Two Major Debian Releases In One Day

AndyCater writes "If all goes according to plan, Debian should release both an update to Debian Sarge (3.1r6, henceforth to be oldstable) and a new stable release (Debian 4.0, which was codenamed Etch) — and announce the results of the election for Debian Project Leader — all within 12 hours. Sarge was updated late on April 7th UTC, Sam Hocevar was announced as DPL at about 00:30 UTC, and preparations for the release of Debian Etch are ongoing and look good for later on the 8th."

TWO! in one day?

[utexas delirium]

I don't know if the Universe can withstand that.

Re:TWO! in one day?

[cyphercell]

Hey if you were using FF 1.0 you'd be happy too.

Re:

[arivanov]

I had to check the calendar twice if it is not the 1st of April...

Re:TWO! in one day?

[Krunch]

Actually, the release was to be announced on April 1st but it has been delayed (again).
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2007 /03/msg00023.html [debian.org]

Re:TWO! in one day?

[marcosdumay]

Now Debian also delays april fools jokes?

Re:TWO! in one day?

[ajlitt]

If Duke Nukem Forever is announced as going gold on Monday, the Universe will suddenly cease to exist.

Re:TWO! in one day?

[martin-boundary]

If Duke Nukem Forever is announced as going gold on Monday, the Universe will suddenly cease to exist.

Oh no! How will we know?

Re:TWO! in one day?

[LiquidCoooled]

You will wake up with a massive hangover and a traffic cone in your bed.

Re:TWO! in one day?

[ajlitt]

It's not a good night unless you get a traffic cone!

Re:

[Gleng]

As long as it's not the Amiga OS 4 version, we should be OK.

Re:TWO! in one day?

[SeaFox]

I'm tagging this "pigsflying" which will group it with the story about Vista being released to manufacturing.

Re:

[martin-boundary]

I don't know if the Universe can withstand that.

It's ok, as long as they don't cross the releases. Oh, and everybody make sure to not think of anything!

Re:

[Loconut1389]

watching too much ghostbusters?

Careful the staypuffed penguin man might appear.

Re:TWO! in one day?

[pogson]

This is a Great Day!

Debian is one of the great old distros that just keeps getting better and not by adding frills. It is a large distro on many architectures supported by package managers from around the world. It is not hard to install as the reputation was. It is huge with many thousands of packages all smoothly (well, mostly ;-) integrated. I favour it for anyone migrating from that other OS, a new installation or on a large or small system.

One of the neat features of Debian Etch is the smooth set of packages for installing LTSP (See http://ltsp.org/ [ltsp.org] ). One can go into a school on the weekend, set up a server and support all the old equipment as thin clients whether they be iMacs, i386, i486, P-what-evers and manage hundreds of accounts by Monday.

I have been using Testing for a couple of months and there are few bugs. Nothing has prevented me from using it in production.

Congratulations, Debian.org!

Re:

[dalutong]

I don't know if universe can handle it either. I just hope they let the repos propagate before they make the announcement.

Re:TWO! in one day?

[matt me]

It's now 1700 UTC, and Debian Etch has officially been released. I've performed experiments and Planck's constant is constant. I think spacetime is safe from a resonance cascadAODF~@AFAL:VXCV SCV END CARRIER.

Re:

[Toby_Tyke]

I wonder what form the other three horsemen will take?

Sweet

[cyphercell]

Openoffice 2.0
firef.. er Iceweasel 2.0
php5
life is good again.

You have got to be fucking kidding me

[ZakuSage]

I literally spent the bulk of yesterday installing Sarge to a new server I set up. Son of a fucking bitch.

Re:

[jascat]

It's Debian. If you have stable in your sources.conf, you'll get upgraded next time you run apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade (once it is released).

Re:

[Respect_my_Authority]

It's better to read the release notes first -- these notes warn about some potential SargeToEtch upgrade problems and point out a safe upgrade path.

http://www.debian.org/releases/etch/releasenotes [debian.org]

Re:

[petermgreen]

It's Debian. If you have stable in your sources.conf, you'll get upgraded next time you run apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade (once it is released).
which is why admins with a clue don't put stable in thier sources.list (the installer used to do this but i belive it has been changed).

the reality is while the package managers get most stuff right there is nearly always some level of handholding involved in an upgrade from one stable release to the next (e.g. on sarge-etch it is easy to end up wit

Hmm... I can still see bugs in their tracker

[Cyberax]

I can still see 17 release-critical bugs in their bugtracker: http://bts.turmzimmer.net/details.php?bydist=etch [turmzimmer.net]

Have they decided to postpone their resolution until R2?

