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Debian 11 "bullseye" is officially out now

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Seeing more than two years in development, the Debian team has announced the release of Debian 11 "bullseye" as their latest major stable upgrade. One of the most important Linux distributions around, which multiple others are based upon like Ubuntu. With it being a stable release it's going to be supported for at least 5 years.

Featuring major upgrades to various desktop environments here's what you can expect from it:

  • Gnome 3.38,
  • KDE Plasma 5.20,
  • LXDE 11,
  • LXQt 0.16,
  • MATE 1.24,
  • Xfce 4.16.

This is the first major Debian release to bring support for the exFAT filesystem through a newer Linux Kernel, there's a new "ipp-usb" package to support many more modern printers with driverless printing and scanning supported, systemd has its persistent journal feature activated by default, new packaging for software related to help fight COVID-19, better Wayland support for various Asian languages with a new Fcitx 5 input method and masses more. The Debian team noted there's around 11,294 new packages included with this release.

Full release notes available on the Debian website.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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slaapliedje Aug 17, 2021
Quoting: wvstolzing
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: slaapliedjeThen you have OpenSuse, which is both old, and and been around a long time. But at the same time, what distributions are based upon it?

Maybe because it is already awesome and any change would impair it 😄

openSUSE did go through pretty big changes fairly recently, and with successful results. The SUSE company seems to be doing very well also, after a long period of uncertainty.

There's a kind of 'spin' on openSUSE called 'Gecko Linux', which isn't really (& doesn't claim to be) a derived distro or anything; but I've heard really good things about it, re: the default repo/package selection, settings, etc.

I've decided to go back to Tumbleweed last week, and I think I'll stay here for the foreseeable future. I wanted to switch (back to) KDE; & Fedora caused a bunch of mysterious lock-ups; so I used that as an excuse to distro hop again. I've used Tumbleweed on and off ever since it came out; IMHO, it's what any rolling distro should aspire to be. (Seriously, it's got all of Arch's advantages, and none of its BS.)
OpenSUSE is.. different. It's one of the more unique distributions, how they handle repositories, and their default choices. Then you have Yast, something that everyone thinks they need, until they get further into configuring a Linux machine, and then decide it's not something they want. Been a while since I tested it out (maybe a year), but due to a previous job and the nightmare of it... I tend to stay away.
wvstolzing Aug 17, 2021
Quoting: slaapliedje
Quoting: wvstolzing
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: slaapliedjeThen you have OpenSuse, which is both old, and and been around a long time. But at the same time, what distributions are based upon it?

Maybe because it is already awesome and any change would impair it 😄

openSUSE did go through pretty big changes fairly recently, and with successful results. The SUSE company seems to be doing very well also, after a long period of uncertainty.

There's a kind of 'spin' on openSUSE called 'Gecko Linux', which isn't really (& doesn't claim to be) a derived distro or anything; but I've heard really good things about it, re: the default repo/package selection, settings, etc.

I've decided to go back to Tumbleweed last week, and I think I'll stay here for the foreseeable future. I wanted to switch (back to) KDE; & Fedora caused a bunch of mysterious lock-ups; so I used that as an excuse to distro hop again. I've used Tumbleweed on and off ever since it came out; IMHO, it's what any rolling distro should aspire to be. (Seriously, it's got all of Arch's advantages, and none of its BS.)
OpenSUSE is.. different. It's one of the more unique distributions, how they handle repositories, and their default choices. Then you have Yast, something that everyone thinks they need, until they get further into configuring a Linux machine, and then decide it's not something they want. Been a while since I tested it out (maybe a year), but due to a previous job and the nightmare of it... I tend to stay away.

Yeah I don't like yast either; in fact I think it complicates things needlessly. I remember yast's defaults getting in the way of my manually edited config files in the past; though I'm happy to report that this time around it looks like I've successfully ignored it altogether. (It may have been a decrease in my linux-stupidity, or the fact that they ironed out some bugs.) But at least for non-professional use (I'm aware that using this stuff for *work* introduces complexities that simply don't exist when one is dicking around at his own leisure), I really don't think differences between openSUSE & the redhat/debian/arch families are significantly greater than the differences that already obtain between those families. (& nowadays they're all alternative interfaces to systemd anyhow. )
slaapliedje Aug 18, 2021
Quoting: wvstolzing
Quoting: slaapliedje
Quoting: wvstolzing
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: slaapliedjeThen you have OpenSuse, which is both old, and and been around a long time. But at the same time, what distributions are based upon it?

