Brief: This article discusses the new features in Debian 9 codenamed Stretch.

Debian 9 Stretch has been released two years after the last major release Debian 8 codenamed Jessie. Before we see Debian 9 features, let me add an anecdote about those funny sounding code names.

Logic behind Debian codenames

Did you know that Debian codenames are based on the characters in the animated movie series Toy Story? This is the reason why you see codenames like Buzz, Woody, Jessie etc. All of these are Toy Story characters. Debian 9 release has been named after the Octopus toy Stretch.

You can read this article to learn the logic behind the codenames of other Linux distributions. Now that you learned some fun facts, let’s see what are the new features in Debian 9.

New Features in Debian 9 Stretch

Main highlights of the Debian 9 release are:

Support for 32-bit PCs with i586 architecture has been dropped

Linux Kernel 4.9 LTS series

Set of new digital forensic tools

PHP 7.0 will be the default

GCC 6 will be the default compiler

Python 3.5 will default

MariaDB to replace MySQL

X.Org Server 1.19.2

systemd 232

You can find more on the changes in Debian 9 here.

For more details and download links, visit the official web page of Debian 9:

Debian 9 Stretch

systemd is a touchy topic here. Though most big distributions such as Debian, Arch, Ubuntu etc moved to systemd, it prompted some developers to work on projects to retain init.

And thus we see the first stable release of Devuan Linux last week. Devuan is a systemd-free fork of Debian 8. So, now you have a choice between Debian and a systemd-free Debian version.

Back to Debian 9. Did you like Debian 9 features? Do you have a plan to upgrade to the latest version or will you hold it for some time?