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Questions tagged [debian]

Debian is a popular and influential GNU/Linux distribution. Questions here should generally be about Debian Server.

Debian GNU/Linux its one of the oldest and more popular Linux distributions. The Debian project was started in 1993 by Ian Murdock (the name Debian is a junction of Debra + Ian, his girlfriend at the time). Debian strongest points are the portability, stability and commitment to the free software ideal.

The current Debian version (6.0, code named Squeeze) has more than 29.000 software packages available on nine platforms (including SPARC, ARM, PowerPC), and 2 platforms supporting the FreeBSD kernel (Debian GNU/kfreebsd on i386 and amd64). The Debian APT package management provides dependency management and strong update and upgrade capabilities.

Debian maintains normally 3 versions of its repositories: stable (the current release), testing (the next release), unstable (new packages and versions). After debian makes a new release, the previous stable release is maintained for one year, and is re-labed oldstable. Squeeze also included the backports repository where some software from the testing will be made available to the stable release, and updates (previously named volatile) to deal with software that evolves too fast. Debian also makes point releases with aggregated updates and updated tools, those keep the release name but update the version like Debian 6.1 for example.

Debian has a Social Contract with its users and will only distribute on its main distribution software that is compatible with the Debian Free Software Guidelines.Those two devices were created on the early days of the distribution and also are the basis for Open Source Initiative's Open Source Definition.

The Debian project organization counts with the Debian Project Leader, the Debian Project Secretary and the Debian Developers. The developers are responsible for the releases, packaging software, managing the FTPs, security and so on. Each Project Leader is elected for a period of one year and any Developer can be a candidate.

Ubuntu Linux uses Debian as its base, as well as other well known distributions like Maemo, Mint, Knoppix and several others. The Wikipedia article has also more details about the distribution, as well as Debian's official site.

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Why are outdated packages installed by yum on CentOS? (specifically PHP 5.1) How to fix?

I'm working on a fresh CentOS server and am extremely annoyed to find out that yum does not work as smoothly and brilliantly as "apt-get install" does on Ubuntu. Installing a LAMP stack, I ran the following: $ yum install php $ yum install…
Buttle Butkus
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Debian: How to use "apt-get install" without upgrading dependencies?

I already have a package B and want to install a new package A. The installation wants to modify B, but I don't want that to happen. I need to install the package A. It has the a dependency on package B and requires to be (>2.0). I have already…
victorgp
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Debian: How do I check the last time package upgrades/updates were run?

I want to know when we last ran the package upgrades/updates on our Debian server.
user18233
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Locate and updatedb doesn't work. What should I do?

My locate command doesn't work, but I found out I had to run updatedb. However, upon invoking that command, bash says bash: updatedb: command not found. What should I do?
Strawberry
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How do I make a wildcard package search using apt-get?

With yum it was simple: yum list *xxx* but this does not work with apt-get. How can I do a search like this? Also, how do I see what package provides a specific command?
sorin
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security.debian.org 'does not have a Release file' on with Debian Docker images

It appears as both debian:stable-slim and debian:stable are both currently broken (for updates): > $ docker run -ti --rm debian:stable-slim Unable to find image 'debian:stable-slim' locally stable-slim: Pulling from library/debian fc491617b0f1:…
vpetersson
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sudo not working on certain commands

I have a rather weird problem with sudo on Debian 8. Users cannot execute some of commands in /etc/sudoers.d. I use Chef to distribute configurations, so all files are automatically generated. Example: This config works fine root@server:~# cat…
Lain Iwakura
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Where can I find the Dropbox log files?

I am running Dropbox on a Debian server. Once I start Dropbox using python dropbox.py start it stops working after a while and python dropbox.py status reports: Dropbox isn't running! I have no clue why it stops working, all I see is that…
Ueli Hofstetter
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WGET can't resolve host

I've got 2 machines on the same sub-net running Debian 5.0. They use the same DNS (/etc/resolv.conf), they route to the same gateway (#route) and they have the same iptables settings (#iptables -L). I can ping from both of them, both to IP…
Maggi Trymbill
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disabling predictable network interface names in xubuntu 15.10

How do we disable predictable network interface names in xubuntu 15.10 ? I want my old interfaces naming like eth0 ... ethx, some of my software assumes eth0 interface to be present and is hard coded all over the place.
Ravikumar Tulugu
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Debian 'ignores' /etc/network/if-pre-up.d/iptables

I want my iptables rules to automatically be loaded on startup. According to the wiki on Debian this can be done by placing a script with the name iptables in /etc/network/if-pre-up.d/ So I did, this is what it looks like: cat…
Cheiron
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How to get IPv6 running properly?

So, my problem is that I just can't get IPv6 to work. Ping6 just tells me connect: Network is unreachable when I try to ping ipv6.google.com for example. ifconfig looks like (a tad censored): eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr **:**:e9:b6:35:7e …
Cobra_Fast
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Postfix/postfix-script warning symlink leaves directory: /etc/postfix/./makedefs.out

I trying to get an email server up and running on a raspberry pi running Raspbian Buster. In my postfix checks I am getting a strange notification about a symlink that I definitely did not create myself. The warning is postfix/postfix-script:…
DanRan
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SSH if command output is more than about 5 lines

I've been advised to ask this question here: I'm baffled by the following issue I'm currently experiencing. I have a Debian 5.0 Linux server connected via an ethernet cable to my DSL router. My laptop is running Windows 7 and is connected wirelessly…
user91234
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Running out of memory running fsck on large filesystems

I look after an old Debian linux box (running etch) with only 512 MB of RAM, but a lot of external storage attached. One ext3 filesystem is 2.7 TB in size, and fsck can't check it, because it runs out of memory, with an error such as this one: …
TimB
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