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Debian 7.0 ('Wheezy') Release Planned For 1st Weekend in May

An anonymous reader writes with this good news from the Debian developers who have been working hard to release the next version of the distro: "We now have a target date of the weekend of 4th/5th May for the release. We have checked with core teams, and this seems to be acceptable for everyone. This means we are able to begin the final preparations for a release of Debian 7.0 — 'Wheezy'. The intention is only to lift the date if something really critical pops up that is not possible to handle as an errata, or if we end up technically unable to release that weekend (e.g. a required machine crashes or d-i explodes in a giant ball of fire). Every other RC fix that does not make it in time will be r1 material. Please be sure to contact us about the RC fixes you would like included in the point release!" Of particular interest to casual users, from the list of changes in 7.0: "Debian wheezy comes with full-featured libav (formerly ffmpeg) libraries and frontends, including e.g. mplayer, mencoder, vlc and transcode. Additional codec support is provided e.g. through lame for MP3 audio encoding, xvidcore for MPEG-4 ASP video encoding, x264 for H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video encoding, vo-aacenc for AAC audio encoding and opencore-amr and vo-amrwbenc for Adaptive Multi-Rate Narrowband and Wideband encoding and decoding, respectively. For most use cases, installation of packages from third-party repositories should not be necessary anymore. The times of crippled multimedia support in Debian are finally over!"

43 of 226 comments (clear)

  1. Freeze by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    xfce 4.8! finally!

    1. Re:Freeze by kthreadd · · Score: 2

      The point of Debian is not to get the latest goodies quickly, but that what you get will work and continue to work well as long as it is supported. Unfortuneately it's not supported for very long time, but it's still very impressive given that it's essentially just a non-profit project.

    2. Re:Freeze by fnj · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Being stuck with Xfce 4.8 is particularly galling since the default desktop for Wheezy is the unutterably awful GNOME 3. Xfce 4.10 will be OVER ONE YEAR OLD when Wheezy is released and it is absolutely crazy not to have 4.10 in Wheezy.

      I'll grant you that even Xfce 4.8 is vastly superior to GNOME 3, but it is very unfortunate not to have 4.10, which has some significant enhancements; the one I find most welcome is FINALLY the ability to configure desktop icons for single-click activation.

      I "get" the emphasis on stability, but now we'll be stuck with a badly out of date Xfce for a lengthy period until Wheezy is replaced. And I can SORT OF understand the decision to reverse course on what was once the plan for Debian to change the default desktop from GNOME 3 to Xfce (though I still on balance disagree with it and find it regrettable).

    3. Re:Freeze by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      There's a repository for that: http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=248917%23p248917
      What is most painful though is the old version of libc they are stuck on (2.13), half of all the Humble Bundle games won't work because they were compiled with something newer, so I'm thinking of switching to Mint or Arch this weekend.

    4. Re:Freeze by anarcat · · Score: 4, Informative

      one thing with the recent developments in Debian is that once Wheezy is released, we'll start working hard on the next release, Jessie. And while unstable may finally be unstable for a little while after the release (while people upload a bunch of new packages), I have had a lot of success running wheezy while it was in testing in the last two years. I suggest that people interested in the "latest and greatest" install wheezy, then upgrade to jessie (testing) when it stabilises a bit after the release.

      That's what I will do anyways. :)

      --
      Semantics is the gravity of abstraction
    5. Re:Freeze by 101percent · · Score: 2

      I couldn't have said it better. I've been running Wheezy for the past two months without issue, and when Debian 7 is released, all I need to do is aptitude update && aptitude upgrade and I will be at 7.

    6. Re:Freeze by Sipper · · Score: 3, Informative

      ... since the default desktop for Wheezy is the unutterably awful GNOME 3.

      And in Debian Gnome3 now has a dependency on NetworkManager.

      Users of the Wicd networking manager should be aware of this, because NetworkManager conflicts with Wicd. Neither Wicd no NetworkManager work when they're both active, and at the moment there's no warning about this nor instructions on what to do about it. :-(

    7. Re:Freeze by deek · · Score: 2

      You can always add the experimental repository to your source list, and install Xfce 4.10 from there.

