Debian has etched its name with indelible ink in history, consistently offering its global user base a rock-solid, secure, and reliable OS.
Its robust collective of developers has once again turned the page to a new chapter, announcing the general availability of 11.8 in the “Bullseye” and 12.2 in the “Bookworm” series, both emerging as bugfix releases.
Debian 11.8 is the eighth update to the “Bullseye” branch, which, after the release of the current stable Debian 12 “Bookworm” in June, is now labeled with “oldstable” status. In other words, it is a codename for the previous Debian stable repository as long as security updates are provided.
Powered by Linux kernel 5.10, Debian 11.8 brings 94 bug fixes and 115 security updates to continue the oldstable 11.x series, initially introduced in August 2021.
At the same time, the new Debian 12.2, the second minor upgrade in the stable “Bookworm” branch, has received 117 bug fixes and 52 security updates. Still powered by Linux kernel 6.1 LTS, it is the recommended release to use whether you rely on Debian as a server or desktop operating system.
Please note that these two new releases do not contain new versions of Debian 11 and 12 but only update some of the packages included. In this regard, executing the below commands will update your system to the latest stable version of the respective branch.
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgradeOnce the upgrade completes, reboot and check the version.
In addition, the “unattended-upgrades” package can be configured to perform unattended upgrades to install updated packages and/or security updates automatically.
Need to learn how to use it? Don’t worry; we’ve got you covered. Our comprehensive “How to Set Up Automatic Updates on Debian” guide explains everything you need to know about this topic.
Finally, if you’re still betting on Bullseye but want to switch to the currently stable Bookworm, here’s how to do it.
A complete list of all changes to the two new releases can be found for Debian 11.8 here and for Debian 12.2 here.
