Debian, remaining true to its initial principles, has had so much success that, today, it has reached a tremendous size. The 12 architectures offered cover 10 hardware architectures and 2 kernels (Linux and FreeBSD, although the FreeBSD-based ports are not part of the set of officially supported architectures). Furthermore, with more than 25,000 source packages, the available software can meet almost any need that one could have, whether at home or in the enterprise.
The sheer size of the distribution can be inconvenient: it is really unreasonable to distribute 14 DVD-ROMs to install a complete version on a standard PC… This is why Debian is increasingly considered as a “meta-distribution”, from which one extracts more specific distributions intended for a particular public: Debian-Desktop for traditional office use, Debian-Edu for education and pedagogical use in an academic environment, Debian-Med for medical applications, Debian-Junior for young children, etc. A more complete list of the subprojects can be found in the section dedicated to that purpose, see
節 1.3.3.1, “Debian 現有的子計畫”.
這些 Debian 的分門觀係根據定義完善的框架整理而來，因此能保證這些「次散佈版」間沒有煩人的相容性問題。它們皆遵循通用的版本發行規劃。也因為基礎相同，它們皆能利用 Debian 軟體庫中收錄的應用程式輕鬆擴充、補全、與客製化。
所有的 Debian 工具以此方式運作：debian-cd 運作多時由一組 CD-ROMs 納入預選的套件；debian-installer 也是模組化安裝器，容易改裝符合特定需要。APT 從其他來源安裝套件，保證彼此的一致性。
Debian 遵守自由軟體的原則，準備妥當才釋出新版本。沒有釋出新版本的固定期限。很多人抱怨 Debian 穩定版的間隔太長，但此現象確保 Debian 的穩定性：長期的測試是 '穩定' 標籤的保證。
Debian 不向品質妥協：新版之前必須解決嚴重的錯誤，即使被迫延後釋出日期。
就法而言，Debian 是美國非營利、志願組織的一個計畫。此計畫由數千名 Debian 發展者 組成，再加上其他貢獻者 (譯者、錯誤報告者、藝術者、插花的發展者等)。
為了完成其作業，Debian 還有大型的基礎架構，包括由多個贊助者支持的，連結在網際網路的伺服器。
