Understanding Debian - The Universal Operating System

An infographic that visually explains the Debian project: its history, structure, release process, community, and ecosystem — from 1993 to the present.

About

"Infographics are visual representations of information. These charts are used where information needs to be explained in a more dynamic way, such as maps, journalism, technical manuals, educational or scientific purposes." — Wikipedia

This infographic was born from the difficulty the general public has in understanding Debian — its areas, numbers, and general operation. The motivation grew after seeing great infographic work from people like Fa Conti.

Current version: 3.0.1
Author: Claudio F Filho (filhocf)
Tool: Inkscape
License: CC BY-SA 4.0

What's Inside

The infographic covers 17 sections organized as horizontal layers with a central timeline (1993–2017):

• Header & identity
• Software versions comparison (stable, testing, unstable)
• Developers & packages evolution
• Distribution popularity ranking
• World map of developers
• Timeline of major events
• Unstable (SID), Testing, and Stable areas
• Stable releases with Toy Story codenames
• Supported architectures per release
• DFSG (Debian Free Software Guidelines)
• Release process flow
• Pure Blends & Derivatives
• Community (DebConfs, Mentors, Women, Live)
• "The Debian Way for Illumination" — how to get involved
• Metadata, credits & QR Code

Translations

Available languages: en, pt-br, es, de, ja, ru, ro, hu

The project uses PO files for internationalization. Translation contributions are welcome via Weblate or directly through PO files in the locale/ directory.

Project Structure

infographic_debian.svg     # Main SVG source (~9MB)
locale/
  template.pot             # PO template (77 translatable strings)
  en.po                    # English source strings
  pt_BR.po                 # Brazilian Portuguese translation
  strings.json             # Semantic ID mapping
scripts/
  extract-strings.py       # Extract strings from SVG → PO files
  build-svg.py             # Build translated SVG + PNG from PO files
pngs/                      # Exported PNGs (all versions/languages)
fonts/
  buka_puasa_bersama.otf   # Custom typeface used in the infographic
sdd/                       # Section Design Documents
CHANGELOG                  # Version history since v0.7

Building Translated Versions

Requirements: Python 3, Inkscape (CLI)

# Extract strings from SVG to PO files
python scripts/extract-strings.py

# Build a translated SVG + PNG
python scripts/build-svg.py

Contributing

• Translations: Edit or create PO files in locale/. Use template.pot as base.
• Content: Open an issue or pull request with suggestions.
• Design: The SVG source is editable with Inkscape.

Changelog

See CHANGELOG for the full version history (since v0.7).

License

This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International.