Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Debian version history" in English language version.
Debian 1.1 Buzz (June 17th, 1996): This was the first Debian release with a code name. It was taken, like all others so far, from a character in one of the Toy Story movies... in this case, Buzz Lightyear. By this time, Bruce Perens had taken over leadership of the Project from Ian Murdock, and Bruce was working at Pixar, the company that produced the movies. This release was fully ELF, used Linux kernel 2.0, and contained 474 packages.
Rex is the code name for a former Stable Debian distribution.It was released on December 12th, 1996 as Debian GNU/Linux 1.2: Named for the plastic dinosaur in the Toy Story movies. This release consisted of 848 packages maintained by 120 developers. It was superseded by DebianBo on June 5th, 1997.Rex is now obsolete and security updates are no longer provided.
Debian 1.3 Bo (June 5th, 1997): Named for Bo Peep, the shepherdess. This release consisted of 974 packages maintained by 200 developers.
Debian 2.0 Hamm (July 24th, 1998): Named for the piggy-bank in the Toy Story movies. This was the first multi-architecture release of Debian, adding support for the Motorola 68000 series architectures. With Ian Jackson as Project Leader, this release made the transition to libc6, and consisted of over 1500 packages maintained by over 400 developers.
Debian 2.1 Slink (March 9th, 1999): Named for the slinky-dog in the movie. Two more architectures were added, Alpha and SPARC. With Wichert Akkerman as Project Leader, this release consisted of about 2250 packages and required 2 CDs in the official set. The key technical innovation was the introduction of apt, a new package management interface. Widely emulated, apt addressed issues resulting from Debian's continuing growth, and established a new paradigm for package acquisition and installation on Open Source operating systems.
Debian 2.2 Potato (15 August 2000): Named for "Mr Potato Head" in the Toy Story movies. This release added support for the PowerPC and ARM architectures. With Wichert still serving as Project Leader, this release consisted of more than 3900 binary packages derived from over 2600 source packages maintained by more than 450 Debian developers.
Debian 3.0 Woody (19 July 2002): Named for the main character the Toy Story movies: "Woody" the cowboy. Even more architectures were added in this release: IA-64, HP PA-RISC, MIPS (big endian), MIPS (little endian) and S/390. This is also the first release to include cryptographic software due to the restrictions for exportation being lightened in the US, and also the first one to include KDE, now that the license issues with QT were resolved. With Bdale Garbee recently appointed Project Leader, and more than 900 Debian developers, this release contained around 8,500 binary packages and 7 binary CDs in the official set.
Debian 3.1 Sarge (6 June 2005): named for the sergeant of the Green Plastic Army Men. No new architectures were added to the release, although an unofficial AMD64 port was published at the same time and distributed through the new Alioth project hosting site. This release features a new installer: debian-installer, a modular piece of software that feature automatic hardware detection, unattended installation features and was released fully translated to over thirty languages. It was also the first release to include a full office suite: OpenOffice.org. Branden Robinson had just been appointed as Project Leader. This release was made by more than nine hundred Debian developers, and contained around 15,400 binary packages and 14 binary CDs in the official set.
Debian 4.0 Etch (8 April 2007): named for the sketch toy in the movie. One architecture was added in this release: AMD64, and official support for m68k was dropped. This release continued using the debian-installer, but featuring in this release a graphical installer, cryptographic verification of downloaded packages, more flexible partitioning (with support for encrypted partitions), simplified mail configuration, a more flexible desktop selection, simplified but improved localization and new modes, including a rescue mode. New installations would not need to reboot through the installation process as the previous two phases of installation were now integrated. This new installer provided support for scripts using composed characters and complex languages in its graphical version, increasing the number of available translations to over fifty. Sam Hocevar was appointed Project Leader the very same day, and the project included more than one thousand and thirty Debian developers. The release contained around 18,000 binary packages over 20 binary CDs (3 DVDs) in the official set. There were also two binary CDs available to install the system with alternate desktop environments different from the default one.
