最近几年以来，Linux 变得越来越强大，其日益增长的名气使得越来越多的用户开始转而使用它。投奔 Linux 的第一步便是选择一个发行版本。这是一个重要的抉择，因为每种发行版本都有其自身的特殊性，如果一开始就做了正确的选择，那么便能避免未来的迁移成本。
Debian GNU/Linux 是一个“通用”的 Linux 发行版本，适合于大多数用户。本书的目的便是介绍它的各个方面，从而帮助你在面临选择时作出明智的决定。
Linux has gathered a fair amount of media coverage over the years and is immensely growing, driven for example by the spreading use of virtual servers, cloud and embedded systems, and the use of artificial intelligence; it mostly benefits the distributions supported by a real marketing department — in other words, company-backed distributions (Ubuntu, Red Hat, SUSE, and so on). But Debian is far from being a marginal distribution; multiple studies have shown over the years that it is widely used both on servers and on desktops. This is particularly true among web servers where Debian and Ubuntu are the leading Linux distributions.
The purpose of this book is to help you discover this distribution. We hope to share the experience that we have gathered since we joined the project as developers and contributors in 1998 (Raphaël), 2000 (Roland), and 2003 (Daniel). With any luck, our enthusiasm will be contagious, and maybe you will join us sometime…
The first edition of this book (in 2004) served to fill a gaping hole: it was the first French-language book that focused exclusively on Debian. At that time, many other books were written on the topic both for French-speaking and English-speaking readers. Unfortunately, almost none of them got updated, and over the years the situation slipped back to one where there were very few good books on Debian. We hope that this book, which has started a new life with its translation into English (and several translations from English into various other languages), will fill this gap and help many users.
