Distro Zoo – Discount Debian Distros

By sheer coincidence, three of the distros I've reviewed this month are based on the latest stable release of Debian. For over 32 years now, Debian has served as the foundation for hundreds of Linux distributions, ranging from household names like Ubuntu (and by extension, Linux Mint) to more specialized operating systems (OSes) like Devuan, which forked from the Debian project over its stance on systemd. This begs the question: Why has Debian continued to dominate the field as a go-to base for so many distros?

The main answer likely lies in Debian's unparalleled reputation for stability. Its slow and steady development cycle always reminds me of the fable of the hare and tortoise. The process spans roughly two years and involves multiple stages of "freezes" before any thought of issuing a release. Package migrations are subjected to a compulsory minimum of 10 days of testing to allow regression detection. The release team deserves special credit here, because it manually reviews thousands of packages and strongly favors focusing on coding errors over introducing flashy new features. Developers are told to fix release-critical bugs or face having their packages modified for them or deleted entirely.

This open development process and transparent governance represent the very best of open source development, so it's easy to see why Debian engenders so much trust. The project's commitment to stability isn't about stagnation or clinging to the past but about predictable, thoroughly tested releases that individuals and OS developers can rely on.

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