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Debian Lenny Installer RC1 Arrives

Posted by timothy on from the not-lenny-from-of-mice-and-men dept.

nerdyH writes "It appears that Debian 5.0 (aka "Lenny") will soon take its big binocular eyes out into the wider world. Only two months later than expected, the Debian project has completed the first release candidate of Lenny's installer. Featuring much faster installation from "live" CDs, and expanded support for ARM-based devices such as NAS servers, Lenny has gestated for 19 months, compared to 21 months for the previous "Etch" release. Lookout, world, Debian releases are picking up speed! The download is here."

8 of 81 comments (clear)

  1. why bother with a liveCD? by thermian · · Score: 3, Informative

    Lets be honest, almost everyone interested in Debian won't be put off by its already excellent text based installer. Has it suddenly become 'old fashioned' or something?

    Anyone of the livecd liking type is likely to be better off with Ubuntu. Well I think so anyway.

    --
    A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
    1. Re:why bother with a liveCD? by mpapet · · Score: 5, Informative

      I've been a Lenny user for at least 6 months and performed a number of server and desktop installs with some versions of the new installer.

      The most important part of the installer that has changed for the better is you can easily start the installation by selecting from gui and text options from a menu. The Etch installer you had to type something to start the installer.

      The Lenny installer runs circles around the Ubuntu installer. Among other cool details you can configure LVM, or software raids prior to the disk formatting and installation.

      I got KDE4 packages from http://kde4.debian.net/ Absolutely the best way to go for kde4.

      --
      http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
    2. Re:why bother with a liveCD? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'm inclined to agree with you on that one. I have nothing against text based installers(heck, I don't mind the bit in the OpenBSD installer where it recommends a calculator); but LiveCDs are really useful on occasion, and making a LiveCD that can also be an installer is an obvious convenience measure. I wouldn't mind having the LiveCD installer just be the text based installer in a window; but LiveCDs are an obvious good, and once you have a LiveCD, adding an installer is simple and useful thing.

    3. Re:why bother with a liveCD? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Oh go fuck yourselves mods!

  2. Re:What about bugs? by jonadab · · Score: 5, Informative

    > What about release critical bugs? Currently there are 173 of them:

    Most of those bugs are not in the installer. If you read the summary (not even the actual article, just the summary) carefully, you'll note that this is a release candidate of the *installer*, not of the whole distro. I would imagine the distribution as a whole is probably still on schedule for the originally promised timeframe of "when it's ready".

    --
    Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
  3. A couple of months more, perhaps... by Respect_my_Authority · · Score: 2, Informative

    Only two months later than expected, the Debian project has completed the first release candidate of Lenny's installer.

    Unfortunately, an installer RC is not the final distribution release.

    Lookout, world, Debian releases are picking up speed!

    I don't think so. It'll still take a couple more months before the final Lenny release will be out. There will yet be another installer release candidate (RC2), and that will also need some further testing before the final release.

    Still, I think the Lenny release will be well worth the wait for users who want a stable server OS. (Desktop users would prefer Debian's "testing" branch because it has more up-to-date software.) Debian doesn't put out half-assed and buggy releases just to meet arbitrary release dates, like Ubuntu does. Debian won't make a stable release until it's really ready and stable.

  4. Re:What about bugs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    > What about release critical bugs? Currently there are 173 of them
    Better take a look at http://bts.turmzimmer.net/graph-large.png, which provides more accurate stats.

    > I thought that they won't be releasing next version before they are fixed. And even with optimal speed it
    > looks like it would take at least 1,5 months to get them all fixed.

    Packages with RC bugs can either be fixed or removed, it's always been that way.

  5. Re:testing by X0563511 · · Score: 2, Informative

    The net installer keeps breaking when they play with the repo signing keys. Don't use a net installer for testing. Try this RC instead.

    --
    For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...