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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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53 comments
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Izaic Aug 15, 2021
Too bad it's already running an ancient version of KDE Plasma.
Shmerl Aug 15, 2021
Quoting: IzaicToo bad it's already running an ancient version of KDE Plasma.

I'm using Debian testing with these repos and have Plasma 5.22.4 now:

deb https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/npreining:/debian-kde:/other-deps/Debian_Testing/ ./
deb https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/npreining:/debian-kde:/frameworks/Debian_Testing/ ./
deb https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/npreining:/debian-kde:/plasma522/Debian_Testing/ ./
deb https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/npreining:/debian-kde:/apps2104/Debian_Testing/ ./
deb https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/npreining:/debian-kde:/other/Debian_Testing/ ./


Norbert is packaging Plasma for Debian and provides newest version from this OBS repos. You can follow his updates here.


Last edited by Shmerl on 15 August 2021 at 6:37 pm UTC
slaapliedje Aug 15, 2021
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.. :)
slaapliedje Aug 15, 2021
Quoting: Shmerl
Quoting: IzaicToo bad it's already running an ancient version of KDE Plasma.

I'm using Debian testing with these repos and have Plasma 5.22.4 now:

deb https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/npreining:/debian-kde:/other-deps/Debian_Testing/ ./
deb https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/npreining:/debian-kde:/frameworks/Debian_Testing/ ./
deb https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/npreining:/debian-kde:/plasma522/Debian_Testing/ ./
deb https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/npreining:/debian-kde:/apps2104/Debian_Testing/ ./
deb https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/npreining:/debian-kde:/other/Debian_Testing/ ./


Norbert is packaging Plasma for Debian and provides newest version from this OBS repos. You can follow his updates here.
Wow, that dude has a lot of hate for Gnome 3! How stable is replacing KDE from an outside repo working out? I'm not really a KDE user, when I want to play with it on occasion I tend to install it in Arch though to play with the latest to see if they've fixed the things that bug me about it (and tend to use it for a day or two then go back to gnome).
Shmerl Aug 15, 2021
Quoting: slaapliedjeHow stable is replacing KDE from an outside repo working out?

I've been using his repos for KDE for a while on Debian testing and it works very well. He makes sure it's compatible with Debian repos, so newer version in main repo will supersede his if that ever happens.


Last edited by Shmerl on 15 August 2021 at 8:07 pm UTC
slaapliedje Aug 15, 2021
Quoting: Shmerl
Quoting: slaapliedjeHow stable is replacing KDE from an outside repo working out?

I've been using his repos for KDE for a while on Debian testing and it works very well. He makes sure it's compatible with Debian repos, so newer version in main repo will supersede his if that ever happens.

Ha, well the day that Bullseye releases, I've already had almost 80 packages updated on my desktop (Debian Sid). This one included.

Get:16 http://deb.debian.org/debian sid/main amd64 gnome-user-docs all 40.4-1 [6,568 kB]

So I'm betting within the next week or so, Sid will have both the new KDE and Gnome.
14 Aug 16, 2021
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I like seeing news of big changes to the popular distributions. Keep them coming!

I agree that I would not recommend Debian to a newbie Linux gamer. That doesn't mean more experienced individuals can't make it work for them. Also, Debian is a great server operating system, and some of us like hosting dedicated game servers, too. Not to mention it's really impactful in the Linux ecosystem. I'm starting to wonder why you _wouldn't_ want distro news. Larger PC gaming sites may not talk about Windows or Mac too much because a lot of gamers don't care what their OS is. It's different for us. We game on Linux for a _reason_, not just by default. So, I'll go out on a limb and say Linux gamers care more about their operating system than the typical Windows gamer.
Nanobang Aug 16, 2021
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I tried Deb 11 XFCE on my lappy just last week, as a matter of fact. I was enjoying it until it came time to install a proper Nvidia driver, and I balked. Eek! Back to Mint Uma --- le sigh.

PS Deb kidz: Is there no straightforward, reasonably simple way to manage Nvidia drivers?
dpanter Aug 16, 2021
Quoting: NanobangPS Deb kidz: Is there no straightforward, reasonably simple way to manage Nvidia drivers?
Other than using the distro provided nvidia-driver package? Well... if you want fresher versions, pulling from testing or sid is an option but that does require some fiddling.

Avoid PPA bullcrap and the Nvidia website driver. These can and likely will break your system.

Dumping Nvidia for good is another alternative I personally recommend, but the GPU market being what it is definitely doesn't make that easy.
slaapliedje Aug 16, 2021
Quoting: NanobangI tried Deb 11 XFCE on my lappy just last week, as a matter of fact. I was enjoying it until it came time to install a proper Nvidia driver, and I balked. Eek! Back to Mint Uma --- le sigh.

PS Deb kidz: Is there no straightforward, reasonably simple way to manage Nvidia drivers?
Add non-free and contrib to your apt sources line, apt update, apt install nvidia-drivers. Really pretty easy.

So usually there are a few weird things that catch you when you upgrade a debian box from stable to q new stable... I did my server yesterday and outside of mariadb-server package being removed... hostapd went nuts and wouldn't work. Tons of updates to that package, and weirdly to finally get it to work right qgain... I had to plug in a usb wifi I had laying around, force a scan on it... then the frequency for the PCIe one would finally scan... so annoying.

Of course trying to find one of the newer AX ones that support AP mode at 5ghz is going to be a pain...


Last edited by slaapliedje on 16 August 2021 at 2:33 pm UTC
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