The long-awaited version of the Debian Linux operating system – Debian 12 was released today. The code name for Debian 12 is “Bookworm”. Just like the past releases of the Debian Linux operating system, Debian 12 comes with exciting new features and improvements.
In this article, we will talk about the new features of the Debian 12 Linux distribution.
Topic of Contents:
- Supported System Architectures of Debian 12
- New Package Archive for Non-Free Firmware
- Debian 12 Installation Images that Ship with Non-Free Firmware
- Ships with Linux Kernel 6.1 LTS
- Rust Programming Language Support
- Supports the Latest Intel Processors and Improved ARM Soc Support
- Improved Debian Installer
- Uses PipeWire Over PulseAudio
- New Desktop Environments
- Updated Productivity Applications
- Stability, Security Patches, and Bug Fixes
- Conclusion
- References
Supported System Architectures of Debian 12
The newly released Debian 12 Bookworm officially supports the following system architectures:
- i386: 32-bit PC
- amd64: 64-bit PC
- arm64: 64-bit ARM
- armel: ARM EABI
- armhf: ARMv7 (EABI hard-float ABI)
- mipsel: Little-endian MIPS
- mips64el: 64-bit little-endian MIPS
- ppc64el: 64-bit little-endian PowerPC
- s390x: IBM System Z
New Package Archive for Non-Free Firmware
The earlier versions of Debian had three package archives: main, contrib, and non-free.
Debian 12 “Bookworm” introduces a new package archive for non-free-firmware. The package archive for non-free-firmware contains all the non-free firmware components that your computer/server hardware needs to function. Most of the firmware packages are moved from the non-free package archive to the non-free-firmware package archive.
Debian 12 Installation Images that Ship with Non-Free Firmware
The earlier versions of Debian (i.e., Debian 11) did not include any non-free firmware by default. If you were to install the Debian 11 or the earlier versions in a computer/server that requires a non-free firmware for some hardware to function, you have to go through quite a bit of a hassle. There were no official Debian CD/DVD images that ships with those non-free firmware packages.
The Debian 12 CD/DVD images ship with non-free firmware by default. So, a computer/server that requires those can install the Debian 12 without any extra labor.
Ships with Linux Kernel 6.1 LTS
Debian 12 comes with Linux kernel 6.1 – an LTS version of the Linux kernel. Linux Kernel 6.1 brings some new features and hardware supports to Debian 12.
Rust Programming Language Support
Debian 12 can run the Rust programming language. If you haven’t heard of Rust, it’s a modern system programming language. It runs fast and provides memory safety without using a garbage collector.
To learn more about Rust, visit the official website of Rust.
Supports the Latest Intel Processors and Improved ARM Soc Support
Debian 12 supports the upcoming Intel Meteor Lake CPU architecture. Debian 12 also has improved support for ARM SoC chips.
Improved Debian Installer
The Debian 12 installer has been improved to support more hardware and graphics and does a better error handling.
Uses PipeWire Over PulseAudio
PipeWire is the newest audio and video framework for Linux systems. It replaces the traditional PulseAudio video and audio framework eventually on Linux. PipeWire offers improved media performance, lower latency, and support for new audio and video formats.
New Desktop Environments
Just like any other Debian release, Debian 12 also comes with newer versions of the most popular desktop environments.
- GNOME 43
- KDE Plasma 5.27
- LXDE 11
- LXQt 1.2.0
- MATE 1.26
- Xfce 4.18
Updated Productivity Applications
Debian 12, just like any other Debian releases, it comes with updated versions of all the productivity applications.
A few of the common ones are:
- LibreOffice 7.4.0
- GIMP 2.1.0
- Inkscape 1.3.2
- VLC 3.0.10
Stability, Security Patches, and Bug Fixes
Debian is one of the most stable Linux distributions out there. Debian 12 comes with the latest security patches and bug fixes as well.
Conclusion
We discussed the new features of the newly released version of the Debian operating system which is the Debian 12 code named Bookworm.
