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Debian 7.0 ("Wheezy") Released
First time accepted submitter anarcat writes "After two years since the last Debian release (6.0, nicknamed "squeeze"), the Debian release team has finally published Debian 7.0 (nicknamed "Wheezy"). A newly created blog has details on the release, which features multi-arch support (e.g. you can now install packages for both i386 and amd64 on the same install), improvements to multimedia support (no need for third party repositories!) and improved security through hardening flags. Debian 7.0 also ships with the controversial Gnome 3 release, and the release notes explicitly mention how to revert to the more familiar 'Gnome classic' interface. Finally, we can also mention the improved support for virtualization infrastructure with pre-built images available for Amazon EC2, Windows Azure and Google Compute Engine. Debian 7.0 also ships with the OpenStack suite and the Xen Cloud Platform. More details on the improvements can be found in the release notes and the Debian wiki." An anonymous reader points out (from the announcement) that "[t]he installation process has been greatly improved: Debian can now be installed using software speech, above all by visually impaired people who do not use a Braille device. Thanks to the combined efforts of a huge number of translators, the installation system is available in 73 languages, and more than a dozen of them are available for speech synthesis too.
In addition, for the first time, Debian supports installation and booting using UEFI for new 64-bit PCs (amd64), although there is no support for Secure Boot yet."
Ubuntu pulls packages from Debian unstable on a rolling basis, and then has their own release cycle. So the releases of stable Debian versions aren't that relevant to Ubuntu releases.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Worked just fine with apt-get. Did it on an installation that started out with 2.2 and that has been upgraded from version to version.
I really like the emphasis on stability, but for web browsers I think it is a problem. Debian 7.0 ships with Iceweasel (Firefox) 10.0.12esr that is EOL. The security updates will be backported, but with the many changes to the next supported ESR, it may not be possible to backport all security updates. Considering that the browsers these days are major targets, I would rather have a possible more unstable browser, but a browser with the latest security updates.
This is only a problem if You want to use Debian as a desktop OS. When installing as a server OS, the older but more stable packages, is perfect for my taste.
the fact that everyone who runs debian runs the testing version just makes my point
Except not everyone does. Most machines under my control run Debian stable, because I don't want any trouble from them. I just need them to do their job.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel
Take a look at Maintenance. Linux 3.2 is the version with longest support: until 2015.
Linux 3.2 will be supported until 2015. That's longer than the support lifetime for any other kernel version at the moment, unless the maintainer for 3.4 decides to support it past 2014. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel#Maintenance
From the Debian perspective there was only Firefox 10 ESR and Firefox 17 ESR. Since the freeze was made before 17 was released, version 10 was included.
for Firefox specifically, Debian chose version 10.0 because it's an Extended Support Release version (http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/faq/) . In order to be able to support it with security fixes in the next 2-3 years. It makes perfect sense if you think about it.