      Debian pretty much always has the latest software available. You just have to look further than the "stable" set of packages. You can even have packages installed from different sources simultaneously.

      I have my system installed from "testing", and pick various packages from "unstable" and "experimental". It works beautifully, and is very stable, regardless of the source names. I also have the option to revert the package to another source, if it does prove to be troublesome.

    8. Re:Freeze by ISayWeOnlyToBePolite · · Score: 2

      Packages go from unstable to testing, which will then be released as stable. As 4.10 isn't intended for the next stable release (wheezy), it goes to experimental.

  2. Re:Wheezy by interval1066 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Not any worse than "anthratic ocelot" or "diseased Dilbert" or any of the wonderful names canonical has come up with.

    --
    Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
  3. Re:Wheezy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Clearly the marketing message being conveyed is "We don't have marketing here. We have engineers."

  4. Will they ship without a sudo that works with ldap by Yohahn · · Score: 2

    I hope they can fix http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=368297 before they ship.
    It seems horrible in this day and age that a Linux would exist that couldn't get basic functionality with ldap working.

  5. Re:I hereby request an easier mail/http server set by h4rr4r · · Score: 2

    Why would you want a wizard?
    Just edit config files like a big boy.

    Pick your smtp server and edit the files. Not like there is a lot to it.

  6. Re:Kernel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Debian will run Linux kernel 3.2.39

    Debian can also run on the FreeBSD kernel. It looks like Wheezy will support both 8.3 and 9.0 kernels.

  7. Re:Named in honor of... by jtownatpunk.net · · Score: 3, Funny

    Weezie Jefferson. Movin' on up, to the east side!

  8. Re:Kind of sad by i.r.id10t · · Score: 2

    No, it is/was caused by long release cycles (2 years or longer between stable releases) and the Debian group's dedication to truly Free software. The finally found something they find to be morally acceptable, and it is in the next release after they found it.

    --
    Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
  9. Kinda agree by MAXOMENOS · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is true if you're using Debian on the desktop. As a production server, I want something that Just Works and Doesn't Change except for the occasional security fix.

    1. Re:Kinda agree by kthreadd · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I have quite a lot of Debian workstations that I also want to just work, otherwise the users using them won't be very productive that day.

    2. Re:Kinda agree by Sipper · · Score: 2

      I have quite a lot of Debian workstations that I also want to just work, otherwise the users using them won't be very productive that day.

      Agreed. Debian workstations work fairly well. [Occasionally I have to build a newer kernel for new hardware, but I can deal with that.] I like that things are stable during the release cycle.

    3. Re:Kinda agree by Murdoch5 · · Score: 2

      And bleeding edge software usually doesn't break the desktop.

  10. Security improvements! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    What's new in Debian 7.0

    2.2.3. Hardened security

    Many Debian packages have now been built with gcc compiler hardening flags enabled. These flags enable various protections against security issues such as stack smashing, predictable locations of values in memory, etc. An effort has been made to ensure that as many packages as possible include these flags, especially focusing on those in the 'base'-installation, network-accessible daemons and packages which have had security issues in recent years.

    Now there are no reasons for using Ubuntu anymore. I do not remember being so excited ever!

    1. Re:Security improvements! by squiggleslash · · Score: 4, Funny

      Sorry, but unless it has APK's HOSTS file installed by default, I'm sticking with Ubuntu...

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    2. Re:Security improvements! by tyrione · · Score: 2

      I could give two cents about GCC compiler Hardening flags. Hell, the only interesting part of Debian is the fact its entire repo is gearing up to be LLVM/Clang compliant. The moment LLVM/Clang can compile Debian, RedHat, SuSE more acceptable Linux based distros is the moment big engineering firms switch the likes ANSYS, Catia, COMSOL, and others away from GCC and give themselves a celebration by welcoming LLVM/Clang with open arms. All of the work for OpenGL/OpenCL in the pipeline for MESA, and Video Drivers are making huge leaps with LLVM/Clang and not GCC.

