Etch Goes Beta

An anonymous reader writes to tell us that Debian 'etch' has finally hit beta (testing) complete with graphical installer. The new version includes a default 2.6 kernel, auto laptop detection, secure apt to verify downloaded packages, improved log file and bug reporting, added language support, and much more.

That was pretty quick.

[The Nine]

Seems not so long ago Sarge came out after an eternity of waiting. Good to see things speeding up a bit.

First post?

Re:Woohoo! Sorta ;)

[Tom]

Why's it taken so long?

Because a huge part of Debian users couldn't care less about a GUI installer and want more important stuff done first. Most of the machines I put Debian on never switch out of text mode in their entire life, for example, and I'm still happily using dselect and apt-get because it gets the job done and that's all I care for. It'd take longer to find a mouse to plug into that server than it takes to go through a few menues.

Debian isn't behind, Debian is way ahead of most of the other distros in many ways. And it has other priorities. That's why I use it, that's why most of the people who use Debian use it.