I’m aware of Debian’s reputation for not having the most up-to-date software in its repository but have just noticed that Thunderbird is on its current version. Which makes me ask:
When does Debian update a package? And how does it decide when to?
I’m particularly interested in when it will make available the upcoming major release of GIMP to 3.0.
Some software is so complex and difficult that Debian does not maintain it on their own, and instead follows the upstream release cycle.
Browsers are one such example, and as you’ve discovered for me, Thunderbird is probably another.
Also, please do not recommend testing for daily usage. It does not receive critical security updates in a timely manner, including for things that would effect desktop users. Use stable, Sid, or another distro. Testing is for testing Debian ONLY, and by using Debian Testing, you are losing the advantage of immediate security fixes that come from literally any other distro.
When does Debian update a package? And how does it decide when to?
These both can be answered in depth at Debian’s releases page, but the short answer is:
Debian developers work in a repo called “unstable” or “sid,” and you can get those packages if you so desire. They will be the most up to date, but also the most likely to introduce breaking changes.
When the devs decide these packages are “stable enough,” (breaking changes are highly unlikely) they get moved into “testing” (the release candidate repo) where users can do QA for the community. Testing is the repo for the next version of debian.
When the release cycle hits the ~1.5 year mark, debian maintainers introduce a series of incremental “freezes,” whereby new versions of packages will slowly stop being accepted into the testing repo. You can see a table that explains each freeze milestone for Trixie (Debian 13) here.
After all the freezes have gone into effect, Debian migrates the current Testing version (currently Trixie, Debian 13) into the new Stable, and downgrades the current stable version to old-stable. Then the cycle begins again
As for upgrades to packages in the stable/old-stable repos: see the other comments here. The gist is that they will not accept any changes other than security patches and minor bug fixes, except for business critical software that cannot just be patched (e.g. firefox).
I’m aware of Debian’s reputation for not having the most up-to-date software in its repository
Yes, it’s a stable distro. Contrary to what most Linux users think, that term only means that the distro is unchanging. That means only necessary updates are released (security fixes for example).
when it will make available the upcoming major release of GIMP to 3.0.
Maybe in the next version, if the gimp release happens soon enough it gets tested.
Just use an external package manager like flatpak to install fresh packages. The only reason I could run MX (Debian) for about a year was because I installed almost every user package through nix, and used Debian ones for the system packages.
The rule is that apps are only updated for security reasons. Not because of new features.
So, new versions of apps may (or may not) be added to the next version of Debian.
Wow. I hate that. It’s positively terrible but it explains so much. And worst of all, I am in far too deep to switch distros at this point.
Wow. I hate that.
Well, it’s not like Debian hides it in any way or form. Quite the contrary.
It’s positively terrible but it explains so much.
Depends what you’re looking for in your distro. I love that stability and lack of updates outside of security issues.
And worst of all, I am in far too deep to switch distros at this point.
May I ask why you don’t think you can change distro? It’s just a matter of installing Linux (which takes a few minutes) and, if it’s not done already, of backing up your personal files and settings (most of them probably in your home folder, already).
The amount of changes I’ve made and things I’ve installed. If I move to another distro, it’s gonna be at least a week before I have everything back up to where I want it.
I understand. Maybe two things to consider:
- It will depends how you installed your apps, but I have file containing a fe useful instruction in case I need to reinstall my system, one of them is just a ‘sudo apt install followed by the name of every single app I want to use’. I only need to copy and paste in a next terminal window to gat all my apps installed. All except the few that I don’t install using apt, say the few appimages I also use. For me it means three more apps, so it’s no big deal to download them by hand ;)
- Most user settings and configuration should be stored somewhere in you home folder (for example, I know there many settings stored in the .config folders, others (related to the system and the DE you’re using maybe stored somewhere in .local, all my custom fonts are stored in ./fonts, and so on. I’m sorry, I’m no expert so I’m not very precise). All of that to say: by baking up your home, you probably also are backing up a lot of your configuration and tweaks.
I have no idea how those settings are portable between two completely different distros, but I have once reinstalled my system and got most of my settings instantly back just by copying my home folder over to that fresh install. That plus the single line ‘sudo apt list-of-all-my-apps’ I was almost completely operational in mere minutes, including all my customer menus, panels, text size, themes,… The one thing I remember not working from that backup was my SSH keys. No idea why.
Why switch distros? Go to Sid if you want the latest and greatest? Or maybe testing if you want a bit of best of both worlds? :) I’m really curious why you think you need to change distro’s.
Gimp 3 is scheduled to be released in May, around the time that Debian 13 is about to come out. Given that Gimp is never on time, and that Debian will only include stable software in their repo, you won’t see Gimp 3.x on Debian for another 2.5 years (the next major release).
