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The Debian GNU/Linux FAQ
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<br>Chapter 4 - Software available in the Debian system
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<h2><a name="s-apps"></a>4.1 What types of applications and development software are available for Debian GNU/Linux?</h2>
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Like most Linux distributions, Debian GNU/Linux provides:
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the major GNU applications for software development, file manipulation, and
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text processing, including gcc, g++, make, texinfo, Emacs, the Bash shell and
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numerous upgraded Unix utilities,
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Perl, Python, Tcl/Tk and various related programs, modules and libraries for
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TeX (LaTeX) and Lyx, dvips, Ghostscript,
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the X Window System, which provides a networked graphical user interface for
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Linux, and countless X applications including GNOME and KDE as well as the GIMP
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GNU Image Manipulation Program,
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a full suite of networking applications, including servers for Internet
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protocols such as HTTP (WWW), FTP, NNTP (news), SMTP and POP (mail) and name
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server; relational databases like PostgreSQL, MySQL; also provided are web
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browsers including the various Mozilla producs,
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a complete set of office applications, including the OpenOffice.org
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productivity suite, Gnumeric and other spreadsheets, WYSIWYG editors,
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More than 18138 packages, ranging from news servers and readers to sound
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support, FAX programs, database and spreadsheet programs, image processing
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programs, communications, net, and mail utilities, Web servers, and even
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ham-radio programs are included in the distribution. Another 444 software
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suites are available as Debian packages, but are not formally part of Debian
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due to license restrictions.
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<h2><a name="s-softwareauthors"></a>4.2 Who wrote all that software?</h2>
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For each package the <em>authors</em> of the program(s) are credited in the
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file <samp>/usr/share/doc/PACKAGE/copyright</samp>, where PACKAGE is to be
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substituted with the package's name.
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<em>Maintainers</em> who package this software for the Debian GNU/Linux system
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are listed in the Debian control file (see <a
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href="ch-pkg_basics.en.html#s-controlfile">What is a Debian control file?,
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Section 6.4</a>) that comes with each package. The Debian changelog, in
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<samp>/usr/share/doc/PACKAGE/changelog.Debian.gz</samp>, mentions the people
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who've worked on the Debian packaging too.
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<h2><a name="s-pkglist"></a>4.3 How can I get a current list of programs that have been packaged for Debian?</h2>
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A complete list is available from any of the <code><a
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href="http://www.debian.org/distrib/ftplist">Debian mirrors</a></code>, in the
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file <samp>indices/Maintainers</samp>. That file includes the package names
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and the names and e-mails of their respective maintainers.
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The <code><a href="http://packages.debian.org/">WWW interface to the Debian
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packages</a></code> conveniently summarizes the packages in each of about
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twenty "sections" of the Debian archive.
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<h2><a name="s-missing"></a>4.4 What is missing from Debian GNU/Linux?</h2>
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A list of packages which are still needed to be packaged for Debian exists, the
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<code><a href="http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/">Work-Needing and Prospective
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Packages list</a></code>.
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For more details about adding the missing things, see <a
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href="ch-contributing.en.html#s-contrib">How can I become a Debian software
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developer?, Section 12.1</a>.
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<h2><a name="s-no-devs"></a>4.5 Why do I get "ld: cannot find -lfoo" messages when compiling programs? Why aren't there any libfoo.so files in Debian library packages?</h2>
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Debian Policy requires that such symbolic links (to libfoo.so.x.y.z or similar)
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are placed in separate, development packages. Those packages are usually named
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libfoo-dev or libfooX-dev (presuming the library package is named libfooX, and
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X is a whole number).
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<h2><a name="s-java"></a>4.6 (How) Does Debian support Java?</h2>
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Several <em>free</em> implementations of Java technology are available as
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Debian packages, providing both Java Development Kits as well as Runtime
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Environments. You can write, debug and run Java programs using Debian.
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Running a Java applet requires a web browser with the capability to recognize
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and execute them. Several web browsers available in Debian, such as Mozilla or
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Konqueror, support Java plug-ins that enable running Java applets within them.
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Please refer to the <code><a
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href="http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-java-faq/">Debian Java
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FAQ</a></code> for more information.
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<h2><a name="s-isitdebian"></a>4.7 How can I check that I am using a Debian system, and what version is it?</h2>
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In order to make sure that your system has been installed from the real Debian
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base disks check for the existence of <samp>/etc/debian_version</samp> file,
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which contains a single one-line entry giving the version number of the
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release, as defined by the package <samp>base-files</samp>.
