Debian 3.1 (Sarge) Released

Mister Furious writes "First, Apple switches to Intel, and now, equally shocking: Debian Sarge is released! Hell has officially frozen over! The scoop is from debian-administration.org: "The new Debian stable release, codenamed Sarge, has officially been released today. Several years of development since the last stable release, Woody, was released on the 9th of July, 2002 over a thousand developers around the world have helped make this release possible." Changes include Gnome 2.8, Firefox 1.0.4, Thunderbird 1.0.2, Apache 2.0.54 (1.3.33 is still available, too!), Postgresql 7.4.7, and more. The news hasn't hit the main Debian GNU/Linux site as of this article's posting. Congratulations to all of the Debian developers and contributors. Thanks for all your hard work and for a great distro!" Here's a link to the Debian Stable "Release" file.

Espectr0 points out an article about the release at Linux Compatible, writing "It is available on 14 (!) CD's or 2 DVD's. It includes XFree86 4.3, GNOME 2.8, KDE 3.3, Kernel 2.4.27, GCC 3.3.5, OpenOffice.org 1.1.3 and much others."

Mail to debian-announce; news on www.debian.org

[Josh Triplett]

Mail to debian-announce [debian.org]

News on www.debian.org [debian.org]

Congrats to the Debian project!

Congratulations!

[Anonymous Coward]

Direct download links at http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/3.1_r0/ [debian.org]. Bittorrent, Jigdo or direct ISO downloads (CDs or DVDs).

debian.org now has it

[Mister Furious]

The original story (I'm the submitter) says that the main Debian site doesn't have the news yet. It has been updated to reflect the release between the time I submitted the story and the time it was posted.

The news release is here [debian.org].

Announcement, images, and installation manual

[dondelelcaro]

• Offical Announcement [debian.org]
• Installation images [debian.org]
• Installation Manual [debian.org]

Working download link

[maswan]

Feel free to download cd and dvd images from cdimage.debian.org [debian.org], we should have plenty of capacity.

And if we run out, we will do http-redirects to our mirrors around the world, so don't be afraid to get your Sarge now!

/Mattias Wadenstein - mirror admin, cdimage.debian.org

Re:Bill gates alert!

[gregmac]

Most people install Debian with the net-install CD (or at least, they should). It's about a 100MB iso that gets a base system installed, and then you can use apt-get to install anything else you'd like. Because of debian's great package management, it also means this CD can be quite old and still install a current version - you just have to apt-get dist-upgrade as soon as you're done installing. Using the same method you can also convert your system to unstable if you'd like.

All 14 CDs include EVERY package (as in, you'll get 6 or 7 web browsers, media players, and every other obscure program that is in the repository) and source. That's probably unnecessary for 99% of people out there. Not to mention a fairly big waste of bandwidth to download.

Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

It does. http://www.debian.org/ports/ [debian.org]

Re:dang only 12%

[Anubis350]

sounds like its time for bittorrent to take over eh?

go here [linuxisotorrent.com]

or direct links:
dvd1 [debian.org]

dvd2 [debian.org]

Re:Coincidence?

[diegocgteleline.es]

Debian will switch to x.org - they haven't done it because, er, it'd have delayed sarge's release even more

Re:Kernel

[eldacan]

2.4.27 and 2.6.8

Re:Coincidence?

[lakeland]

Er... no. Debian announced it will be moving to xorg as soon as xorg makes a proper release instead of a legacy release. I think debian was the first distro to announce a switch to xorg, though I may be wrong.

In order to get off the ground quickly, xorg has been releasing versions based on xmkmf that have only really been tested on x86 and ppc. That's great, and means 90% of the people reading this can run xorg now instead of waiting six months for a non-legacy version.

Debian has been about doing things right, and waiting until they can do things right. They don't want to change to the transitional version of xorg and then change to the non-legacy version of xorg in six months. When xorg gets around to a proper build script based around configure, and starts supporting all the architectures of xfree86, then debian will switch to them.

KDE 3.4 for Debian Sarge

[Bill Kendrick]

For those who are using, or want to use, Debian Stable (now 'sarge'), but want KDE 3.4 (instead of 3.3), you can get it from pkg-kde.alioth.debian.org [debian.org].

For those who've been using sarge via its 'Testing' monicker, I'm guessing KDE 3.4 will hit 'etch' (the new 'Testing') in the coming weeks.

Enjoy!

Re:Torrents?

[lintux]

Yes, all kinds of images can be found here [debian.org], and for DVD BitTorrents (x86) you can look here [debian.org].

Re:Kernel

[Trashman]

I believe The default is 2.4. but you can have 2.6 at install time if you type linux26 @ the boot prompt. 2.6.8 ships with Sarge.

read the release notes

[petermgreen]

before you even think of doing this on a remote system.

