On the other hand, Debian has three different releases: Stable, Testing and Unstable. So basically, you have the option to choose between stability and new features based on these releases. You have to upgrade to the next Ubuntu versions when the current on reaches end of life. These releases are supported for nine months only, but they have newer software versions and features. There are also non-LTS releases, every six months. The LTS releases are considered more stable.

You have the option to upgrade to the next available LTS release. Ubuntu LTS (long term support) release comes out every two years and they get support for five years. Ubuntu has two kinds of releases: LTS and regular. It utilizes the Debian infrastructure as base. It means that Ubuntu uses the same APT packaging system as Debian and shares a huge number of packages and libraries from Debian repositories. Debian, Arch, Red Hat are some of the biggest distributions that do not derive from any other distribution. While there are hundreds of Linux distributions, only a handful of them are independent ones, created from scratch. Ubuntu is based on Debian: What does it mean? Ubuntu was created in 2004 by Mark Shuttleworth and it is based on Debian. Debian is the original distribution created by Ian Murdock in 1993. So, what’s the difference between the two, if they are so similar?ĭebian and Ubuntu belong to the same side of the distribution spectrum. Many times, you’ll find common package installation instructions for both distributions. You can install DEB packages in both distributions as well.

You can use apt-get commands for managing applications in both Debian and Ubuntu.

Debian packages