Tijekom 2003, Nat Makarévitch je kontaktirao Raphaël jer je htio izdati knjigu o Debian-u u kolekciji Cahier de l'Admin (Admin's Handbook) knjiga, koje je obrađivao za Eyrolles, vodeće francuske izdavačke kuće za knjige tehničkog sadržaja. Raphaël je odmah sam prihvatio ponudu. Prvo izdanje je izašlo 14.10.2004, te je polučilo ogroman uspjeh - kompletno je rasprodano tijekom slijedeća 4 mjeseca.

Od tada izdali smo 7 drugih izdanja na francuskom jeziku, po jedno za svaku verziju Debian sustava ( osim za Debian 9 ). Roland, koji je počeo raditi na knjizi kao korektor, kasnije je postao njen ko-autor.

Svo vrijeme smo bili zadovoljni uspjehom knjige, no nadali smo se da će Eyrolles uspijeti nagovoriti međunarodnog izdavača da izda englesku verziju knjige. Primili smo mnogobrojne komentare da je knjiga pomogla korisnike da saznaju više o Debian-u, te smo htjeli da više ljudi sazna iste stvari na isti način.

Kontaktirali smo izdavača sa ne-engleskog govornog podrucja, koji je bio spreman preuzeti rizik prevođenja i objavljivanja knjige. Pregovarali smo sa našim francuskim izdavačem Eyrolles da dobijemo potrebna dopuštenja za prijevod knjige na engleski jezik te samostalnu objavu. Zahvaljujući kampanji prikupljanja sredstava radili smo na prijevodu između prosinca 2011 i maja 2012. Knjiga "Debian prirucnik za administratore" je ugledala svijetlo dana te je objavljena pod licencom slobodnog software-a!

While this was an important milestone, we already knew that the story would not be over for us until we could contribute the French book as an official translation of the English book. This was not possible at that time because the French book was still distributed commercially under a non-free license by Eyrolles.

In 2013, the release of Debian 7 gave us a good opportunity to discuss a new contract with Eyrolles. We convinced them that a license more in line with the Debian values would contribute to the book's success. That wasn't an easy deal to make, and we agreed to set up another crowdfunding campaign to cover some of the costs and reduce the risks involved. The operation was again a huge success and in July 2013, we added a French translation to the Debian Administrator's Handbook.

We would like to thank everybody who contributed to these fund-raising campaigns, either by pledging some money or by passing the word around. We couldn't have done it without you.

To save some paper, 5 years after the fund-raising campaigns and after two subsequent editions, we dropped the list of persons who opted to be rewarded with a mention of their name in the book. But their names are engraved in the acknowledgments of the Wheezy edition of the book:

This book would not be what it is without the contributions of several persons who each played an important role during the translation phase and beyond. We would like to thank Marilyne Brun, who helped us to translate the sample chapter and who worked with us to define some common translation rules. She also revised several chapters that were desperately in need of supplementary work. Thank you to Anthony Baldwin (of Baldwin Linguas) who translated several chapters for us.

Since Roland and I were too busy to update the book for Debian 11, we used the modest income that we get through donations and sales to hire contributors to do the bulk of the work. Thank you very much to Jorge Maldonado Ventura and Daniel Leidert for the hard work they put into this update.

Imali smo veliku pomoć od lektora: Daniel Phillips, Gerold Rupprecht, Gordon Dey, Jacob Owens, i Tom Syroid. Pregledali su mnoga poglavlja. Puno vam hvala!

Then, once the English version was liberated, of course, we got plenty of feedback and suggestions and fixes from the readers, and even more from the many teams who undertook to translate this book into other languages. Thanks!

Želimo se zahvaliti čitateljima francuske verzije knjige koji su nam potvrdili da je knjiga vrijedna prijevoda: hvala Christian Perrier, David Bercot, Étienne Liétart, i Gilles Roussi. Stefano Zacchiroli - koji je bio Debian voditelj projekta tijekom sakupljanja donacija - također zaslužuje veliko hvala, ljubazno je prihvatio projekt sa citatom objašnjavajući da su besplatne ( kao sloboda, slobodno ) knjige su nešto šta je potrebno.

Ako imate zadovoljstvo čitati ove retke na papiru, to znači da nam se morate pridružiti u zahvali Benoît Guillon, Jean-Côme Charpentier, i Sébastien Mengin koji su radili na dizajnu unutrašnjosti knjige. Benoît je upstream autor dblatex - alata koji smo koristili za konvertiranje DocBook u LaTex (te kasnije u PDF). Sébastien je dizajner koji je kreirao izgled knjige te Jean-Côme je LaTex stručnjak koji je implementirao stil za korištenje dblatex-a. Hvala vam dečki za sav naporan rad!