1: there is a package called doc-base that if installed will cause BIG problems unless you upgrade or remove it first.

2: aptitude is generally considered to make safer descions about upgrade order than apt-get

Re:Congrats!

[Trashman]

They might complain about xfree 4.3

Um, nope. See this:

http://necrotic.deadbeast.net/svn/xfree86/trunk/de bian/local/FAQ.xhtml#debianplans [deadbeast.net]

Re:Bill gates alert!

[Phil Hands]

All 14 CDs include EVERY package (...) and source.

Almost right, 14 CDs is just the binaries (on average, several architectures take 13, ia64 takes 15)

Source takes 15 more CDs

For a full set of CDs (that only an anal collector would actually want) for all 11 archs, and the source, you'll need 164 CDs :-)

As you say, the netinst image [debian.org] is the way to go, unless you want to send a copy to a friend who has no internet connection.

Re:Yea D-Day has arrived!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really. Look at the age of the software it includes:

• Gnome 2.8 (2.10 was released three months ago).
• Postgresql 7.4.7 (8.0 was released five months ago).
• XFree86 4.3 (6.8 was released nine months ago ;) ).
• KDE 3.3 (3.4 was released three months ago).
• GCC 3.3.5 (3.4 was released a year and two months ago).
• Kernel 2.4.27 (2.6 was released a year and six months ago).

Seems to me that this was obsolete before it was even released, and that the trolls don't even need to try.

Debian for Users

[digitaltraveller]

From the release announcement [debian.org]:

With the development of the new debian-installer, this release features a new, modular and sophisticated installation routine with integrated hardware detection and unattended installation capabilities.

One problem for newbies solved.

Now if they only come up with a friendly alternative to dselect that lets you mix and match packages from the unstable tree, I might start reccomending debian to newbies. Heck, I might even use it myself.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

How is parent funny?

"woody" also means erection in english.

Re:Mail to debian-announce; news on www.debian.org

[tacocat]

I don't know if you are upgrading from stable or not, but you need to upgrade using 'apt-get dist-upgrade' and sometimes need to run it more than once. This prevents things from getting screwed up during the installation process.

New installer quite impressive

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been a Debian user since Slink and this morning I installed a fresh Sarge box.

I have to say that the new installer is quite impressive. I had no problems with the old one, but this one is much more "automatic", much faster, and just seems more flexible.

Also: The pre-packaged kernel seems pretty decent. On Linux it's pretty rare that I'm satisfied with a default install kernel. I always end up building my own for some reason or another. (Usually hardware issues) But this one seems to be more seamless than the others. Good job Debian folks.

upgrade/dist-upgrade

[hypatia]

'upgrade' means "update any packages that don't require new dependencies" and 'dist-upgrade' means "update packages and pull in new dependencies if need be". With a long release cycle, each stable release is going to have a lot of the second kind of packages.

Re:Mail to debian-announce; news on www.debian.org

[cortana]

The difference is: 'upgrade' will never change what packages are installed; 'dist-upgrade' will.

Say woody had a package foo, and sarge has a package bar, which replaces foo. 'upgrade' will not install bar and remove foo, whereas 'dist-upgrade' will.

Of course, if you read the release notes [debian.org], you'd know all this... ;)

Re:This is new?

[tacocat]

They will, when it has more established support for the different architectures.

These things take time to do them right the first time. But possibly not as long as doing it wrong and trying to fix it a few times, but who wants to spend their entire life playing at a keyboard?

Re:Toy Story connection?

[splint3r]

Yes.

And no [debian.org].

Re:MODUP!

[maswan]

Hah! They aren't even breathing hard. Actually, demand seems to be dropping right now, I had prepared for much worse.

As it is now, I have to apologize to the mirrors I asked for, since they aren't getting any load either.

So, bring it on!

/Mattias Wadenstein - cdimage.debian.org admin

Re:Coincidence?

[Anonymous Coward]

I use libtool on those platforms every day, and in fact I wrote parts of it. What exactly were the problems? Please be specific, and if possible send a test case to the mailing list.

Re:Mail to debian-announce; news on www.debian.org

[Josh Triplett]

Of course, if you read the release notes, you'd know all this... ;)

Another important item from the release notes:

The recommended tool for upgrading between Debian GNU/Linux releases is to use the package management tool aptitude. This tool makes safer decisions about package installations than running apt-get directly.

Re:Coincidence?

[EvilIdler]

SCons tries to improve over Autoconf/Automake, and it's easier
to make the initial config files:
http://scons.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]

Re:Bill gates alert!

[petermgreen]

jigdo allows the load to be spread over more mirrors (since it can use any debian mirror not just those that have the cd images) but its still downloading from thier mirrors.

bittorrent otoh gives most of the load to the downloaders.