Maybe because it is already awesome and any change would impair it 😄

openSUSE did go through pretty big changes fairly recently, and with successful results. The SUSE company seems to be doing very well also, after a long period of uncertainty.

There's a kind of 'spin' on openSUSE called 'Gecko Linux', which isn't really (& doesn't claim to be) a derived distro or anything; but I've heard really good things about it, re: the default repo/package selection, settings, etc.

I've decided to go back to Tumbleweed last week, and I think I'll stay here for the foreseeable future. I wanted to switch (back to) KDE; & Fedora caused a bunch of mysterious lock-ups; so I used that as an excuse to distro hop again. I've used Tumbleweed on and off ever since it came out; IMHO, it's what any rolling distro should aspire to be. (Seriously, it's got all of Arch's advantages, and none of its BS.)
OpenSUSE is.. different. It's one of the more unique distributions, how they handle repositories, and their default choices. Then you have Yast, something that everyone thinks they need, until they get further into configuring a Linux machine, and then decide it's not something they want. Been a while since I tested it out (maybe a year), but due to a previous job and the nightmare of it... I tend to stay away.

Yeah I don't like yast either; in fact I think it complicates things needlessly. I remember yast's defaults getting in the way of my manually edited config files in the past; though I'm happy to report that this time around it looks like I've successfully ignored it altogether. (It may have been a decrease in my linux-stupidity, or the fact that they ironed out some bugs.) But at least for non-professional use (I'm aware that using this stuff for *work* introduces complexities that simply don't exist when one is dicking around at his own leisure), I really don't think differences between openSUSE & the redhat/debian/arch families are significantly greater than the differences that already obtain between those families. (& nowadays they're all alternative interfaces to systemd anyhow. )
For the most part, the difference between distributions are as follows.
1) how much software they package, and their package format.
2) their network configuration (Would be nice if they'd standardize on one. Debian's networking configs kind of suck and are annoying when you're used to Redhat based systems)
3) which non-repo / 'universal' package 'stores' are enabled by default (like Ubuntu has Snap vs everyone else either has flatpak or neither enabled by default)
4) yast (which seems to be a Suse only thing, everyone else gave up on trying to do some sort of control panel, unless they use webmin or something, but that's not a default thing)

I probably missed some.
slaapliedje Aug 21, 2021
My favorite thing about when a new Debian stable releases...

It opens the flood gate for Unstable to get new packages. 97 today! Looks like gnome 40 and new KDE already?
denyasis Aug 22, 2021
Quoting: GuestWell Leap 15.3 he did not cover but yes when reading post abut other DEs or Distros I questioning the same as well :D

Cause Tumbleweed's better, j/k lol.


But back to debian, I've used it for years as a gaming system with good results. Thier support for Nvidia drivers was very good compared to my current distro (Opensuse), which seems to struggle everytime the kernel updates.

I have a 13 year old server that runs on debian. Still running. Good stuff.


Last edited by denyasis on 22 August 2021 at 12:19 am UTC
Redface Aug 22, 2021
Quoting: slaapliedje
Quoting: t3gIf you are a gamer, it is still better to stick with with Ubuntu/Pop_OS or Manjaro due to the udpated kernels and work into MESA that you will miss from Debian being locked down for 2 more years. You can always go with the Testing or SID branch though. If you want that bleeding edge, may as well just do Manjaro.
When Ubuntu is based on the Debian Sid branch.. :)
People often post one distribution is based on another without more context, like

Ubuntu is based on Debian (Ubuntu shares upstream deb source packages with Debian and synchronize many but not all source packages from sid, but builds them all in Ubuntu reporsitories )

Linux Mint is Based on Ubuntu (Mint adds all Ubuntu repositories to the corresponding Ubuntu release and adds a few hundreds packages, their DEs, some utility programs and Firefox and Chromium, 99.9% of available packages come straight from Ubuntu)

Manjaro is based on Arch (Manjaro delays updates from Arch official, but not the AUR)

But those three "based" are way different, so the only information is actually, "has a relation to".

