Chris Frost writes
"The Debian Project began the freeze of its next distribution release, 2.2, today." Hit the "Read More..." link to read the full press release. This has been a long time coming, and it's good to see another stable release in the future. I've been running potato for some time now, and I'm eagerly anticipating woody, the next unstable release.
------------------------------
The Debian Project
press@debian.org
http://www.debian.org
Martin Schulze
January 16, 2000
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The Code Freeze for Debian GNU/Linux 2.2 has begun
"The code freeze for the next Debian release, code named "potato", has
begun", says Richard Braakman, current Debian Release Manager. He
expects the freeze process to take about two months.
Until the new version is released, there will be three distributions
available on our servers: `stable', `frozen', and the new `unstable'.
"The new `unstable' distribution, code named woody[1], was created
today", continues Richard. The `frozen' and `unstable' distributions
start out with the same set of packages. While `unstable' will be
updated rapidly, `frozen' will have only bugfixes applied in
preparation for its release.
[1] Debian releases are code-named after characters from the movie Toy
Story. Woody is the main character, the cowboy action figure.
>> About Debian
The Debian project is an organization of many users who volunteer
their time and effort. Its tasks include maintaining and updating Debian
GNU/Linux which is a free distribution of the GNU/Linux operating system,
and the development of the Debian GNU/Hurd operating system.
>> Contact Information
For further information, please send email to the Debian Press Team,
press@debian.org, or visit the Debian homepage at
http://www.debian.org/"
Slashdot Mirror
The one thing that I've thought that separated Debian from the rest was not how SLOW the releases come, but how quickly they come.
.x releases.
.x release to .x reelase, maybe they should just use whole numbers for release versions?
A "stable" release is thoughly tested, sometimes TOO thoughly tested =) But when you have something that's critial on being rock stable, these are they way to go to start. And if there is a program that you need a later version because of mroe functionality, you can do that too.
Tou can just as easily update packages buy pointing to "unstable", or now "woody". I can get updates to programs AS THEY ARE RELEASED. I don't have to wait for the distro to update everything themselves every couple months. Or if I really need something, hunt down a package, or get teh source and compile myself. I can just type "apt-get dist-upgrade" and my system is the latest it can be.
And with the large number of packages, I can be sure that whatever piece of free software(speach and beer), that they will ALL update with that one command. And I can rest assured that although I didn't compile that myself, it's not only a safe program to run, but it's configured to correctly work on my system. How can you go wrong? The more packages the better.
So, waiting for a release for the most part is a moot point. You can install Debian whenever you want, and have the lastest of everything, or have something that's thoughly tested(MUCH more then other distros). And, "unstable" for the most part, as alot of people will tell you, is alot better then other distros
Just one thing though, Debian "stable" releases change so much from