this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2026
42 points (95.7% liked)
Linux
63955 readers
1163 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Just to clarify what others are saying: the 'software store' (Discover in your case) is just the graphical application that you use to manage the software installed on your computer. The repositories, aka 'repos' are the sources of that software. There are people whose job it is to vet the software in those repositories and make sure that it's safe. Flatpak is a packaging format. The biggest repository (and what you likely have enabled) for flatpaks is Flathub. If you're installing software from the Debian repo and Flathub you should be fine. You should be able to verify which repositories are enabled via the Discover app. You have the freedom to add other repositories too, but it will be your own responsibility to evaluate whether those sources are trustworthy if you do.
Long story short, if you just use Debian as it is, you are fine.
Thanks for joining the conversation and help make things clear. This does help; so, basically, not having manually enabled anything else than Flathub/Flatpaks on Discover, and having Debian's repository already, I am fine as long as I install programmes from either of those two.
I would say you are more than likely fine, malicious code does occasionally sneak into Debian distributed apps but you'll likely never encounter something that is outright fraudulent or a scam.
Do you have an example of this? The xz utils backdoor did not make it into debian stable, only unstable.
Debian stable essentially forks every package, maintaining a custom codebase. They then cherry pick security updates only (ignoring feature updates or minor bugfixes), and applying those. This makes it extraordinarily resilient to any form of supply chain attack.
I probably should have said "may/could" sneak in, I forgot the xz incident didn't quite make it to Debian (but would have had it not been caught)