Lets compare Bullseye with Focal (20.04) for some gaming related things.

Bullseye comes with Linux 5.10, while Focal has 5.11 from HWE (and still 5.4 as GA kernel)
Bullseye has Mesa 20.3, while Focal has Mesa 21.0
Bullseye has Nvidia 460.91, while Focal has Nvidia 470.57
Bullseye has Lutris 0.5.8 while Focal has none, you need a PPA, it first was added to Ubuntu in 20.10, or 21.04

the kernel, mesa and nvidia drivers will continue to be upgraded in 20.04 until the first point release of 22.04 for kernel and mesa, 18.04 still gets the newest Nvidia drivers so its probable for the normal 5 years support that nvidia drivers are kept up to date to the newest version now for Ubuntu LTS.


Last edited by Redface on 22 August 2021 at 1:55 am UTC
slaapliedje Aug 22, 2021
Quoting: Redface
Quoting: slaapliedje
Quoting: t3gIf you are a gamer, it is still better to stick with with Ubuntu/Pop_OS or Manjaro due to the udpated kernels and work into MESA that you will miss from Debian being locked down for 2 more years. You can always go with the Testing or SID branch though. If you want that bleeding edge, may as well just do Manjaro.
When Ubuntu is based on the Debian Sid branch.. :)
People often post one distribution is based on another without more context, like

Ubuntu is based on Debian (Ubuntu shares upstream deb source packages with Debian and synchronize many but not all source packages from sid, but builds them all in Ubuntu reporsitories )

Linux Mint is Based on Ubuntu (Mint adds all Ubuntu repositories to the corresponding Ubuntu release and adds a few hundreds packages, their DEs, some utility programs and Firefox and Chromium, 99.9% of available packages come straight from Ubuntu)

Manjaro is based on Arch (Manjaro delays updates from Arch official, but not the AUR)

But those three "based" are way different, so the only information is actually, "has a relation to".

Lets compare Bullseye with Focal (20.04) for some gaming related things.

Bullseye comes with Linux 5.10, while Focal has 5.11 from HWE (and still 5.4 as GA kernel)
Bullseye has Mesa 20.3, while Focal has Mesa 21.0
Bullseye has Nvidia 460.91, while Focal has Nvidia 470.57
Bullseye has Lutris 0.5.8 while Focal has none, you need a PPA, it first was added to Ubuntu in 20.10, or 21.04

the kernel, mesa and nvidia drivers will continue to be upgraded in 20.04 until the first point release of 22.04 for kernel and mesa, 18.04 still gets the newest Nvidia drivers so its probable for the normal 5 years support that nvidia drivers are kept up to date to the newest version now for Ubuntu LTS.
You miss that they will also continue to be updated in Debian via Backports.

Also this is supported for Debian and Ubuntu if you want newer kernels. https://liquorix.net/

Actually for 20.04 being an LTS release.. I would not want them to be updating things. You want the system to be stable for servers. Still one of the main reasons I prefer Debian or RHEL based systems to Ubuntu.

The 'based on' generally means, if the base were to go away, so would that distro. Without the hard work of Arch and Debian, etc, then many other distros would fall.

If you take a look at how many distributions have attempted to make Debian more friendly and have died in the past... there are ALOT! Corel Linux was one of my favorite. But they too couldn't keep something up to date and useful.

Ubuntu just kind of happened to be there at the right place / right time, and didn't try (initially) to take on too much. Qnd Shuttleworth has all that Thawte money...
Redface Aug 23, 2021
Quoting: slaapliedje
Quoting: Redface
Quoting: slaapliedje
Quoting: t3gIf you are a gamer, it is still better to stick with with Ubuntu/Pop_OS or Manjaro due to the udpated kernels and work into MESA that you will miss from Debian being locked down for 2 more years. You can always go with the Testing or SID branch though. If you want that bleeding edge, may as well just do Manjaro.
When Ubuntu is based on the Debian Sid branch.. :)
People often post one distribution is based on another without more context, like

Ubuntu is based on Debian (Ubuntu shares upstream deb source packages with Debian and synchronize many but not all source packages from sid, but builds them all in Ubuntu reporsitories )

Linux Mint is Based on Ubuntu (Mint adds all Ubuntu repositories to the corresponding Ubuntu release and adds a few hundreds packages, their DEs, some utility programs and Firefox and Chromium, 99.9% of available packages come straight from Ubuntu)

Manjaro is based on Arch (Manjaro delays updates from Arch official, but not the AUR)

But those three "based" are way different, so the only information is actually, "has a relation to".