      Sorry folks, but I look forward to the moment FreeBSD 10 arrives so I can say good-bye to Linux. All the work by Intel, Nvidia and AMD with quality GPU drivers and GPGPU stacks for OpenCL/OpenGL are all coming to FreeBSD, as well. It would be truly ironic if FreeBSD 10.x becomes the third largest Desktop OS in the world with Linux continuing to have pissing contests over which DE is best or having 10 DE is better.

      Hell, the entire LLVM/Clang stack 3.3 Trunk oozing into Debian is still fucked up and requires an asinine amount of GCC4.7 and GCC4.8 from Experimental to work. That makes absolutely zero sense, but it does.

      In my opinion, that makes the effort DOA.

  11. Re:Wheezy by Minwee · · Score: 2

    How about "Longhorn"? A grossly overweight beast who is destined for the slaughterhouse but will endeavour to leave massive piles of bullshit on your fields before it goes. There's a good code name for a product.

    On the other hand, Windows XP Embedded had the code name of Mantis, which fit it nicely.

  12. Re:Wheezy by Alioth · · Score: 4, Informative

    The product is officially known as "Debian 7.0". Wheezy is just a code name.

  13. Donate... by 101percent · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If you would like to help out, check out the following link. Anything you donate will be matched by a generous donor. Note, this money goes towards DebConf13, the Debian developers conference (free admission to all). Lets get Jessie off to a good start! http://nylug.org/pipermail/nylug-announce/2013-April/001231.html

  14. Re:I hereby request an easier mail/http server set by Qzukk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What I've always missed is a command line tool I can use to set these services up without any graphical interface

    What, exactly, is wrong with

    dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config

    --
    If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
  15. Multiarch? by stms · · Score: 2

    Will we be getting a multiarch build (armhf+armel) of this one? I found some info that said there would be multiarch for x86 (64-bit+32-bit) but I can't find anything for arm.

    1. Re:Multiarch? by KiloByte · · Score: 2

      Why would you ever install the same program for two architectures at once, barring an interpreter that heavily uses binary modules? That's not supported by multiarch, and it's explicitely a non-goal.

      armhf+armel multiarch seems quite pointless to me as well, although it is supported. I for one have both i386 and armhf enabled on my amd64 box and i386 on my armhf one (you need external patches for qemu so wine can work, though).

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
  16. Re:Named in honor of... by X0563511 · · Score: 2

    Debian's been named this way since, well, forever.

    You can't sue for use of first names, especially when they are common or adjectives.

    --
    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...
  17. Re:Will they ship without a sudo that works with l by squiggleslash · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If you've been around any enterprises, then yes, you've seen it. It's one of the components of Active Directory (indeed, it's the "Directory" part of Active Directory.)

    LDAP is used to centrally store and manage information about all the entities involved in a network - users, computers, etc. With users that includes everything from their email address to their network password - which brings us to the GP's point.

    There are numerous implementations of LDAP out there. Unix systems have been administered using LDAP for decades. So it's a big thing if Debian still doesn't support it properly. It should. And actually, with SAMBA4 now out, we should be moving LDAP (and Kerberos and the other major network administration tools) out of "the enterprise" and start being able to use them in smaller networks, like at home. There's no reason why your D-Link router shouldn't have it built in.

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  18. Re:Kind of sad by inglorion_on_the_net · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's 2013 and your finally advertising non broken media support. Even Gentoo has had working media support built in for years, I think if this is one of the selling points of Debian then it's time to move on, your trying to get me to take the Honda N360 off your hands instead of the race car.

    I think you're laboring under the mistaken assumption that this reflects on the general state of Debian. The truth is that media support is a very specific issue, which, IIRC, was caused by intellectual property issues. For most other things, Debian has had a very complete and high-quality selection of packages. For proprietary media formats, they basically had none - although getting support for those was as simple as adding a repository that provided them (change one line and run a command, or do a couple of clicks - whichever you prefer).

