CONTENTS

ii

3.5

Is Debian able to run my old libc5 programs?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

3.6

Can Debian be used to compile libc5 programs?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

3.7

How should I install a non Debian program?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

3.8

Why can't I compile programs that require libtermcap?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

3.9

Why can't I install AccelX?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

3.10 Why do my old XFree 2.1 Motif applications crash?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

4 Software available in the Debian system

13

4.1

What types of applications and development software are available for Debian

GNU/Linux?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

4.2

Who wrote all that software?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

4.3

How can I get a current list of programs that have been packaged for Debian?

. . 14

4.4

What is missing from Debian GNU/Linux?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

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?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

4.6

(How) Does Debian support Java?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

4.7

How can I check that I am using a Debian system, and what version is it?

. . . . 15

4.8

How does Debian support non English languages?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

4.9

What about the US export regulation limitations?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

4.10 Where is pine?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

4.11 Where is qmail/ezmlm/djbdns?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

5 The Debian FTP archives

19

5.1

What are all those directories at the Debian FTP archives?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

5.2

How many Debian distributions are there in the

dists

directory?

. . . . . . . . . 19

5.3

What are all those names like slink, potato, etc.?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

5.3.1

Which other codenames have been used in the past?

. . . . . . . . . . . . 20

5.3.2

Where do these codenames come from?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

5.4

What about  sid ?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

5.5

What does the stable directory contain?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

5.6

What does the testing directory contain?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

5.6.1

What about  testing ? How is it `frozen'?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

5.7

What does the unstable directory contain?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22