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."

Comments

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: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?

[SeaFox]

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

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

Re:TWO! in one day?

[Loconut1389]

watching too much ghostbusters?

Careful the staypuffed penguin man might appear.

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?

[marcosdumay]

Now Debian also delays april fools jokes?

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?

[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/ ). 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:TWO! in one day?

[ajlitt]

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

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:TWO! in one day?

[Toby_Tyke]

I wonder what form the other three horsemen will take?

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

Have they decided to postpone their resolution until R2?

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

Regards,
fatal

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:Great News

[Exter-C]

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

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:Great News

[cortana]

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

[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 packages', where they should all be listed.

If you don't want to remove most of the packages, you should get by OK as long as you do remove any that ship any files in /usr/X11R6/bin.

Of course, the ususal upgrade procedure still applies--read the release notes before upgrading, pay attention to the steps that aptitude says that it's going to take, don't hit enter blindly, etc. :)

Sam Hocevar won DPL elections

[timecop]

Sam Hocevar won the Debian Project Leader election by 8 votes over Steve McIntyre

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

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

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:The Wow Starts Now!

[Seumas]

over a year more quickly Ouch. You hurt my brain, you bastard.

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:Kinda OT

[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.'

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:finally, sid and testing can get moving again

[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:finally, sid and testing can get moving again

[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 normally prefer it to the other options out there. IMO, Etch is more outdated than I'd like and has been for a good four months or so. It may not be the purpose of testing from the Debian Project's POV, but that's the use many Debianistas make of it. Personally, I would be thrilled if the next time someone decides to derive a new Debian-based distro, he versions off testing instead of unstable.

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. Even better is that it is stabilized and releases are made every 6 months.

Re:Sources please?

[jeffreymsmith]

See the draft etch release timeline. Looks like the release should be Sunday/Mondayish.

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:Where's the actual source for this posting?

[Valtor]

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

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

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

Sean

Re:The ISOs for Etch are already out there...

[cortana]

It installs XFCE instead of GNOME by default.

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.

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 cats. And don't forget to write those regular DPL reports you promised in your platform.

BTW, does anyone have any idea why so many votes were rejected in this year's DPL election?

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:woohoo!!!

[cortana]

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

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:You have got to be fucking kidding me

[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

Re:You have got to be fucking kidding me

[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 with no kernel installed if you are not carefull) and it certainly isn't something you want happening to you without warning.

use release codenames in your sources.list and read the release notes before moving from one stable release to the next especially if you do not know how to repair broken systems.

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/

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.

Re:Do you know who SAM Hocevar really is?

[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.

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 DPL election.

Re:PARENT IS NOT A TROLL

[Sam H]

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

Re:AMD64

[Ash-Fox]

Why not run Solaris on those boxes?

Solaris doesn't work on my Athlon 64 hardware. It doesn't recognize the SATA controllers nor does it have a 3d accelerated X-server with my graphics card.

Besides, it's slower (package management, admin tools, the same software I've ran on both OSes) and doesn't have a large repository (like Debian's) of software available on demand.

ven the guy who invented Debian has dumped it and switched to Solaris.

Ian Murdock went to work for Sun, but I can't find any information on 'switching' the OSes he uses.