Over two months after its previous 12.9 release, the Debian Project rolled out the tenth update of its stable 12 “Bookworm” series, primarily focusing on improving security and addressing bugs across various packages.
If you’ve been keeping your system updated through security.debian.org, there’s not much to do with this release—most of the fixes were already included in earlier updates. 12.10 just brings them together in one place. However, if you’re doing a fresh install, this is the version to download and set up.
Powered by Linux kernel 6.1 LTS, Debian 12.10 fixes various issues in the distro’s stable branch. Among the notable ones are enhancements to glibc, the Linux kernel, curl, 389-ds-base, and dcmtk, all of which address potential exploits that could compromise system stability or data integrity.
Moreover, a host of widely used packages now include fixes to critical or high-impact flaws. For instance, MariaDB addresses both security and stability concerns, while Python-Django patches multiple vulnerabilities, including denial-of-service and SQL injection issues.
In Nginx, the possible bypass of client certificate authentication has been fixed, and Wget received a fix for mishandling semicolons in user info in URLs.
It’s also worth mentioning that the Vim editor received several bug fixes to guard against buffer overflows and other memory-related problems. OpenSSH addresses issues linked to authentication processes and network security, and Redis gets a patch that stops potential misconfigurations or attacks that might compromise in-memory data and hamper performance.
On the desktop software side, LibreOffice receives multiple security fixes, thwarting potential memory corruption exploits that could jeopardize important documents. Thunderbird users benefit from newly patched vulnerabilities, which prevent unauthorized access or data leaks, and Firefox ESR includes patches that mitigate potential vulnerabilities that could cause crashes or enable malicious exploits.
Lastly, a few packages, such as kanboard and libnet-easytcp-perl, have been removed due to ongoing security or maintenance issues. In parallel, the Debian Installer has been updated to encompass all the relevant fixes for this revision, so fresh deployments of Debian 12.10 should go smoothly.
Once again, Debian 12.10 doesn’t add any new features to the “Bookworm” release—it’s all about fixing bugs and addressing security issues in certain packages. So, if you’re already using it, simply run the command below to update your system to the latest stable version.
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgradeThe release announcement provides in-depth information on all changes. A comprehensive list of all packages that have received updates is available here.
The main Debian 12.10 netinst image is now available for download from here. It offers a base system that is perfect for servers or users who prefer to customize the installation to suit their needs. It supports nine architectures: amd64, arm64, armel, armhf, i386, mips64el, mipsel, ppc64el, and s390x.
For a more ready-to-use experience, the new release also provides Live images featuring pre-installed desktop environments like GNOME, KDE, LXDE, Xfce, Cinnamon, and MATE. Please note that they are available only for amd64 architecture.
Lastly, consider enabling automatic security updates to receive future patches without delay if you haven’t already done so. If you’re unsure how to do it, our guide will have you up and running quickly.