Debian 5.0 Lenny (February 2009): named for the wind up binoculars in the Toy Story movies. One architecture was added in this release: ARM EABI (or armel), providing support for newer ARM processors and deprecating the old ARM port (arm). The m68k port was not included in this release, although it was still provided in the unstable distribution. This release did not feature the FreeBSD port, although much work on the port had been done to make it qualify it did not meet yet the qualification requirements for this release.
Debian 6.0 Squeeze (February 2011): named for the green three-eyed aliens. The release was frozen on 6 August 2010, with many of the Debian developers gathered at the 10th Debconf at New York City. While two architectures (alpha and hppa) were dropped, two architectures of the new FreeBSD port (kfreebsd-i386 and kfreebsd-amd64) were made available as technology preview, including the kernel and userland tools as well as common server software (though not advanced desktop features yet). This was the first time a Linux distribution has been extended to also allow use of a non-Linux kernel.
Debian 7.0 Wheezy (May 2013): named for the rubber toy penguin with a red bow tie. One architecture was included in this release (armhf) and this release introduced multi-arch support, which allowed users to install packages from multiple architectures on the same machine. Improvements in the installation process allowed visually impaired people to install the system using software speech for the first time. This was also the first release that supported the installation and booting in devices using UEFI firmware.
Debian 8 Jessie (April 2015): named for the cowgirl doll who first appeared in Toy Story 2.
32-bit PC (i386) no longer covers any i586 processor; the new minimum processor requirement is i686. If your machine is not compatible with this requirement, it is recommended that you stay with bullseye for the remainder of its support cycle.
However, Debian GNU/Linux bookworm will not run on 586 (Pentium) or earlier processors.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)Support for 486-class processors was dropped, somewhat accidentally, in squeeze.
Last year it was decided to increase the minimum CPU features for the i386 architecture to 686-class in the stretch release cycle. This means dropping support for 586-class and hybrid 586/686 processors[1].(Support for 486-class processors was dropped, somewhat accidentally, in squeeze.) This was implemented in the Linux kernel packages starting with Linux 4.3, which was uploaded to unstable in December last year. In case you missed that change, gcc for i386 has recently been changed to target 686-class processors and is generating code that will crash on other processors. Any such systems still running testing or unstable will need to be switched to run stable (jessie). The older processors will continue to be supported in jessie until at least 2018, and until 2020 if i386 is included in jessie LTS. The following processors, supported in jessie, are now unspported: * AMD K5, K6, K6-2, (aka K6 3D), K6-3 * DM&P/SiS Vortex86, Vortex86SX * Cyrix III, MediaGX, MediaGXm * IDT Winchip C6, Winchip 2 * Intel Pentium, Pentium with MMX * Rise mP6 * VIA C3 'Samuel 2', C3 'Ezra'
The only change from Jessie is the removal of powerpc as a release architecture. We discussed this at length, and eventually took the view that the least disservice to users of that port is to provide reasonable notice of its discontinuation. We recognise and acknowledge that discontinuing any port is unavoidably disruptive. The question of whether powerpc remains an architecture in the main archive or moves to ports is one for FTP masters, not the release team.
Debian Long Term Support (LTS) is a project to extend the lifetime of all Debian stable releases to (at least) 5 years. [..] Thus the Debian LTS team takes over security maintenance of the various releases once the Debian Security team stops its work.
The initial support to make UEFI amd64 systems directly installable in Debian was added in Wheezy (7.0). Support was later added for i386 and arm64 systems for Jessie (8.0), along with a number of quirks and bug workarounds. Support for armhf was added in Buster (10.0).
The change has already been implemented to the Linux kernel 4.3 packages, which have been uploaded to the Debian Unstable repositories last year. And today users are being informed to move to Debian GNU/Linux 8 "Jessie" if they're still using Debian on older computers powered by i586 or i486 processors. If i386 support is to be included in the Debian GNU/Linux 8 "Jessie" release, which should enter LTS (Long Term Support) stage from May 2018, the operating system will then support older 32-bit processors until the year 2020.
