Was released new Debian 10 “Buster” with new security features

The Debian project has released a new version of the Linux distribution called Debian 10 “Buster”.

As unlike other distributions, Debian is not developed by the company, but by the community members themselves and plays the role of a key OS for Ubuntu, each new release is an important event.

Debian developers prioritize stability instead of pursuing the latest technology. Although the latest version of the Linux kernel is currently 5.2, Debian 10 “Buster” uses version 4.19, released last October.

In addition, the distribution supports no more than a dozen architectures. These include: 64-bit Intel; 32-bit Intel; Motorola/IBM PowerPC; 64-bit IBM S/390 mainframe; 32-bit and 64-bit ARM and almost outdated 32-bit and 64-bit MIPS.

The new release received improved support for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) for x86 32-bit and 64-bit architectures and 64-bit ARM. Thanks to this, Debian can now work on most machines with activated Secure Boot.

Debian 10 “Buster” also received additional security features. For example, the AppArmor Framework for Mandatory Access Control (MAC), which limits the capabilities of programs, is now enabled by default. Many security-related system administrators prefer AppArmor to the more popular, but difficult, SELinux management.

In the new release, the vulnerable iptables firewall has been replaced by newer nftables. The reason for the replacement is a problem with iptables scalability and performance. The CUPS printing subsystem has also been updated. Thanks to a new model of printing that does not require drivers, the process of printing on many modern printers has become much easier.

Debian 10 “Buster” works with most popular Linux user environments, including Cinnamon 3.8, GNOME 3.30, KDE Plasma 5.14, LXDE 0.99.2, LXQt 0.14, MATE 1.20 and Xfce 4.12. By default, Debian uses GNOME.