2.4. Sections

The packages in the archive areas main, contrib and non-free are grouped further into sections to simplify handling.

The archive area and section for each package should be specified in the package’s Section control record (see Section). However, the maintainer of the Debian archive may override this selection to ensure the consistency of the Debian distribution. The Section field should be of the form:

• section if the package is in the main archive area,

• area/section if the package is in the contrib or non-free archive areas.

The Debian archive maintainers provide the authoritative list of sections. At present, they are: admin, cli-mono, comm, database, debug, devel, doc, editors, education, electronics, embedded, fonts, games, gnome, gnu-r, gnustep, graphics, hamradio, haskell, httpd, interpreters, introspection, java, javascript, kde, kernel, libdevel, libs, lisp, localization, mail, math, metapackages, misc, net, news, ocaml, oldlibs, otherosfs, perl, php, python, ruby, rust, science, shells, sound, tasks, tex, text, utils, vcs, video, web, x11, xfce, zope. The additional section debian-installer contains special packages used by the installer and is not used for normal Debian packages.

For more information about the sections and their definitions, see the list of sections in unstable.