Debian Long Term Support (LTS) is a project to extend the lifetime of all Debian stable releases to (at least) 5 years. [..] Thus the Debian LTS team takes over security maintenance of the various releases once the Debian Security team stops its work.
Debian 1.1 Buzz (June 17th, 1996): This was the first Debian release with a code name. It was taken, like all others so far, from a character in one of the Toy Story movies... in this case, Buzz Lightyear. By this time, Bruce Perens had taken over leadership of the Project from Ian Murdock, and Bruce was working at Pixar, the company that produced the movies. This release was fully ELF, used Linux kernel 2.0, and contained 474 packages.
Rex is the code name for a former Stable Debian distribution.It was released on December 12th, 1996 as Debian GNU/Linux 1.2: Named for the plastic dinosaur in the Toy Story movies. This release consisted of 848 packages maintained by 120 developers. It was superseded by DebianBo on June 5th, 1997.Rex is now obsolete and security updates are no longer provided.
Debian 1.3 Bo (June 5th, 1997): Named for Bo Peep, the shepherdess. This release consisted of 974 packages maintained by 200 developers.
Debian 2.0 Hamm (July 24th, 1998): Named for the piggy-bank in the Toy Story movies. This was the first multi-architecture release of Debian, adding support for the Motorola 68000 series architectures. With Ian Jackson as Project Leader, this release made the transition to libc6, and consisted of over 1500 packages maintained by over 400 developers.
Debian 2.1 Slink (March 9th, 1999): Named for the slinky-dog in the movie. Two more architectures were added, Alpha and SPARC. With Wichert Akkerman as Project Leader, this release consisted of about 2250 packages and required 2 CDs in the official set. The key technical innovation was the introduction of apt, a new package management interface. Widely emulated, apt addressed issues resulting from Debian's continuing growth, and established a new paradigm for package acquisition and installation on Open Source operating systems.
Debian 2.2 Potato (15 August 2000): Named for "Mr Potato Head" in the Toy Story movies. This release added support for the PowerPC and ARM architectures. With Wichert still serving as Project Leader, this release consisted of more than 3900 binary packages derived from over 2600 source packages maintained by more than 450 Debian developers.
Debian 3.0 Woody (19 July 2002): Named for the main character the Toy Story movies: "Woody" the cowboy. Even more architectures were added in this release: IA-64, HP PA-RISC, MIPS (big endian), MIPS (little endian) and S/390. This is also the first release to include cryptographic software due to the restrictions for exportation being lightened in the US, and also the first one to include KDE, now that the license issues with QT were resolved. With Bdale Garbee recently appointed Project Leader, and more than 900 Debian developers, this release contained around 8,500 binary packages and 7 binary CDs in the official set.
Debian 3.1 Sarge (6 June 2005): named for the sergeant of the Green Plastic Army Men. No new architectures were added to the release, although an unofficial AMD64 port was published at the same time and distributed through the new Alioth project hosting site. This release features a new installer: debian-installer, a modular piece of software that feature automatic hardware detection, unattended installation features and was released fully translated to over thirty languages. It was also the first release to include a full office suite: OpenOffice.org. Branden Robinson had just been appointed as Project Leader. This release was made by more than nine hundred Debian developers, and contained around 15,400 binary packages and 14 binary CDs in the official set.
Debian 4.0 Etch (8 April 2007): named for the sketch toy in the movie. One architecture was added in this release: AMD64, and official support for m68k was dropped. This release continued using the debian-installer, but featuring in this release a graphical installer, cryptographic verification of downloaded packages, more flexible partitioning (with support for encrypted partitions), simplified mail configuration, a more flexible desktop selection, simplified but improved localization and new modes, including a rescue mode. New installations would not need to reboot through the installation process as the previous two phases of installation were now integrated. This new installer provided support for scripts using composed characters and complex languages in its graphical version, increasing the number of available translations to over fifty. Sam Hocevar was appointed Project Leader the very same day, and the project included more than one thousand and thirty Debian developers. The release contained around 18,000 binary packages over 20 binary CDs (3 DVDs) in the official set. There were also two binary CDs available to install the system with alternate desktop environments different from the default one.