Re:

[cortana]

The bugs tagged with 'security' are probably not important enough to delay the release. They can be fixed at any time with an update from the security team. That leaves five [turmzimmer.net] bugs, none of which seem so important that they can't be fixed for 4.0r1.

release-critical bug is not what you think it is.

[Anonymous Coward]

They aren't bugs that will prevent the release of Etch.

They are bugs that threaten the package's inclusion in Etch.

Re:release-critical bug is not what you think it i

[Cyberax]

Well, there are bugs in QT4 which should be included in Etch and in imagemagick which is used in tons of projects.

Re:Hmm... I can still see bugs in their tracker

[Anonymous Coward]

Some explanations about how to count:

The official release-critical bug tracker[1] is still not updated to handle "versioned bug-reports". Meaning it counts _all_ open bug reports, while in reality the bug might be "closed" in the _version_ of the package in Etch but the entire bug in not closed (because it still effects Sarge and older?). So the official sources are a bit misleading.
A debian developer called "Sesse" has an updated tracker[2]. This one gives a bit better indication about the truth. Hopefully his code will be moved over to become the official version.
As also previously mentioned, Andreas "aba" Barth has his own bug tracking tool[3]. This gives a bit more information about each release-critical bug and has filtering capabilities.
All sources indicate that there are many "RC" bugs left, but using aba's tool[3] you can see that most open bug reports are security issues. Security issues will come up all the time. There is already infrastructure in place to provide security updates for the stable distribution, so there's no need to hold back the release because of these issues as they can be fixed at any time.
The few remaining issues are new bugs that has just recently surfaces and hasn't yet been analyzed. They might have a too high severity set, noone knows until they have been analyzed. This also doesn't give much reason to hold back the released, there will always be a few really new bugs that there hasn't been time to analyze yet.
All in all, having all bugs fixed looks promising, even if noone can promise that the CD-images are 100% bug-free.

[1] http://bugs.debian.org/release-critical/ [debian.org]
[2] http://people.debian.org/~sesse/bugscan/ [debian.org]
[3] http://bts.turmzimmer.net/details.php?bydist=etch [turmzimmer.net]

Regards,
fatal

Re:

[cortana]

That graph does not take into account the version-tracking info associated with each bug. Try http://people.debian.org/~sesse/bugscan/ [debian.org] instead. From that graph, you can see that etch has been less buggy than sarge for almost a month. :)

Re:

[Cyberax]

Lots of these bugs are just small one-liner fixes, but they require testing on all supported architectures.

Great News

[dracocat]

Seriously, this is very good news for us.

This means we can finally start buying new Dell Servers again, instead of relying on ebay to obtain servers that had hard disks compatible with the stable release of debian. For the past two years, Dell had been phasing in new Sata drivers that sarge just refused to work with, but that etch has had no problems with. Hurray! Any chance of an upgrade path so we don't have to support both sarge AND etch?

Re:

[Exter-C]

Actually you can always use these images which include a backported kernel. They work well http://kmuto.jp/debian/d-i/ [kmuto.jp] with opensource being opensource you can easily just make your own kernels and build it all up no problems.

Re:

[Lord Ender]

with opensource being opensource you can easily just make your own kernels and build it all up no problems.

Ahh, the words of a college kid with no real-world experience, I see. People with actual jobs require vendor support and patching, using the vendor's tools to do so. Deploying 20 servers with custom kernels, which will all need to be updated by manually compiling new kernels if bug is later found... well... that sounds like a disaster.

Re:

[cortana]

FYI, you could always have used etch's kernel 'backported' to sarge if you went to http://backports.org/ [backports.org]. Another option is Kenshi Muto's Backported d-i images archive [kmuto.jp] page.

