Debian 2.2r4 (Potato) Released

codazzo writes "Debian 2.2r4 is out. As their website states, "The fourth revision of Debian GNU/Linux 2.2 (codename `potato') has been released. This point release, revision 2.2r4, mostly includes security updates, along with a few corrections of serious bugs in the stable distribution." " You can see the press release - or get it from the FTP list.

Comments

Where's the stable kernel?

[Kenneth Stephen]

The last I heard, Debian was waiting for a stable kernel to appear. And please dont tell me that the 2.4 kernels were announced a while back by Linus - I have any number of machines (of varying hardware) on which 2.2 kernels run fine but the 2.4 kernels are unstable. Granted, 2.4.13 is billed as the stable kernel we've all been waiting for. However, given that it made its appearance only last week, I think we should excercise some patience. It will take a while to test all the OS packages with the new kernel.

(un)accepted packages

[Chocky2]

There's a list of which packages did/didn't make it in available at http://people.debian.org/~joey/2.2r4/full.html

Re:Where's 3.0

[HoserHead]

Firstly, Debian 3.0 will be released when it's ready - which means sometime in 2002.

Woody wasn't frozen in July, Policy was. The base base system was frozen later, in August. Everything else remains unfrozen, though those packages in 'standard' and many tasks (such as GNOME and KDE) should be on the block to be frozen pretty soon.

We're going about it in a different way this time; different parts of Debian are being frozen at different times. Because base and standard packages are more important than Priority: extra packages, they're being frozen first so all bugs can be shaken out and fixed.

For more information, search the debian-devel-announce archives or see the most recent mail from one of the release coordinators, Anthony Towns.

Basically, be patient. The reason that Anthony whipped together Debian 2.2r4 is simply because 3.0 won't be ready for a while.

Re:Mirrow Mirrow on the wall.....

[sydneyfong]

The big list is here : http://www.debian.org/misc/README.mirrors

Re:which Debian should I use

[mvdwege]

Ok, I hope you get to read this.

Do remember that upgrading a distribution is non-trivial, even though Debian does its best to make it as painless as possible. If you have the stomach for dealing with some minor niggles the procedure is as follows:

1. Install the stable distro ('Potato'), but only install enough to get networking going. The base installation with no further package selection should work if you're on a network, otherwise use tasksel to install the dialup utilities.
2. Edit /etc/apt/sources.list to include a line to the testing distro ('Woody') or if you're feeling adventurous, add unstable ('Sid'). Just copy the relevant lines that are already there, changing stable to testing or unstable as you see fit.
3. Run apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade. If all goes well, you should end up with your base system upgraded to testing or unstable (I don't know if you can upgrade straight to unstable yet. 3 months ago I had to upgrade to testing first).
4. Install the rest of your system using either dselect, deity or just plain apt-get install <package-name>.
5. Have fun!

If you do run into any problems, check the docs. If they don't help, or if you haven't got a clue which docs to consult, ask the debian-user mailing list, they tend to be friendly folk. If you have more preliminary questions, check my email on my user page.

Mart