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The existence of the program <samp>dpkg</samp> shows that you should be able to
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install Debian packages on your system, but as the program has been ported to
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many other operating systems and architectures, this is no longer a reliable
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method of determining is a system Debian GNU/Linux.
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Users should be aware, however, that the Debian system consists of many parts,
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each of which can be updated (almost) independently. Each Debian
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"release" contains well defined and unchanging contents. Updates are
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separately available. For a one-line description of the installation status of
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package <samp>foo</samp>, use the command <samp>dpkg --list foo</samp>. To
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view versions of all installed packages, run:
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For a more verbose description, use:
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<h2><a name="s-nonenglish"></a>4.8 How does Debian support non-English languages?</h2>
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Debian GNU/Linux is distributed with keymaps for nearly two dozen keyboards,
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and with utilities (in the <samp>kbd</samp> package) to install, view, and
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The installation prompts the user to specify the keyboard he will use.
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Vast majority of the software we packaged supports entering non-US-ASCII
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characters used in other Latin languages (e.g. ISO-8859-1 or ISO-8859-2), and
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a number of programs support multi-byte languages such as Japanese or Chinese.
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Currently, support for German-, Spanish-, Finnish-, French-, Hungarian-,
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Italian-, Japanese-, Korean- and Polish-language manual pages is provided
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through the <samp>manpages-LANG</samp> packages (where LANG is the two-letter
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ISO country code). To access an NLS manual page, the user must set the shell
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LC_MESSAGES variable to the appropriate string.
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For example, in the case of the Italian-language manual pages, LC_MESSAGES
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needs to be set to 'italian'. The <code>man</code> program will then search
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for Italian manual pages under <samp>/usr/share/man/it/</samp>.
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<h2><a name="s-usexports"></a>4.9 What about the US export regulation limitations?</h2>
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US laws placed restrictions on the export of defense articles, which includes
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some types of cryptographic software. PGP and ssh, among others, fall into
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this category. For the <em>sarge</em> release packages in this archive were
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moved to the main archive (or to <em>non-free</em>, if applicable) due to the
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US relaxing its regulations on the export of cryptography.
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To prevent anyone from taking unnecessary legal risks, certain Debian GNU/Linux
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packages were only available from a non-US site <code><a
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href="ftp://non-US.debian.org/debian-non-US/">ftp://non-US.debian.org/debian-non-US/</a></code>,
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with numerous mirror sites all of which are also outside of the US, see
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href="ftp://non-US.debian.org/debian-non-US/README.non-US">ftp://non-US.debian.org/debian-non-US/README.non-US</a></code>
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for a full list. These sites still exist (for the benefit of users of
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<em>woody</em>) but its contents are no longer supported and are considered
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obsolete. Please remove any mentions to non-US from your sources in your
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<code>/etc/apt/sources.list</code> configuration file.
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<h2><a name="s-pine"></a>4.10 Where is pine?</h2>
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Due to its restrictive license, it's in the non-free area. Moreover, since
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license does not even allow modified binaries to be distributed, you have to
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compile it yourself from the source and the Debian patches.
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The source package name is <code>pine</code>. You can use the
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<code>pine-tracker</code> package to be notified about when you need to
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Note that there are many replacements for both pine and pico, such as
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<code>mutt</code> and <code>nano</code>, that are located in the main section.
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<h2><a name="s-qmail"></a>4.11 Where is qmail/ezmlm/djbdns?</h2>
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Dan J. Bernstein distributes <code><a href="http://cr.yp.to/software.html">all
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software he has written</a></code> with a restrictive license, consequently,
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it's in the non-free area. Since the license he uses does not allow modified
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binaries to be distributed, you have to compile it yourself from the source and
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the Debian patches to obtain a binary package you can install in your Debian
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The source package names are <code>qmail-src</code>, <code>ezmlm-src</code> and
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<code>djbdns-installer</code>, respectively.
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For <code>qmail</code> you need to install <code>qmail-src</code> first and
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then run <code>build-qmail</code> to build the Debian package. You also need
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to do install the <code>ucspi-tcp-src</code> package to get ucspi-tcp, which
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<code>qmail</code> depends on.
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Dan J. Bernstein maintains a <code><a
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href="http://cr.yp.to/distributors.html">FAQ from distributors</a></code> page
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if you are interested in reading his reasons (one of which is <code><a
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href="http://cr.yp.to/compatibility.html">Cross-platform
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compatibility</a></code>)
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[ <a href="ch-customizing.en.html">10</a> ]
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The Debian GNU/Linux FAQ
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version 3.1.5, 17 January 2007<br>
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Authors are listed at <a href="ch-faqinfo.en.html#s-authors">Debian FAQ Authors</a><br>
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