These pages will probably continue to be useful once Etch's default kernel gets out of date; although they may not be necessary as I have heard rumours of plans to push out updated Linux kernel image packages from time to time, with point releases of Debian 4.0 (etch).

Re:

[marcosdumay]

And we'll also get FAI in stable, what is very good.

Re:

[cyphercell]

What if I went outside of the package tree? Should I uninstall those first or will they get wiped out by apt anyways?

Re:

[cortana]

It can't hurt to remove third-party packages before upgrading. You can always install them again after the upgrade. If you have a recent version of aptitude installed, you can run aptitude search '~S~i!~Odebian' to find out which these packages are. If you have the version that shipped with sarge, then comment out any third-party repositories from your sources.list, then run aptitude (which will get you to the interactive, text-mode user interface), and scroll down to 'obsolete & locally created package

Re:

[petermgreen]

that depends on the package,

if the third party packages install anything in /usr/X11R6 you should certainly remove them before upgrading (it should be safe to install them again afterwards)

otherwise they can probablly stay without causing any problems unless they are deeply integrated into the system or very badly packaged.

the tools will normally only remove packages if there is an explicit conflict or versioned dependency that makes them do it. of course if there is a more recent version of the same packag

Re:Great News

[pedestrian crossing]

Testing ran fine, but what do I do now? Do I have to do anything special to stay on Debian Etch, I mean 4.0? Or is such a thing not possible.

It depends on your /etc/apt/sources.list.

Each line will either end with the word "Etch" or "Testing".

If it ends with Etch, then you will stay with Etch (Stable).

If it ends with Testing, then you will start getting the new Testing packages.

Probably the best thing to do is to stay with Etch for a couple of months while the new Testing settles down, then dist-upgrade back to Testing.

Re:Great News

[pedestrian crossing]

The reason I suggested staying with Etch for a little while is that there is likely to be some breakage in Testing as the backlog of Unstable updates move into Testing. For newbies (like the GP), this can be disconcerting.

If it's only a couple of months, the dist-upgrade back to testing isn't likely to be too big of a deal. I think Testing is the sweet-spot for the desktop, so it makes sense to be there, but Testing can be a little unstable immediately after a release.

Re:

[micheas]

Funny,

I find that experimental/sid is in the sweet spot for my desktop.

But, then I remember having cron doing a cvs pull from mozilla.org and make followed by rebuilding galeon every morning just because that made my webbrowsing the least painful

Re:

[multi io]

The reason I suggested staying with Etch for a little while is that there is likely to be some breakage in Testing as the backlog of Unstable updates move into Testing.

I may be mistaken here, but isn't the old unstable (sid) the new unstable, not the new testing? I was under the impression that the previous testing (Etch) is just duplicated into stable and renamed to "Lenny" in the testing branch, and nothing happens to unstable (i.e. it's not like the old unstable is becoming the new testing or anythin

Re:

[pedestrian crossing]

I may be mistaken here, but isn't the old unstable (sid) the new unstable, not the new testing? I was under the impression that the previous testing (Etch) is just duplicated into stable and renamed to "Lenny" in the testing branch, and nothing happens to unstable (i.e. it's not like the old unstable is becoming the new testing or anything).

You are correct, Etch and Lenny start out as the same thing.

But since Etch has been frozen for so long, there is a backlog of updates waiting in the pipeline. As thos

Sam Hocevar won DPL elections

[timecop]

Sam Hocevar [zoy.org] won the Debian Project Leader election by 8 votes over Steve McIntyre

obligatory Simpsons quote

[Krunch]

I, for one, welcome our new DPL overlord.

Re:

[Sam H]

I admit, Bill Clinton is my pot dealer. Who is yours?

the devs must be observing passover : )

[plasmacutter]

western nations base their entire diet around bread, so passover takes a huge chunk out of nerd diets (i know first hand), so to compensate for the scarcity of kosher food, they must have guzzled more caffeinated beverages.. thus resulting in the warp speed rush to 4.0 ..

well that's at least my theory : D

Not a Debian dev, but

[sconeu]

Agree with the Pesach comment.

For you, plasmacutter, I have but two words: Matzah Brie, and lots of it!

Re:

[denttford]

Yeah. Why not guzzle caffeinated beverages? On Passover, Coke is real. [npr.org]

Look for the yellow cap, while they last.