/etc/apt/sources.list, non-US packages

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.debian.org/releases/sarge/i386/release- notes.en.txt [debian.org]

For the sarge release, packages that were formerly in the non-US part of the archive have been moved into the regular archive. If you have any lines referring to "non-us" in your `/etc/apt/sources.list', you should remove them.

In case anyone was wondering, like I was... :)

Re:apt-get update broke

[kbmccarty]

If that's your sources.list, you are running Sid (unstable), not Sarge (which was "testing" until today, and is now "stable"). Anyway, your problems come from the fact that non-us has been deprecated. See section 2.1.2 [debian.org] of the Sarge release notes. Delete the non-US lines from sources.list, re-run apt-get update and you should be fine.

The brightside

[dmaxwell]

A big downer of running Linux on a Mac is missing things like full featured java, flash, wine, nvidia drivers, and few other binary tools. Not that this bothers the purists mind you but some of us have to use them.

Linux on one of these x86 Macs should run just as well as Linux on decent x86 chipsets.

Myself, I don't buy new Macs just to run Linux on them but I'll cheerfully deploy spare Macs as servers if they're somewhat beefy.

Re:Debian for Users

[tao]

aptitude should be your friend. You can (and should) both use it as a replacement for apt-get (with better results, since it keeps track of packages purely installed to satisfy dependencies) on the commandline, AND as a UI-tool to replace dselect. Then there's always synaptic if you use GNOME (and I suspect there's something similar for KDE, I'm not sure).

Re:DVD Image

[darketernal]

It might have been on a mirror that was still syncing with a master (which is odd). You should use BitTorrent [debian.org] instead.

Re:x86_64 Support?

[darketernal]

Yes and no.

Yes - It's already supported in i386, with the amd64 kernel images. You can run some 64-bit stuff with amd64-libs.

No - there is no *official* support yet for a 64-bit kernel with 64-bit userland. For an unofficial (and IMO fairly stable) port that will definitely be in etch, check http://www.debian.org/ports/amd64/ [debian.org] and http://amd64.debian.net/ [debian.net].

There was a huge debate about it, but leaving it out was for the greater good. Don't worry about it - it's definitely coming up if I can help it at all.

Re:any backports.org users out there going to upgr

[darketernal]

They might be automatically removed due to their dependencies on packages that no longer exist in sarge. I suggest you try it first. The dependency system in apt is very robust and things should happen with those packages if there are any problems.

Or, things may not have changed, and the backports can be used as is.

Nonetheless, if you would like to play it safe, do remove them.

Re:You WHAT??!?

[darketernal]

You generally only need the first few for a successful install.. are you on a modem?

Re:Mail to debian-announce; news on www.debian.org

[mennucc1]

No, you got it wrong. The best recommended way to upgrade is to use aptitude; and you should use the version of aptitude in Debian 3.1; a very short checklist for the upgrade is:

• if you do not have aptitude installed, install the one from the Debian 3.0 (codename woody), and install the one from the latest update 3.0r6; you may use the command # apt-get install aptitude
• change /etc/apt/sources.list to point to Debian 3.1 (codename sarge)
• # apt-get update
• # aptitude install aptitude
• if you use doc-base, #aptitude install doc-base
• aptitude -f --with-recommends dist-upgrade

I strongly recommend that you read chapter 4 in the release notes [debian.org]

Re:Congratulations!

[Cupis]

http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005 /06/msg00003.html [debian.org]

"A bug has been discovered in the 3.1r0 CD/DVD images: new installs from these images will have a commented-out entry in /etc/apt/sources.list for "http://security.debian.org/ testing/updates" rather than an active entry for "http://security.debian.org/ stable/updates", and thus will not get security updates by default. This was due to incorrect Release files on the images.

If you have already installed a system using a 3.1r0 CD/DVD image, you do not need to reinstall. Instead, simply edit /etc/apt/sources.list, look for any lines mentioning security.debian.org, change "testing" to "stable", and remove "# " from the start of the line.

If you installed other than from a CD or DVD (for example, netboot, or booting from floppy and installing the base system from the network), you are not affected by this bug.

New 3.1r0a images will be available shortly to correct this flaw. We apologise for the inconvenience."

Re:Sarge vs Other Distributions

[Anonymous Coward]

It's much (MUCH) better now. If you've already tried Ubuntu that basically used the new Debian installer.

Every previous release of Debian used a slightly updated version of more or less the same boot floppies cobbled together for the original Debian 1.0 or somesuch.

This is the first from the ground up rewrite and it subscribes to the true Debian spirit of taking ten years to get it right but then getting it right forever.

In my humble opinion the New Debian Installer is as revolutionary as apt. It's modular, multi-arch, easily translatable, full of hooks for different GUIs (be they graphic, for disabled users or large automated installs) and even easier to use.

That said you probably won't find it as pretty as other distributions yet (no GTK Buffer or anything). But I think that will come with the next Debian release.