Lets compare Bullseye with Focal (20.04) for some gaming related things.

Bullseye comes with Linux 5.10, while Focal has 5.11 from HWE (and still 5.4 as GA kernel)
Bullseye has Mesa 20.3, while Focal has Mesa 21.0
Bullseye has Nvidia 460.91, while Focal has Nvidia 470.57
Bullseye has Lutris 0.5.8 while Focal has none, you need a PPA, it first was added to Ubuntu in 20.10, or 21.04

the kernel, mesa and nvidia drivers will continue to be upgraded in 20.04 until the first point release of 22.04 for kernel and mesa, 18.04 still gets the newest Nvidia drivers so its probable for the normal 5 years support that nvidia drivers are kept up to date to the newest version now for Ubuntu LTS.
You miss that they will also continue to be updated in Debian via Backports.

Also this is supported for Debian and Ubuntu if you want newer kernels. https://liquorix.net/

Actually for 20.04 being an LTS release.. I would not want them to be updating things. You want the system to be stable for servers. Still one of the main reasons I prefer Debian or RHEL based systems to Ubuntu.

The 'based on' generally means, if the base were to go away, so would that distro. Without the hard work of Arch and Debian, etc, then many other distros would fall.

If you take a look at how many distributions have attempted to make Debian more friendly and have died in the past... there are ALOT! Corel Linux was one of my favorite. But they too couldn't keep something up to date and useful.

Ubuntu just kind of happened to be there at the right place / right time, and didn't try (initially) to take on too much. Qnd Shuttleworth has all that Thawte money...

I did not write the comment you first replied to about that "If you are a gamer, it is still better to stick with with Ubuntu/Pop_OS or Manjaro" My opinion is that people should use what they like and what works for them.

This is gamingonlinux and not serversonlinux so I did not mention that servers per default get the kernel the LTS release originally came with called GA, plus bugfixes, while they do have the option for the HWE rolling kernels, just as desktop users can switch to the GA kernel.

And if that is what you mean with based on, then Ubuntu is not based on Debian, which does not make sense. It is just that as I wrote, without more context not meaning more than "related to".

If Debian and its servers should disappear then Ubuntu still has the build system and source and binary packages for all packages for all still supported releases. They would have to rethink how handle newer versions for packages in the universe repositories, but still have all the already released distributions and the capability to create a new one, but most likely with less packages.

Compare that to Linux Mint if Ubuntu should disappear, or LMDE for their Debian edition of Debian would disappear.
They would loose 99% of the packages available since they do not build complete distributions but add the repositories of the distribution they are based on.

So "based on" in itself has way to many meanings in the distribution world without more context to say more than is "related to"
slaapliedje Aug 23, 2021
Quoting: Redface
Quoting: slaapliedje
Quoting: Redface
Quoting: slaapliedje
Quoting: t3gIf you are a gamer, it is still better to stick with with Ubuntu/Pop_OS or Manjaro due to the udpated kernels and work into MESA that you will miss from Debian being locked down for 2 more years. You can always go with the Testing or SID branch though. If you want that bleeding edge, may as well just do Manjaro.
When Ubuntu is based on the Debian Sid branch.. :)
People often post one distribution is based on another without more context, like

Ubuntu is based on Debian (Ubuntu shares upstream deb source packages with Debian and synchronize many but not all source packages from sid, but builds them all in Ubuntu reporsitories )

Linux Mint is Based on Ubuntu (Mint adds all Ubuntu repositories to the corresponding Ubuntu release and adds a few hundreds packages, their DEs, some utility programs and Firefox and Chromium, 99.9% of available packages come straight from Ubuntu)

Manjaro is based on Arch (Manjaro delays updates from Arch official, but not the AUR)

But those three "based" are way different, so the only information is actually, "has a relation to".

Lets compare Bullseye with Focal (20.04) for some gaming related things.