List of Etch release parties

[Tyndareos]

If you would like to celebrate the release of Etch, check out if there's a party planned near you or throw one yourself :)
http://wiki.debian.org/ReleasePartyEtch [debian.org]

Foo Country

[itomato]

See you all in Foo City!

BYOFB! (Free Beer/Foo Beverage)

2010/01/01

Re:

[alienmole]

I live too far away in Bar Town, you insensitive clod!

The Wow Starts Now!

[Jazzer_Techie]

Cue the:
Two releases in one day! This is like a turtle suddenly accelerating to lightspeed. It should shut up the people who say the Debian cycle is slow! Good thing they've nearly caught up to Windows; only 2.0 more versions to go!

In all seriousness, this stable came out over a year more quickly than 3.0 -> 3.1. That's nice to see. I'm looking forward to giving it a whirl.

Re:

[Seumas]

over a year more quickly

Ouch. You hurt my brain, you bastard.

Back to normal?

[pavon]

I know that slashdotters like to dig on Debian for having slow releases, but sarge is the only one that took a ridiculously long amount of time to get out the door:

1.1 - 1.2: 6 months
1.2 - 1.3: 6 months
1.3 - 2.0: 13 months
2.0 - 2.1: 8 months
2.1 - 2.2: 17 months
2.2 - 3.0: 23 months
3.0 - 3.1: 35 months
3.1 - 4.0: 20 months

I think that 18 months is a reasonable amount of time between stable releases. If Debian can stick close to that in the future then I will be happy.

Kinda OT

[systems]

But I can't help but to think, life is changing

Distros are not a hot topic anymore
where are all the debate about the best distro
or the best desktop environment

the source based vs binary based

where is gentoo where is mandriva where is slackware

The distro arena kinda became dry, or it matured I dunno

Is it time to really standardize linux?

Re:

[xtracto]

where are all the debate about the best distro

It finished when user friendly distros based on Debian and with Apt became available...

In all seriousness I still remember (at the time of Red Hat Linux 8) that the "Debian" distributions was very criticised. Does anyone remember the "Lesbian Linux" parody?, and the Teletubbies parody of Mandrake (not that they have changed their style =oP)

Re:

[that this is not und]

I still think of it as 'Little Debian Snack Cakes.' If they wanted to do it right, the releases would have nicknames like 'Nutty Bar.'

Re:

[Zantetsuken]

Actually, the Debian naming conventions are apparently after the "people"/toys from the Pixar movie Toy Story - making it sound even more like its for little kids.

Note: I still haven't actually used pure Debian out of the fact that every time I've gone to their servers, there's *no* transfer speed. Which is kinda annoying because I finally got an iso just yesterday - but if what I hear is correct about how upgrading takes you to the next release, it should all be good (I'm used to Fedora where if you wan

Sources please?

[VGPowerlord]

I hate to nitpick, but is there any actual evidence that Etch will replace Sarge as stable today, or is this just unsubstantiated rumor?

Re:

[jeffreymsmith]

See the draft etch release timeline [debian.org]. Looks like the release should be Sunday/Mondayish.

Re:

[phrasebook]

Possibly this activity:

http://lists.debian.org/debian-publicity/2007/04/m sg00007.html [debian.org]

Stop nitpicking. Time to party, dude...

[msauve]

Some people think it's party time [debian.org], anyway.

Re:

[X0563511]

http://www.debian.org/ [debian.org] reports 4.0 as stable.

finally, sid and testing can get moving again

[phrasebook]

For me there is nothing exciting about the stable release itself. The real significance is that all the new stuff backed up in experimental can start moving into sid, then into testing again. Debian should have a way of branching testing and making a release out of that branch, rather than bringing the whole thing to a halt while a release gestates.

Re:

[BJH]

You're misunderstanding the purpose of testing - it's there to help stable be stable, not to help sid be more.. um... unstable.

Re:

[phrasebook]

I know what the purpose of testing is, but that's just not how most people see it or use it. testing is the ideal happy balance for most Debian users and releases mess that right up.

