Ok it’s time for another distro review and I’m a bit overdue with this one but I’m a big fan of Debian and when I reviewed Etch (4.0) last year I declared that if I were to finally grow up and settle down with just one distro this would be the one.

The venerable Debian Linux distribution has experienced a significant new release with its latest update, dubbed Lenny. While Debian is still not the easiest Linux distro to install and use, Lenny makes significant leaps forward and remains one of the most powerful Linux options.

Newly appointed CTO of the Linux Foundation and kernel developer Ted Ts'o is appealing to the Debian project to adopt a more pragmatic attitude about its Linux distro. The provocation for his advice is the current controversy over Debian's next 5.0 "Lenny" release.

Debian is the best, most stable, and the biggest community distro! No doubt about it. I liked its latest, Lenny very much. But all the way from downloading it and installing was not a joyride.

This time around I tried the daddy of many desktops, Debian Lenny, and compared it with Mepis 8.0 on my notebook. I am pleased Debian has made itself easy to install and use. However, Warren has spelled magic onto Debain through his much tested Mepis.

It has been 22 months since developers started on the new version of Debian, code name Lenny. With most distros releasing every 6 months this is a distro with a different course. One of the things that separates Debian 5 Lenny from other distros is that it supports over 23,000 applications. That is 5 DVDs full of applications.

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve caught myself wondering why there are so many “easy-to-use” Debian-based distros. I used to think of Debian as the distro that was way up there, a long long way to go, in terms of user-friendlyness. I didn’t think that I was going to be able to use Debian. It just seemed to hard.

MEPIS LLC has released SimplyMEPIS 8.0, the community edition of MEPIS 8.0. SimplyMEPIS 8.0 utilizes a Debian Lenny stable foundation enhanced with a Long Term Support kernel, key package upgrades, and the MEPIS Assistant applications.

Mark Shuttleworth has offered to put more Canonical employees on to Debian at the expense of Ubuntu, in a potential compromise with angry Debian developers. The offer is designed to help Debian hit a proposed code freeze date for the next version of the Linux distro in December. Shuttleworth said the diversion would mean "we'll get less done" on Ubuntu, which is based on Debian.