    In particular, the "broken" media support was not an issue with Debian generally being broken (it hasn't been) and it also wasn't an issue with Debian being behind other distros (Debian stable tends to have old software, but that is by design - if you want newer software, you can use backports, unstable, experimental, or third-party repositories).

    This is one of the major reasons I could never stick with Debian, I need stuff to work, be up to date and ready to go out of the box, Debian is built off legacy packages in an attempt to claim stability, when in reality it's just outdated in it's release mode.

    By all means use the distro that works best for you. For me, that's Debian stable, because I want to minimize the amount of time I spend on maintenance. There is a trade-off between having newer software and having more testing performed on that software, and a trade-off between minimizing system maintenance effort and running up-to-date software, and I'm happy with how Debian stable makes these trade-offs. Every other OS I've used has had a higher maintenance burden.

    --
    Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
  19. Re:ext4 is now the default by kthreadd · · Score: 2

    Which is exactly the kind of behavior you want from a stable distribution. The previous version included support for ext4 as well so that users could test it. It just wasn't the default.

  20. What changed? by swillden · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Does anyone know what changed to allow Debian to add MP3 and other libs? There has never been a technical problem with including them, but Debian has always tried to avoid violating patents by distributing patented (or claimed-to-be-patented) software.

    I'm glad they've been able to take this step, just wondering what happened.

    --
    Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    1. Re:What changed? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      These bugs, along with all the links they contain, is a good starting point:
      http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=522373
      http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=592457

      My guess...Debian got legal advice which gave them enough courage to go ahead...and it included the instruction not to publish the details of said advice. See also:
      http://www.debian.org/legal/patent
      http://www.debian.org/reports/patent-faq

  21. Re:Kind of sad by chris_mahan · · Score: 2

    I run servers for people who pay me money. I run debian stable exclusively and watch the cash roll in.

    --

    "Piter, too, is dead."

  22. Re:Wheezy by Randle_Revar · · Score: 2

    Go cry about it somewhere else

  23. Re:Kernel by marcosdumay · · Score: 2

    What, GNU Hurd won't make it to stable again?

    By the way, I'm already migrating (I'm writting at /. while my server downloads packages). New asterisk and postgres. What's not to like?

  24. Re:No avidemux?, paper cuts not present in Ubuntu by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    We rely on volunteers to add software to Debian. People who want avidemux in Debian (like yourself) haven't bothered to package avidemux yet. Perhaps you would like to help improve multimedia in Debian and join the multmedia team?

    http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Multimedia

    Please report bugs about the issues you found:

    http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Reporting

  25. Re:Wheezy by JonJ · · Score: 2

    They do? Because when I walk over to http://debian.org/ and then click on either "Getting Debian" or "CD ISO Images" it says absolutely fuck all about "Wheezy", "Squeeze", "Etch", "Sarge" or anything. And when you download it, the iso is labeled with the version number 6.0.7.

    Likewise, when I head over to Ubuntu.com, click "Download" in the upper right corner, and then Ubuntu Desktop, it says 12.10, no code name here either. Now, there are few places where the codename will appear, but it's not in extensive use. And it's not any worse than OS X recycled names(Mountain Lion is the same as Puma, which is the same as Cougar. Puma has already been used on 10.1).

    --
    -- Linux user #369862
  26. Re:Debian gripes by Issarlk · · Score: 2

    Who in 2013 still doesn't "apt-get remove nano" first thing after a fresh Debian install?

  27. Re:Will they ship without a sudo that works with l by Yohahn · · Score: 2

    sudo-ldap is kind of an out-lier; I've set up NSS LDAP I don't know how many times, against both OpenLDAP and Active Directory, and I've never bothered with sudo-ldap. I can see why people would but it is entirely possible (and IMHO just as easy) to not use it.

    One thing that does bug me is that nslcd doesn't understand nested Groups in AD.

    How do you authenticate to do sudo then?
    The only think I can think is that you are authenticating locally instead of against ldap.