Re:

[mcubed]

For many Debian desktop users, testing, under normal circumstances, represents the sweet spot of desktop distros: just timely enough, just stable enough; not as fast-moving or susceptible to breakage as Sid, not as hopelessly dated as stable. As a rule, not a bug-ridden as distros based off Sid (Ubuntu, etc.). Those circumstances change, however, when Debian goes into release-mode. And in Debian, releases take months to complete. Testing stagnates, at least from the point of view of those of us who nor

Re:

[grumbel]

'stable' in Debian revers to the package dependencies and versions, *NOT* the software within the packages. If a driver has a bug and it get fixed you will sooner or later have that driver in 'unstable', there however is a good chance that you will *never* see that driver in 'stable', unless that bug is somehow security relevant, which most aren't.

Re:

[SnowZero]

Yeah that's exactly my sentiment. Every time my testing updates slow down in their rate, I know that a release is coming. After the release, development heats up again and I will have new toys to play with. It also means I can cut a few unstable/experimental tags from /etc/apt/preferences.

Re:

[gmack]

The downside to that idea is one of the reasons Linux no longer has an unstable branch. With two separate branches it's more fun working on the cutting edge new stuff rather than spending time working out bugs in the old.

With all new work grinding to a halt it forces developers to fix the bugs in the old before working on the new.

Re:finally, sid and testing can get moving again

[Cthefuture]

If you want all that then it's already available and the branch is called Ubuntu [ubuntu.com]. Even better is that it is stabilized and releases are made every 6 months.

Re:

[swillden]

If you want all that then it's already available and the branch is called Ubuntu [ubuntu.com]. Even better is that it is stabilized and releases are made every 6 months.

Sort of. Ubuntu is a fine distribution, but they frequently don't seem to get the upgrade process fully debugged, probably mostly because the semi-annual release schedule is really aggressive. As a result, Ubuntu users have to accept that there's a good chance they'll have to do a complete system reinstall every six months, or else stay with a system that gets further and further behind the cutting edge.

The great thing about pure Debian is never having to reinstall. I'm typing this on a new Thinkpad

Re:

[swillden]

Hey, I'm trying to track down copies of X11Amp, libc5, and Gnome 1.0. Would you mind tarring up the ones on your laptop and mailing them to me?

Sorry, apt-get deleted those years ago.

Re:

[Nimey]

I have my Debian 2.1 CDs around here somewhere. They're pre-Gnome 1.0, have libc5, and I don't know if X11Amp is on there, since my machine at the time was too slow for X. Want me to check for you?

Re:

[cortana]

Try archive.debian.org and snapshot.debian.net. The first archives old Debian releases, the second attempts to archive every version of every package ever uploaded. Its history probably does not go back that far, however!

Re:

[swillden]

What would the main difference, besides release scheduling, between the two distros, and what would be the benefit for me to check out Debian if I wanted to?

Release scheduling would probably be the most compelling reason to switch to Debian, either because you want the long-term stability of Debian stable (which you can probably also get with an Ubuntu LTS release) or because you prefer the daily micro-upgrade approach of testing or unstable.

Another potential advantage of Debian unstable is that, on average, its packages tend to be a little newer than Ubuntu's. There are exceptions, and those are largest just after an Ubuntu release. You could also use Ub

Re:

[swillden]

Thanks for the input. Would there be any inherent danger or stupidity in adding Debian sources to my apt sources.list?

Danger? That depends on you, really. I've actually done this. I installed Ubuntu on my desktop, then decided after a few months that I preferred Debian, so I replaced my sources.list entries and started upgrading. Things broke, but not so badly that I couldn't apt-get them back into working. Doing so, however, required a moderately sophisticated understanding of the packaging system, including knowing what I had to be careful replacing. Eventually the system was converted to a pure Debian box.

If y

Re:

[phrasebook]

I don't want a stabilised branch myself. The whole idea of fixed releases coming out every X months is antiquated to me. I like the 'rolling upgrade' of running testing and I imagine that's how most people use Debian (on their desktops at least). The problem is that the upgrades stop rolling for months at a time once Debian decides to do a release.

Tags

[FishWithAHammer]

I wonder if the "holyshit" tag is appropriate here.

Re:

[n6mod]

If you're dumb enough to have 'stable' in your apt sources file, that tag will become *very* appropriate.

