The Debian project has started testing the Debusine system, designed for creating individual repositories to distribute newer program versions, conduct preliminary package testing, or host additional packages not suitable for standard Debian repositories. Debusine is seen as a counterpart to Ubuntu’s PPA (Personal Package Archive) repositories, tailored for Debian. The project is led by Colin Watson (Colin Watson), who previously served on the technical committees of Debian and Ubuntu.
Debusine is expected to be beneficial to Debian developers for testing packages on actual systems before integrating changes into the main repository. This system allows developers to utilize Debusine to enable users affected by a package issue to test a fix beforehand. Additionally, Debusine can aid projects in distributing multiple software versions simultaneously or for those not yet meeting Debian’s package standards for the main repositories.
Debusine offers QA test functionalities upon package publication, with regression tracking tools planned for future development. Digital signature verification using repository-linked keys is available for package validation. Packages are built considering the current Debusine repository content and its corresponding Debian release. All repositories include an automatic snapshot creation system.
To test Debusine, the server debusine.debian.net has been established, with current package publication access limited to Debian developers and maintainers with a Salsa account. Packages can be published using the debusine-client and dput-ng tools. Debusine.debian.net accepts packages adhering to Debian licensing terms.