However, don’t fret. There’s a way to run Gimp 3, even now, without overwriting the 2.10.x version of Gimp that comes with Debian: https://github.com/ivan-hc/GIMP-appimage/releases That’s how I run gimp 3 on my Debian too, I just download the 3.0-rc1 .appimage file, make it executable, and it’s up and running.
Flatpack is one of the official ways to install the RC:
If you have Flatpack on your system, go to https://www.gimp.org/downloads/devel/ and click the GNU/Linux option, there will be a button to install it.
If the button doesn’t work, the page says:
Flatpak additional instructions
If the link above doesn’t open your software installer, install with following command:
flatpak install --user https://flathub.org/beta-repo/appstream/org.gimp.GIMP.flatpakrefRun with following command line:
flatpak run org.gimp.GIMP//betaTo update:
flatpak updateNote: If you installed both the stable and beta repositories, the desktop (menus, etc.) will see only one version at a time. To make sure your desktop sees the development version, run this command:
flatpak make-current --user org.gimp.GIMP betaOr respectively to restore the stable version as the visible GIMP application:
flatpak make-current --user org.gimp.GIMP stableYou may also create shortcuts running specifically one of the other version.
I don’t like flatpaks. Some builds don’t support printing, for example. Same for snaps. That’s why I always prefer appimage from these types of binaries, but my favorite always remains the repo versions.
it usually updates most packages when a new patch version is released (eg 2.3.1 -> 2.3.2). besides that, they will not update packages to new releases that add features
there are some special cases where it might choose to update more often. debian uses firefox esr by default, but it will update to a newer esr version no matter what, for security reasons. the same must be true for thunderbird.
You can always use APT Pinning to grab GIMP and its dependencies from
testingwithout touching the rest of the system.Or you can just run
testingorsidas your base system. My gaming rig is based ontestingbut pulling Mesa and video derivers fromexperimentalandsidand I haven’t had any issues with it. Been running it for about 2 years now this way.never run debian testing for production use
never run debian testing for production use
debian testing is not fit for production use
On servers, I agree. OP just wants a recent version of GIMP though. Production can mean many things, and dogmas are never the answer.
what i mean by production is “not randomly breaking because it’s feature freeze time and now i have to reinstall everything”. i assure you it’s not a high bar
sorry if i sound a little annoying about this, it’s just that i’ve seen so many people recommending debian testing as if it’s just a different flavor of debian for people who want a more up-to-date system and are willing to deal with a little instability, but it is not that. debian testing is made exclusively for testing debian. it is not made for daily driving. i’ve had so many issues with debian systems in my lab which i later found out were caused by someone “upgrading” the system to testing bc they heard debian testing is the daily driving version and debian stable is just for servers that need 99.9% uptime
honestly, you’d be better off using sid rather than testing, since it’s rolling release
as for gimp, they can just use pinning to upgrade gimp exclusively. they can also use backports. no need to upgrade the whole system
They get all the patches and minor upgrades in a timely fashion, similar to other distros. The major version updates do not come as readily though.
Minor upgrades don’t usually come to Debian at all, unless they are fixing some critical vulnerability or something, but that is usually patched over the previous version anyway.
/joke outside security patches? about every 2-3 years /joke
Why /joke when that’s how stable distros work?
GIMP 3.0 will come with the next Debian release.
When will that come out?
When it’s ready.
You can get a bit of an idea where in the release process we are by looking at this graph:
Where the green and blue lines dip close to zero, there was a new release.
Next release is probably planned for October 2025.Between releases, packages are only updated when it’s relevant for security or to fix bugs.
Thunderbird and Firefox are a bit of an exception. Those programs are so complex that backporting security fixes to the current Debian version isn’t feasible. So Debian is forced to ship the new version when security issues in the current version become known.
And they’re also not needed on servers, so the reduced stability doesn’t affect them.Approximately 100 years once or twice, depending on how urgent it is.
When they’re ready.
Some people will probably disagree with me but I consider Debian stable as a server distribution not as a daily drive system.
Debian testing is probably the better choice if you want to daily drive Debian or consider or more up to date distro. If you’re relatively new to GNU/Linux, don’t bother with bleeding edge distros or exotics ones like Arch, EndeavourOS, Gentoo, NixOS…
If you find your way to distrowatch.com you will see EndeavourOS very high in the rankings, but it’s a rolling release distribution. While it’s easier to maintain/install than Arch, it has a learning curve and needs regular attention and reading the docs/forum.
I have seen a lot of people recommend the following:
- Linux mint
- Pop! OS
- Fedora
- OpenSUSE
