The Debian Project, has declared the release and widespread availability of Debian 12.1, marking the first ISO update to the current Debian GNU/Linux 12 “Bookworm” operating system series.
Arriving six weeks post the launch of the Debian GNU/Linux 12 “Bookworm”, Debian 12.1 aims to facilitate new hardware users with the latest installation media, mitigating the need to download countless updates from the repositories post-installation.
Accordingly, Debian 12.1 encompasses all the security updates and software patches released since June 10, 2023, for the Debian GNU/Linux 12 “Bookworm” operating system series. Numerically, this recent ISO release incorporates an array of bug fixes addressing 89 packages along with 26 crucial security updates.
For an in-depth understanding of these bug and security fixes, interested readers can visit the release announcement page. The ISO images are now ready for download from the official website. However, the Debian Project reiterates that this initial Debian 12 point release does not imply a new iteration of the Bookworm series.
As expected, the Debian 12.1 installation images are compatible with a wide range of hardware architectures, including 64-bit (amd64), 32-bit (i386), PowerPC 64-bit Little Endian (ppc64el), IBM System z (s390x), MIPS 64-bit Little Endian (mips64el), MIPS 32-bit Little Endian (mipsel), MIPS, Armel, ARMhf, and AArch64 (arm64).
In addition to the above, Debian 12.1 live images are available featuring pre-installed KDE Plasma, GNOME, Xfce, LXQt, LXDE, Cinnamon, and MATE desktop environments. However, these are exclusively available for 64-bit systems. For those preferring network installation, a NetInstall image has also been made available for download.
As a standard practice, the Debian Project recommends existing Debian GNU/Linux 12 “Bookworm” users to maintain their installations up-to-date to ensure the receipt of the latest security and bug fixes. This can be achieved by executing the sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade commands in a terminal emulator or virtual console.