Bullseye comes with Linux 5.10, while Focal has 5.11 from HWE (and still 5.4 as GA kernel)
Bullseye has Mesa 20.3, while Focal has Mesa 21.0
Bullseye has Nvidia 460.91, while Focal has Nvidia 470.57
Bullseye has Lutris 0.5.8 while Focal has none, you need a PPA, it first was added to Ubuntu in 20.10, or 21.04

the kernel, mesa and nvidia drivers will continue to be upgraded in 20.04 until the first point release of 22.04 for kernel and mesa, 18.04 still gets the newest Nvidia drivers so its probable for the normal 5 years support that nvidia drivers are kept up to date to the newest version now for Ubuntu LTS.
You miss that they will also continue to be updated in Debian via Backports.

Also this is supported for Debian and Ubuntu if you want newer kernels. https://liquorix.net/

Actually for 20.04 being an LTS release.. I would not want them to be updating things. You want the system to be stable for servers. Still one of the main reasons I prefer Debian or RHEL based systems to Ubuntu.

The 'based on' generally means, if the base were to go away, so would that distro. Without the hard work of Arch and Debian, etc, then many other distros would fall.

If you take a look at how many distributions have attempted to make Debian more friendly and have died in the past... there are ALOT! Corel Linux was one of my favorite. But they too couldn't keep something up to date and useful.

Ubuntu just kind of happened to be there at the right place / right time, and didn't try (initially) to take on too much. Qnd Shuttleworth has all that Thawte money...

I did not write the comment you first replied to about that "If you are a gamer, it is still better to stick with with Ubuntu/Pop_OS or Manjaro" My opinion is that people should use what they like and what works for them.

This is gamingonlinux and not serversonlinux so I did not mention that servers per default get the kernel the LTS release originally came with called GA, plus bugfixes, while they do have the option for the HWE rolling kernels, just as desktop users can switch to the GA kernel.

And if that is what you mean with based on, then Ubuntu is not based on Debian, which does not make sense. It is just that as I wrote, without more context not meaning more than "related to".

If Debian and its servers should disappear then Ubuntu still has the build system and source and binary packages for all packages for all still supported releases. They would have to rethink how handle newer versions for packages in the universe repositories, but still have all the already released distributions and the capability to create a new one, but most likely with less packages.

Compare that to Linux Mint if Ubuntu should disappear, or LMDE for their Debian edition of Debian would disappear.
They would loose 99% of the packages available since they do not build complete distributions but add the repositories of the distribution they are based on.

So "based on" in itself has way to many meanings in the distribution world without more context to say more than is "related to"
Ubuntu grabs from Debian Sid every 6 months for their next release, 'Ubuntu-izes' the packages and builds them out to the next release.

So you have Debian Sid -> Ubuntu for 5 months, freeze for one month, release. This is why you shouldn't ever upgrade your $LTS-Version to $LTS-Version+1 until it is at like an extra .1 or .2 (as that is an extra month or two of testing / patching.).

If Ubuntu would disappear, they'd just go back to using Debian, that's the whole reason LMDE exists. Debian has been around since the mid 90s. It's one of the few that have really not changed their goals over this whole time. It's also the distribution with the most supported packages (unlike Ubuntu, who does not consider anything outside of 'main' to be supported.)

Someone above had mentioned that Lutris is going to be available in the next Ubuntu. That's because it was officially packaged for Debian. They basically just inherit what Debian does, and then make changes to their kernel and some other packages, and retag as they build the packages to have _ubuntu_ in them. So even if Debian is considered 'old'. People should pay it some respect for spawning a huge amount of Linux distributions.
Eike Aug 23, 2021
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Quoting: slaapliedjeSomeone above had mentioned that Lutris is going to be available in the next Ubuntu. That's because it was officially packaged for Debian. They basically just inherit what Debian does, and then make changes to their kernel and some other packages, and retag as they build the packages to have _ubuntu_ in them. So even if Debian is considered 'old'. People should pay it some respect for spawning a huge amount of Linux distributions.

I've been maintaining a Debian package and didn't pull in an update of the program for a long time. There hasn't been done anything to update it in Ubuntu. When I uploaded the update, it automatically came to Ubuntu as well. So usually, Debian unstable will at least as new or newer than anything in Ubuntu for most packages.


Last edited by Eike on 24 August 2021 at 10:12 am UTC
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