BTDT. (when Woody released) Never again.

Article?

[gringer]

How can I not read the article if there's no article avaliable to not read?

Where's the actual source for this posting?

[advocate_one]

I can't find anything on the Debian site itself...

Re:

[Valtor]

http://www.debian.com/News/2007/20070408 [debian.com]

The ISOs for Etch are already out there...

[jafo]

The ISOs for Etch are already available at http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/release/4.0_r0/ [debian.org]
Use the "bt-cd" or "bt-dvd" sub-directories for the torrents. The torrents are well seeded, I'm getting 3MB/sec (24mbps) download speeds right now.

A few useful torrent links:

i386:
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/release/4.0_r0/i 386/bt-dvd/debian-40r0-i386-DVD-1.iso.torrent [debian.org]
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/release/4.0_r0/i 386/bt-cd/debian-40r0-i386-CD-1.iso.torrent [debian.org]
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/release/4.0_r0/i 386/bt-cd/debian-40r0-i386-netinst.iso.torrent [debian.org]

AMD 64:
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/release/4.0_r0/a md64/bt-dvd/debian-40r0-amd64-DVD-1.iso.torrent [debian.org]
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/release/4.0_r0/a md64/bt-cd/debian-40r0-amd64-CD-1.iso.torrent [debian.org]
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/release/4.0_r0/a md64/bt-cd/debian-40r0-amd64-netinst.iso.torrent [debian.org]

Sean

Re:

[cortana]

It installs XFCE instead of GNOME by default.

Re:

[repvik]

It uses xfce as its default desktop environment?

In tribute of this momentous occasion

[mushadv]

Hell and winged pigs have collaborated in an effort to simultaneously freeze over and fly. Unfortunately, Satan's poor planning concerning the sequence of these events has rendered the high temperature conditions of the pig launchers devastatingly unsuitable for the hopeful swine. Meteorologists the world over predict a torrential rain of bacon.

Why does this sound so familiar?

[alienmole]

Sources in Satan's inner circle are saying that the problems began after the project was outsourced to major services conglomerate Helliburton, on the advice of one of Hell's top minions, currently serving an Earthly stint under the name of Dick Cheney. An internal review board is conducting an investigation, and has questioned the wisdom of putting critical projects under the control of the demons responsible for the corruption of Earthly governments.

Congratulations Debian!

[Respect_my_Authority]

Ah, Etch is finally out the door and it's time to start tracking Lenny. Congrats to all you developers whose amazing skill and hard work ensures that debian stays my favourite distro!

Sam Hocevar had this year the most interesting DPL candidate platform, IMHO. Not that my opinion matters 'cause I'm not a developer myself and, hence, not qualified to vote. Also, it doesn't look like the DPL would have much power to change things. Best of luck Sam -- this time next year we'll know how good you are in herding

Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 released

[Anonymous Coward]

Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 released

The Debian Project is pleased to announce the official release of
Debian GNU/Linux version 4.0, codenamed "etch", after 21 months of
constant development. Debian GNU/Linux is a free operating system
which supports a total of eleven processor architectures and includes
the KDE, GNOME and Xfce desktop environments. It also features
cryptographic software and compatibility with the FHS v2.3 and
software developed for version 3.1 of the LSB.

Using a now fully integrated installation process, Debian GNU/Linux
4.0 comes with out-of-the-box support for encrypted partitions. This
release introduces a newly developed graphical frontend to the
installation system supporting scripts using composed characters and
complex languages; the installation system for Debian GNU/Linux has
now been translated to 58 languages.

Also beginning with Debian GNU/Linux 4.0, the package management
system has been improved regarding security and efficiency. Secure
APT allows the verification of the integrity of packages downloaded
from a mirror. Updated package indices won't be downloaded in their
entirety, but instead patched with smaller files containing only
differences from earlier versions.

Debian GNU/Linux runs on computers ranging from palmtops and handheld
systems to supercomputers, and on nearly everything in between. A
total of eleven architectures are supported including: Sun SPARC
(sparc), HP Alpha (alpha), Motorola/IBM PowerPC (powerpc), Intel
IA-32 (i386) and IA-64 (ia64), HP PA-RISC (hppa), MIPS (mips,
mipsel), ARM (arm), IBM S/390 (s390) and -- newly introduced with
Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 -- AMD64 and Intel EM64T (amd64).

