Debian," which, had it passed, would have left Debian policy unchanged. However, this option seems to have been provided mainly to offer a complete set of options. Fifteen years ago, the proposal might have inspired endless debate, but, in 2023, the change seemed mostly a discussion of policy. Furthermore, the outcome did not receive much attention outside Debian, not even from the Free Software Foundation. The lack of reaction suggests how much the free software community has changed. Where free software purity was once a popular stance, even former advocates like Debian opt today for a more pragmatic position.