What’s New in Debian 10 “Buster”: Features, Desktop Environments, and Package Updates

Release Overview

Debian 10 “Buster” was released after a 25‑month development cycle and provides five years of long‑term support.

Kernel and Security Features

Based on Linux kernel 4.19, Debian 10 adds UEFI Secure Boot support, enables the AppArmor security module by default, and includes automatic network printer management via cups-browsed.

Desktop Environments

GNOME uses Wayland as the default display server, while Xorg remains installed and can be selected at login. The distribution ships the following desktop environments:

Cinnamon 3.8

GNOME 3.30

KDE Plasma 5.14

LXDE 0.99.2

LXQt 0.14

MATE 1.20

Xfce 4.12

Software Package Highlights

Debian 10 contains nearly 59 000 binary packages, up from about 52 000 in the previous release. Notable development tools and runtimes include:

Apache 2.4

PostgreSQL 11

Go 1.11

OpenJDK 11

MariaDB 10.3

Python 3.7.2

Perl 5.28

PHP 7.3

Emacs 26.1

Vim 8.1

LibreOffice 6.1

Thunderbird 60

Chrome 73

Known Issues

Wayland works but some applications still have compatibility problems; users may need to switch to Xorg.

New user accounts are not added to the sudo group by default, and using su can alter the PATH.

GNOME on low‑resolution displays shows oversized icons and exhibits noticeable lag in the overview search.

Download

Official live images are available at:

https://www.debian.org/CD/live/