Debian 5.0 Lenny (February 2009): named for the wind up binoculars in the Toy Story movies. One architecture was added in this release: ARM EABI (or armel), providing support for newer ARM processors and deprecating the old ARM port (arm). The m68k port was not included in this release, although it was still provided in the unstable distribution. This release did not feature the FreeBSD port, although much work on the port had been done to make it qualify it did not meet yet the qualification requirements for this release.
Support for 486-class processors was dropped, somewhat accidentally, in squeeze.
Debian 6.0 Squeeze (February 2011): named for the green three-eyed aliens. The release was frozen on 6 August 2010, with many of the Debian developers gathered at the 10th Debconf at New York City. While two architectures (alpha and hppa) were dropped, two architectures of the new FreeBSD port (kfreebsd-i386 and kfreebsd-amd64) were made available as technology preview, including the kernel and userland tools as well as common server software (though not advanced desktop features yet). This was the first time a Linux distribution has been extended to also allow use of a non-Linux kernel.
Debian 7.0 Wheezy (May 2013): named for the rubber toy penguin with a red bow tie. One architecture was included in this release (armhf) and this release introduced multi-arch support, which allowed users to install packages from multiple architectures on the same machine. Improvements in the installation process allowed visually impaired people to install the system using software speech for the first time. This was also the first release that supported the installation and booting in devices using UEFI firmware.
The initial support to make UEFI amd64 systems directly installable in Debian was added in Wheezy (7.0). Support was later added for i386 and arm64 systems for Jessie (8.0), along with a number of quirks and bug workarounds. Support for armhf was added in Buster (10.0).
Debian 8 Jessie (April 2015): named for the cowgirl doll who first appeared in Toy Story 2.
Last year it was decided to increase the minimum CPU features for the i386 architecture to 686-class in the stretch release cycle. This means dropping support for 586-class and hybrid 586/686 processors[1].(Support for 486-class processors was dropped, somewhat accidentally, in squeeze.) This was implemented in the Linux kernel packages starting with Linux 4.3, which was uploaded to unstable in December last year. In case you missed that change, gcc for i386 has recently been changed to target 686-class processors and is generating code that will crash on other processors. Any such systems still running testing or unstable will need to be switched to run stable (jessie). The older processors will continue to be supported in jessie until at least 2018, and until 2020 if i386 is included in jessie LTS. The following processors, supported in jessie, are now unspported: * AMD K5, K6, K6-2, (aka K6 3D), K6-3 * DM&P/SiS Vortex86, Vortex86SX * Cyrix III, MediaGX, MediaGXm * IDT Winchip C6, Winchip 2 * Intel Pentium, Pentium with MMX * Rise mP6 * VIA C3 'Samuel 2', C3 'Ezra'
The only change from Jessie is the removal of powerpc as a release architecture. We discussed this at length, and eventually took the view that the least disservice to users of that port is to provide reasonable notice of its discontinuation. We recognise and acknowledge that discontinuing any port is unavoidably disruptive. The question of whether powerpc remains an architecture in the main archive or moves to ports is one for FTP masters, not the release team.
The change has already been implemented to the Linux kernel 4.3 packages, which have been uploaded to the Debian Unstable repositories last year. And today users are being informed to move to Debian GNU/Linux 8 "Jessie" if they're still using Debian on older computers powered by i586 or i486 processors. If i386 support is to be included in the Debian GNU/Linux 8 "Jessie" release, which should enter LTS (Long Term Support) stage from May 2018, the operating system will then support older 32-bit processors until the year 2020.