U konačnici, hvala ti Thierry Stempfel za lijepe slike na početku svakog poglavlja, i hvala ti Doru Patrascu za predivnu naslovnicu knjige.

Ever since the book has been freed, many volunteers have been busy translating it to numerous languages, such as Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Norwegian Bokmål, etc. Discover the full list of translations on the book's website: https://debian-handbook.info/get/#other

We would like to thank all the translators and translation reviewers. Your work is highly appreciated because it brings Debian into the hands of millions of persons who cannot read English.

First off, I would like to thank Nat Makarévitch, who offered me the possibility to write this book and who provided strong guidance during the year it took to get it done. Thank you also to the fine team at Eyrolles, and Muriel Shan Sei Fan in particular. She has been very patient with me, and I learned a lot with her.

The period of the Ulule campaigns were very demanding for me but I would like to thank everybody who helped to make them a success, and in particular the Ulule team who reacted very quickly to my many requests. Thank you also to everybody who promoted the operations. I don't have any exhaustive list (and if I had, it would probably be too long), but I would like to thank a few people who were in touch with me: Joey-Elijah Sneddon and Benjamin Humphrey of OMG! Ubuntu, Florent Zara of LinuxFr.org, Manu of Korben.info, Frédéric Couchet of April.org, Jake Edge of Linux Weekly News, Clement Lefebvre of Linux Mint, Ladislav Bodnar of Distrowatch, Steve Kemp of Debian-Administration.org, Christian Pfeiffer Jensen of Debian-News.net, Artem Nosulchik of LinuxScrew.com, Stephan Ramoin of Gandi.net, Matthew Bloch of Bytemark.co.uk, the team at Divergence FM, Rikki Kite of Linux New Media, Jono Bacon, the marketing team at Eyrolles, and numerous others that I have forgotten (sorry about that).

I would like to address a special thanks to Roland Mas, my co-author. We have been collaborating on this book since the start, and he has always been up to the challenge. And I must say that completing the Debian Administrator's Handbook has been a lot of work…

Posljednje, ali ne i najmanje važno, hvala mojoj supruzi, Sophie. Ona je jako podržavala moj rad na ovoj knjizi i Debian-u generalno. Bilo je dosta dana (i noći) kada sam ju ostavio samu sa naša 2 sina da bi radio na knjizi. Zahvalan sam na njenoj potpori i znam koliko sam sretan šta je imam.

Raphaël je već zahvalio većini mojih vanjskih suradnika kojima sam mislio osobno zahvaliti. Svejedno želim istaknuti svoju osobnu zahvalu dobrim ljudima u Eyrolles-u, sa kojima je suradnja oduvijek bila ugodna i glatka. Nadam se da njihovi odlični savjeti nisu izbgubljeni u prijevodu.

Vrlo sam zahvalan Raphaëlu što je preuzeo administrativni dio posla u ovom engleskom izdanju. Od organiziranja kampanje sakupljanja sredstava do zadnjeg detalja izgleda knjige, stvaranje knjige je puno više od pukog prevođenja i lektoriranja, i Raphaël je odradio sve to (ili delegirao i nadzirao).

Hvala svima koji su manje više direktno doprinijeli ovo knjizi, bilo pružajući pojašnjenja ili objašnjenja, ili dajući savjete o prijevodu. Puno ih je za spomenuti, ali većina njih se uobičajeno može naći na raznim #debian-* IRC kanalima.

Naravno postoji preklapanje sa prije spomenutim osobama, ali specijalno hvala se mora izreći za osobe koje se aktualno bave Debian-om. Ne bi bilo previše knjige bez njih, te sam i dalje zadivljen šta Debian projekt kao cjelina pruža i čini dostupnim.

Osobna zahvala je namijenjena mojim prijateljima i mojim klijentima, za njihovo razumijevanje kada nisam bio dostupan jer sam radio na knjizi, te na njihovoj stalnoj podršci i bodrenju. Znate koji ste; hvala.

I u konačnici; siguran sam da bi bili iznenađeni da su spomenuti ovdje, no želim se također zahvaliti Terry Pratchett, Jasper Fforde, Tom Holt, William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, i naravno pokojnom Douglas Adams. Nebrojeni sati koje sam proveo uživajući u njihovim knjigama su direktno odgovorni zašto sam se odlučio za prijevod prve te pisanje druge knjige.