{"id":179081,"date":"2025-07-24T18:41:01","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T18:41:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linuxiac.com\/?p=179081"},"modified":"2025-07-24T19:52:17","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T19:52:17","slug":"debian-plans-long-awaited-wiki-modernization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/linuxiac.com\/debian-plans-long-awaited-wiki-modernization\/","title":{"rendered":"Debian Plans Long-Awaited Wiki Modernization"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It’s no exaggeration to say that Debian\u2014arguably the most respected Linux distribution out there\u2014is also one of the most poorly represented online. Just look at the official website<\/a>. It feels like stepping back 20+ years in time, and navigating it is a real challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same applies to another major aspect of the distribution: its Wiki<\/a>. Calling it outdated, clunky to navigate, and way behind modern web standards is, honestly, putting it mildly. But the good news is\u2014that\u2019s all about to change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Members of the Debian project have launched an ambitious new initiative: to rebuild the Debian Wiki from the ground up using a whole new solution\u2014MediaWiki,<\/a> a modern, free, and open-source platform for collaboration and documentation that\u2019s widely used across today\u2019s web.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s the problem with the current solution? While there\u2019s no official explanation yet for why a change is being considered, it\u2019s not too hard to guess. The platform in use is the Python\u2011based MoinMoin<\/a>\u2014decent for its time, but by today\u2019s standards, it\u2019s showing its age, falling short in terms of modern web expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, MoinMoin (with its long-standing 1.9.x line, the last stable version being 1.9.11 from November 2020) still runs on Python 2, which has been phased out almost everywhere. Yes, MoinMoin 2 is in development and aims to introduce Python 3 support, but progress has been slow. And honestly, the project just hasn\u2019t kept pace with the modern web landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Debian has already taken its first steps toward switching to MediaWiki\u2014the new platform is now up and running, and it can be checked out at wiki2025.debian.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/a>
The new, still-in-progress Debian Wiki.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Before you get too excited, let\u2019s dial it back a bit\u2014there\u2019s really nothing to see just yet. Currently, it\u2019s just a plain MediaWiki installation, and not even the logo has been swapped out for Debian\u2019s. But the important thing is that the first step has been taken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, there is still tons of work ahead. Rebranding and design are just the tip of the iceberg. The entire Debian Wiki, an extensive collection of content, needs to be migrated and updated as needed. That\u2019s going to take a lot of time and coordination across the Debian team. So, realistically, we shouldn\u2019t expect anything close to production-ready anytime soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, if you’re interested in the effort to move the Debian Wiki over to MediaWiki, there’s now a brand-new mailing list just for that\u2014debian-wiki<\/a>. It’s the place to follow along with the discussions and see how the project team plans to tackle this challenging transition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Debian Wiki is set to get a revamp as the project transitions to MediaWiki, leaving behind the aging MoinMoin platform.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":179090,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[31],"class_list":["post-179081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-os","category-news","tag-debian"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/linuxiac.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/linuxiac.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/linuxiac.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linuxiac.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linuxiac.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/linuxiac.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linuxiac.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/linuxiac.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linuxiac.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linuxiac.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}