“The Debian project is pleased to announce the fourth update of its stable distribution Debian GNU/Linux 3.1. This update mainly adds corrections for security problems to the stable release, along with a few adjustment to serious problems. Those who frequently update from security.debian.org won’t have to update many packages and most updates from security.debian.org are included in this update.”
Hope this isn’t a sign that 4.0 is gonna be way late.
A December release seems to be still on the radar.
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/11/msg00000.html
Do these point releases have driver backports like RHEL does? In my honest opinion, the extremely slow Debian release schedule coupled with the fact that you had to install a 3 year old kernel on modern hardware was its biggest problem.
3 years? Sarge was released on the 6th of June, 2005. 🙂
But to answer your question: no, sadly not. However, unofficial debian-installer images incorporating the latest 2.6 kernels can be found at http://kmuto.jp/debian/d-i/ courtesy of Debian developer Kenshi Muto.
FWIW, the Sarge version of the debian-installer generally detects at least enough of a modern machine’s hardware to get the system installed; it’s then the work of a moment to pop in another CD (or USB stick, or whatever) containing a more modern kernel version and upgrade it that way. Annoying, but it’s a workaround that’ll suffice in the vast majority of cases.
Thanks for the link.
Some good info there in the FAQ.
I wish I had that FAQ last week when I tried to install Debian testing on lates Intel ICH8 chipset board and it wouldn’t detect any drives at all.
It was the Asus P5B-VM board and Kubuntu 6.10 installed fine. Even Ubuntu Dapper detected the SATA drives fine.
But October release of Debian testing would just not work.
You could always opt to run the quite stable ‘testing’ version of Debian, which includes a far newer kernel. Or compile yourself a new kernel, the debian way: http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch08s05.html.en
Edited 2006-11-07 05:37
Of course there’s the option that’s been there since before sarge even released. when the cd gets to boot: just plug in ‘linux26’ and hit enter. Your system will never see a 2.4 kernel.
Yes, but as stated in my previous comment, it will not work with the latest crop of chipsets and motherboards.
In particular, the latest Intel ICH8 boards are big trouble for Linux distros.
I had no luck on them with Debian, Knoppix 5.01 and Slackware 11.
I had success with *buntus, all drives detected.
And the latest System Rescue CD v.0.2.19, which is located at http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page when booted from external usb dvd drive would detect the onboard SATA drives and I was able to use partimage to make an image of the Kubuntu install I just did.
That pleased me because now I can clone a Linux install (Debian, Slackware) with a compiled, new kernel and have that install working on the latest hardware.
So there is a way, but one has to do some leg work and be technicaly advanced.
Newbies trying to install Linux for the first time will have tough going.
But using Linux on the latest hardware with a Core 2 Duo cpu sure is pleasure.
There is always the option of using the Etch installer to install the testing branch (which will soon become stable).
http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/
Well, my concern was more centered around what happens to Debian users who need to install Debian Stable between the time of the last stable release and the next stable release. Waiting six months for “official” support is not that bad because not that much changes during that time, and it takes generally that long to fully evaluate, test, implement, etc. new technologies. However, having to wait longer starts really impacting business. For example, having to wait until December 2006 for Core 2 support is feasible but having to wait until December 2007 becomes very problematic. I like the fact that RHEL backports new drivers and releases updates every 3-6 months. Is this something Debian can do too so people won’t ever be left out in the cold for 1.5 years? Also, does anyone know whether or not Ubuntu LTS backports drivers? If so, why doesn’t Debian sync up their stable release with Ubuntu kernels so that they can work together in solving backporting issues.
Edited 2006-11-07 17:41