Since Linux supports these platforms, Debian decided that it should, too. Debian 2.0 shipped for i386 and m68k architectures. Debian 2.2 adds support for the powerpc and arm architectures. Information for developers or uses about the specific ports are available at the Debian Ports web pages . The sections main , contrib , and non-free are split into subsections to simplify the installation process and the maintainance of the archive.
Subsections simply exist to simplify the organization and browsing of available packages.
Please check the current Debian distribution to see which sections are available. There are two types of Debian packages, namely source and binary packages. If a package is developed specially for Debian and is not distributed outside of Debian, there is just one .tar.gz file which contains the sources of the program. In this case, the .diff.gz contains the changes made by the Debian maintainer. 5.6 Distribution directories The directory system described in the previous chapter is itself contained within distribution directories .