Debian 9 released

A highly anticipated moment for many Linux fans has arrived with the release of Debian 9. Code-named "Stretch", this stable release will be supported for the next 5 years. It's dedicated to the project's founder Ian Murdock, who passed away in December of 2015.

This marks one of the most significant Linux releases of 2017 given the many distributions based on Debian and the many more to come. The immensely popular Ubuntu and all its derivatives are first based on Debian. Likewise with distros like Live CD based Knoppix and popular security and penetration testing distro Kali Linux . Wikipedia's Debian family tree illustrates the vast network of derivatives.

Highlights of the release include MariaDB as the default MySQL variant, improved UEFI support, an important verification feature to help validate source packages, some built-in forensic tools, the modern branch of GnuPG and a new ‘dbg-sym’ repository to make it easier to get debug packages. Also, in a welcomed return from Mozilla core products, Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird are back, replacing the former branded versions Iceweasel and Icedove . The release also features a bunch of updated software packages from Apache HTTP Server and PHP to GIMP and much more.

Check out the full details here: https://www.debian.org/News/2017/20170617