Debian at 17: As Important as Ever

"It's not exactly a milestone birthday, but Debian's 17th birthday deserves a bit of recognition. Ian Murdock's baby came into the world on August 16th, 1993 and has been a force for free software ever since. Debian might seem a bit crufty compared to newer, faster-moving distros, but it's still one of the most important.

"Debian kicked off when Linux distributions were still a relatively novel concept. The only older surviving distro is Slackware, Red Hat didn't enter the picture until 1994. Depending on how you look at it, Debian either enjoys a very small niche user base, or one of the largest of any Linux distribution. Strictly speaking, Debian is widely (though it's hard to say how widely) deployed on servers and not quite as popular on desktop systems compared to Fedora, Linux Mint, or Ubuntu.

"Then again, Ubuntu is based on Debian, and Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu. One could make a case that all Ubuntu users are also Debian users, too."

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