Debian 8 has been released as long term support release with support for the next 5 years.



Here the official announcement:

------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Debian Project https://www.debian.org/
Debian 8 "Jessie" released press@debian.org
April 25th, 2015 https://www.debian.org/News/2015/20150426
------------------------------------------------------------------------


After almost 24 months of constant development the Debian project is
proud to present its new stable version 8 (code name "Jessie"), which
will be supported for the next 5 years thanks to the combined work of
the Debian Security team [1] and of the Debian Long Term Support [2]
team.

1: http://security-team.debian.org/
2: https://wiki.debian.org/LTS

"Jessie" ships with a new default init system, systemd. The systemd
suite provides many exciting features such as faster boot times, cgroups
for services, and the possibility of isolating part of the services. The
sysvinit init system is still available in "Jessie".

The UEFI ("Unified Extensible Firmware Interface") support introduced in
"Wheezy" has also been greatly improved in Jessie. This includes
workarounds for many known firmware bugs, support for UEFI on 32-bit
systems, and support for 64-bit kernels with 32-bit UEFI firmware (with
the latter being included only on our amd64/i386 "multi-arch"
installation media).

Since the previous release, members of the Debian project have also made
important improvements to our supporting services. One of these is a
browsable view of all source code shipped in Debian [3] currently
available at sources.debian.net [4]. Of course, with over 20,000 source
packages, it can be quite daunting to locate the right file. Therefore,
we are also very pleased to present Debian Code Search [5], available at
codesearch.debian.net [6]. Both services are complemented by a
completely rewritten and more reponsive package tracking system [7].

3: https://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2013/14/#sources
4: https://sources.debian.net
5: https://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2014/17/#DCS
6: https://codesearch.debian.net/
7: https://tracker.debian.org/

This release includes numerous updated software packages, such as:

* Apache 2.4.10
* Asterisk 11.13.1
* GIMP 2.8.14
* an updated version of the GNOME desktop environment 3.14
* GNU Compiler Collection 4.9.2
* Icedove 31.6.0 (an unbranded version of Mozilla Thunderbird)
* Iceweasel 31.6.0esr (an unbranded version of Mozilla Firefox)
* KDE Plasma Workspaces and KDE Applications 4.11.13
* LibreOffice 4.3.3
* Linux 3.16.7-ctk9
* MariaDB 10.0.16 and MySQL 5.5.42
* Nagios 3.5.1
* OpenJDK 7u75
* Perl 5.20.2
* PHP 5.6.7
* PostgreSQL 9.4.1
* Python 2.7.9 and 3.4.2
* Samba 4.1.17
* Tomcat 7.0.56 and 8.0.14
* Xen Hypervisor 4.4.1
* the Xfce 4.10 desktop environment
* more than 43,000 other ready-to-use software packages, built from nearly 20,100 source packages.

With this broad selection of packages and its traditional wide
architecture support, Debian once again stays true to its goal of being
the universal operating system. It is suitable for many different use
cases: from desktop systems to netbooks; from development servers to
cluster systems; and for database, web, or storage servers. At the same
time, additional quality assurance efforts like automatic installation
and upgrade tests for all packages in Debian's archive ensure that
"Jessie" fulfills the high expectations that users have of a stable
Debian release.

A total of ten architectures are supported: 32-bit PC / Intel IA-32
(i386), 64-bit PC / Intel EM64T / x86-64 (amd64), Motorola/IBM PowerPC
(powerpc for older hardware and ppc64el for the new 64-bit (little-
endian)), MIPS (mips (big-endian) and mipsel (little-endian)), IBM S/390
(64-bit s390x) and for ARM, armel and armhf for old and new 32-bit
hardware, plus arm64 for the new 64-bit "AArch64" architecture.

Want to give it a try?
----------------------

If you simply want to try Debian 8 "Jessie" without having to install
it, you can use a special image, known as a live image, available for
CDs, USB sticks, and netboot setups. Initially, these images are
provided for the amd64 and i386 architectures only. It is also possible
to use these live images to install Debian. More information is
available from the Debian Live homepage [8].

8: http://live.debian.net/

If, instead, you want to install it to your computer's permanent
storage, you can choose from a range of installation media, such as Blu-
ray Discs, DVDs, CDs, and USB sticks, or from the network. Several
desktop environments — GNOME, KDE Plasma Desktop and Applications, Xfce,
and LXDE — may be installed through CD images; the desired one may be
chosen from the boot menus of the CDs/DVDs. In addition, multi-
architecture CDs and DVDs are available which support installation of
multiple architectures from a single disc. Or you can always create
bootable USB installation media (see the Installation Guide [9] for more
details). For cloud users Debian also offers pre-built OpenStack
images [10], ready to use.

9: https://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/installmanual
10: http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/openstack/current/

The installation images may be downloaded right now via bittorrent [11]
(the recommended method), jigdo [12], or HTTP [13]; see Debian on
CDs [14] for further information. "Jessie" will soon be available on
physical DVD, CD-ROM, and Blu-ray Discs from numerous vendors [15] too.

11: https://www.debian.org/CD/torrent-cd/
12: https://www.debian.org/CD/jigdo-cd/#which
13: https://www.debian.org/CD/http-ftp/
14: https://www.debian.org/CD/
15: https://www.debian.org/CD/vendors

Upgrading Debian
----------------

Upgrades to Debian 8 from the previous release, Debian 7 (codenamed
"Wheezy"), are automatically handled by the apt-get package management
tool for most configurations. As always, Debian systems may be upgraded
painlessly, in place, without any forced downtime, but it is strongly
recommended to read the release notes [16] as well as the installation
guide [17] for possible issues, and for detailed instructions on
installing and upgrading. The release notes will be further improved and
translated to additional languages in the weeks after the release.

16: https://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/releasenotes
17: https://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/installmanual


About Debian
------------

Debian is a free operating system, developed by thousands of volunteers
from all over the world who collaborate via the Internet. The Debian
project's key strengths are its volunteer base, its dedication to the
Debian Social Contract and Free Software, and its commitment to provide
the best operating system possible. Debian 8 is another important step
in that direction.

  Debian 8 (Jessie) released