Debian releases are named after characters from Toy Story and are frequently referred to with the name rather than the version. This post is for my own quick reference for the version-to-name of each Debian release.
Debian version names
I’ve added the Toy Story character name into each row as well, because sometimes they’re not completely obvious. For example, even though I’ve seen all the movies, it took looking up the name behind "Squeeze" to know it was the alien toys who first appeared in Toy Story 2.
| Version | Code name | Release date | Toy Story character |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.1 | Buzz | 1996-06-17 | Buzz Lightyear |
| 1.2 | Rex | 1996-12-12 | Rex (the T-Rex) |
| 1.3 | Bo | 1997-06-05 | Bo Peep |
| 2.0 | Hamm | 1998-07-24 | Hamm (the pig) |
| 2.1 | Slink | 1999-03-09 | Slinky Dog |
| 2.2 | Potato | 2000-08-15 | Mr Potato Head |
| 3.0 | Woody | 2002-07-19 | Woody the cowboy |
| 3.1 | Sarge | 2005-06-06 | Sarge from the Bucket O’ Soldiers |
| 4.0 | Etch | 2007-04-08 | Etch, the Etch-A-Sketch |
| 5.0 | Lenny | 2009-02-14 | Lenny, the binoculars |
| 6.0 | Squeeze | 2011-02-06 | Squeeze toy aliens |
| 7 | Wheezy | 2013-05-04 | Wheezy the penguin |
| 8 | Jessie | 2015-04-26 | Jessie the cowgirl |
| 9 | Stretch | 2017-06-17 | Rubber octopus from Toy Story 3 |
| 10 | Buster | not yet released | Andy’s pet dog |
| 11 | Bullseye | Not yet released | Woody’s horse |
| Sid | "unstable" | The next door neighbour |
Debian always has at least three releases in active maintenance: stable (currently Stretch), testing (currently Buster) and unstable, which is permanently named Sid after the boy next door in Toy Story 1 who liked to destroy toys.
Bulk of the development work is uploaded to the “Sid” distribution. This distribution will never get released. instead, packages from it will propagate into testing and then into a real release.