Debian GNU/Linux can be installed from various installation media
such as DVDs, CDs, USB sticks and floppies, or from the network.
GNOME is the default desktop environment and is contained on the
first CD. The K Desktop Environment (KDE) and the Xfce desktop can be
installed through two new alternative CD images. Also newly available
with Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 are multi-arch CDs and DVDs supporting
installation of multiple architectures from a single disc.

Debian GNU/Linux can be downloaded right now via bittorent (the
recommended way), jigdo or HTTP; see for
further information. It will soon be available on DVD and CD-ROM from
numerous vendors , too.

This release includes a number of updated software packages, such as
the K Desktop Environment 3.5 (KDE), an updated version of the GNOME
desktop environment 2.14, the Xfce 4.4 desktop environment, the
GNUstep desktop 5.2, X.Org 7.1, OpenOffice.org 2.0.4a, GIMP 2.2.13,
Iceweasel (an unbranded version of Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.3), Icedove
(an unbranded version of Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5), Iceape (an
unbranded version of Mozilla Seamonkey 1.0.Cool, PostgreSQL 8.1.8,
MySQL 5.0.32, GNU Compiler Collection 4.1.1, Linux kernel version
2.6.18, Apache 2.2.3, Samba 3.0.24, Python 2.4.4 and 2.5, Perl 5.8.8,
PHP 4.4.4 and 5.2.0, Asterisk 1.2.13, and more than 18,000 other
ready to use software packages.

Upgrades to Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 from the previous release, Debian
GNU/Linux 3.1 codenamed "sarge", are automatically handled by the
aptitude package management tool for most configurations, and to a
certain degree also by the apt-get package management tool. As
always, Debian GNU/Linux systems can be upgraded quite painlessly, in
place, without any forced downtime, but it is strongly recommended to
read the release notes for possible issues. For detailed instructions
about installing and upgrading Debian GNU/Linux, please see the
release notes .
Please note that the release notes will be further improved and
translated to additional languages in the coming weeks.

ISO download: http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/4.0_r0/i386/is o-cd/ [debian.org]

Re:

[cyphercell]

Doesn't seem like dunc-tank has done anything since '06, I might be mistaken but here's their press release
http://www.dunc-tank.org/press.html [dunc-tank.org]

Re:

[pedestrian crossing]

Any word on when the updated AMD64 version will come out?

Etch includes AMD64.

Re:

[lgftsa]

AMD64 is in etch by default.

Now I get to downgrade two Sun x4200 machines, and do a clean stable install on a new pair. Here's hopeing that the SAS RAID is recognised as sda rather than sdi. GRUB was not happy!

Re:

[cortana]

FYI, if Grub guesses the correspondance between the order of drives-seen-by-Linux and drives-seen-by-BIOS incorrectly, you can correct it by editing /boot/grub/device.map. See http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/html_node / Device-map.html [gnu.org] for more info.

I have abandoned any hope that we will ever see PCs migrate off the shitty 20-year old architecture that makes this timewasting crap necessary. :(

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[cortana]

I'll use Solaris once they turn it into a port of Debian.

Re:

[cortana]

Left the upgrade from woody a little late don't you think? ;)

Re:

[Billly Gates]

Wahoo and kde 3.x!

Re:

[A.K.A_Magnet]

Yes I know who he is :).

Btw zoy.org isn't exclusively used by him even if it belongs to Sam, if you want to go to Sam's website, the proper URL is http://sam.zoy.org [zoy.org].

Yes he is somewhat of a troll and he's a GNAA member, a goatsex troll fan and certainly more, so what? He's also an excellent hacker and Free Software contributor (he played a major role in VideoLan/VLC which is now the best video player around here). What's more, his platform was the best. I for one am really satisfied with this year's D

Re:

[cortana]

Sounds like it is your hardware that is at fault. If you disable the onboard sound card in the BIOS then it shouldn't be visible to the operating system in the first place, or so it is with the hardware that I have used.

You can always put 'blacklist nameofmodule' into a file inside /etc/modprobe.d and that will prevent the module from being loaded at boot.