Debian documentation for TurnKey GNU/Linux

Turnkey GNU/Linux software appliances are based very closely on Debian. Except for a few custom free software components, the base OS is assembled from unmodified Debian binaries straight from the official Debian repositories.

In other words, under the hood a TurnKey appliance is really just a Debian base optimized for a specific usage scenario by carefully pre-integrating a selection of Debian components, and sometimes third party software. As much as possible, we maintain Debian default configuration, however we do harden the security of a number of services. This provides users with a starting point that is closer to the desired end-result (I.e., compared with installing Debian from scratch).

One of the advantages this provides is that all the wealth of Debian documentation applies to TurnKey GNU/Linux too. This generally holds true for Ubuntu documentation as well, since Ubuntu is also a derivative of Debian. Please note though that Ubuntu is NOT binary compatible with Debian (TurnKey is). As such, as a general rule, installing additional software from Ubuntu PPAs is NOT recommended (the only exception is if the software provider explicitly notes that it is 100% compatible with Debian).

The main exception is that the custom TurnKey ISO install process (di-live) is a subset of the Debian installer, so Debian installation guides don't directly apply. Other builds (e.g. OVA, LXC, etc) are "pre-installed" so don't require initial "installation".

TurnKey version < - > Debian version matrix

Please check the table below to see which Debian version you should be comparing to. Please note that it is possible to do a Debian "in place" upgrade (i.e. upgrade from one Debian version to the next) to a TurnKey appliance, so it is possible for the TurnKey and Debian version to get out of sync. To be sure, please double check both the TurnKey version and Debian version of your appliance (see details below the table). Please note that 'x' denotes any minor version number.

Check versions

To check the TurnKey version:

turnkey-version

That will return a string in the format:

turnkey-APP_NAME-VERSION_NO-DEBIAN_CODENAME-ARCHITECTURE

For example; a v18.1 LAMP server running on a 64 bit x86 architecture (the most common PC architecture - also known as "amd64" or "x86-64") would return:

turnkey-lamp-18.1-bookworm-amd64

To specifically check Debian version - which by default will be consistant with the above:

lsb_release --all

E.g.:

No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:	Debian
Description:	Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)
Release:	12
Codename:	bookworm

Debian Documentation and Resources

• Debian documentation portal: http://www.debian.org/doc/
• Debian documentation wiki: http://wiki.debian.org/
• Debian licensing: http://www.debian.org/legal/licenses/