Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 has been released after 24 months of constant development. Here the announcement:
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The Debian Project http://www.debian.org/
Debian 6.0 "Squeeze" released press@debian.org
February 5th, 2011 http://www.debian.org/News/2011/20110205a
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Debian 6.0 "Squeeze" released
After 24 months of constant development, the Debian Project is proud to
present its new stable version 6.0 (code name "Squeeze"). Debian 6.0 is
a free operating system, coming for the first time in two flavours.
Alongside Debian GNU/Linux, Debian GNU/kFreeBSD is introduced with this
version as a "technology preview".
Debian 6.0 includes the KDE Plasma Desktop and Applications, the GNOME,
Xfce, and LXDE desktop environments as well as all kinds of server
applications. It also features compatibility with the FHS v2.3 and
software developed for version 3.2 of the LSB.
Debian runs on computers ranging from palmtops and handheld systems to
supercomputers, and on nearly everything in between. A total of nine
architectures are supported by Debian GNU/Linux: 32-bit PC / Intel
IA-32 (i386), 64-bit PC / Intel EM64T / x86-64 (amd64), Motorola/IBM
PowerPC (powerpc), Sun/Oracle SPARC (sparc), MIPS (mips (big-endian)
and mipsel (little-endian)), Intel Itanium (ia64), IBM S/390 (s390),
and ARM EABI (armel).
Debian 6.0 "Squeeze" introduces technical previews of two new ports to
the kernel of the FreeBSD project using the known Debian/GNU userland:
Debian GNU/kFreeBSD for the 32-bit PC (kfreebsd-i386) and the 64-bit PC
(kfreebsd-amd64). These ports are the first ones ever to be included in
a Debian release which are not based on the Linux kernel. The support
of common server software is strong and combines the existing features
of Linux-based Debian versions with the unique features known from the
BSD world. However, for this release these new ports are limited; for
example, some advanced desktop features are not yet supported.
Another first is the completely free Linux kernel, which no longer
contains problematic firmware files. These were split out into separate
packages and moved out of the Debian main archive into the non-free
area of our archive, which is not enabled by default. In this way
Debian users have the possibility of running a completely free
operating system, but may still choose to use non-free firmware files
if necessary. Firmware files needed during installation may be loaded
by the installation system; special CD images and tarballs for USB
based installations are available too. More information about this may
be found in the Debian Firmware wiki page.
1: http://wiki.debian.org/Firmware
Furthermore, Debian 6.0 introduces a dependency based boot system,
making system start-up faster and more robust due to parallel execution
of boot scripts and correct dependency tracking between them. Various
other changes make Debian more suitable for small form factor
notebooks, like the introduction of the KDE Plasma Netbook shell.
This release includes numerous updated software packages, such as:
* KDE Plasma Workspaces and KDE Applications 4.4.5
* an updated version of the GNOME desktop environment 2.30
* the Xfce 4.6 desktop environment
* LXDE 0.5.0
* X.Org 7.5
* OpenOffice.org 3.2.1
* GIMP 2.6.11
* Iceweasel 3.5.16 (an unbranded version of Mozilla Firefox)
* Icedove 3.0.11 (an unbranded version of Mozilla Thunderbird)
* PostgreSQL 8.4.6
* MySQL 5.1.49
* GNU Compiler Collection 4.4.5
* Linux 2.6.32
* Apache 2.2.16
* Samba 3.5.6
* Python 2.6.6, 2.5.5 and 3.1.3
* Perl 5.10.1
* PHP 5.3.3
* Asterisk 1.6.2.9
* Nagios 3.2.3
* Xen Hypervisor 4.0.1 (dom0 as well as domU support)
* OpenJDK 6b18
* Tomcat 6.0.18
* more than 29,000 other ready-to-use software packages, built from
nearly 15,000 source packages.
Debian 6.0 includes over 10,000 new packages like the browser Chromium,
the monitoring solution Icinga, the package management frontend
Software Center, the network manager wicd, the Linux container tools
lxc and the cluster framework Corosync.
With this broad selection of packages, 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 Debian 6.0 fulfils the high expectations
that users have of a stable Debian release. It is rock solid and
rigorously tested.
Starting from Debian 6.0, the "Custom Debian Distributions" are renamed
to "Debian Pure Blends" [2]. Their coverage has increased as Debian 6.0
adds >Debian Accessibility [3], DebiChem [4], Debian EzGo [5], Debian
GIS [6] and Debian Multimedia [7] to the already existing Debian Edu
[8], Debian Med [9] and Debian Science [10] "pure blends". The full
content of all the blends can be browsed [11], including prospective
packages that users are welcome to nominate for addition to the next
release.
2: http://blends.alioth.debian.org/
3: http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-accessibility/
4: http://debichem.alioth.debian.org/
5: http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEzGo
6: http://wiki.debian.org/DebianGis
7: http://blends.alioth.debian.org/multimedia/tasks/index
8: http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu
9: http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-med/
10: http://wiki.debian.org/DebianScience
11: http://blends.alioth.debian.org/
Debian may be installed from various installation media such as Blu-ray
Discs, DVDs, CDs and USB sticks or from the network. GNOME is the
default desktop environment and is contained on the first CD. Other
desktop environments — KDE Plasma Desktop and Applications, Xfce,
or LXDE — may be installed through two alternative CD images. The
desired desktop environment may also be chosen from the boot menus of
the CDs/DVDs. Again available with Debian 6.0 are multi-architecture
CDs and DVDs which support installation of multiple architectures from
a single disc. The creation of bootable USB installation media has
also been greatly simplified; see the Installation Guide [12] for more
details.
12: http://www.debian.org/releases/squeeze/installmanual
In addition to the regular installation media, Debian GNU/Linux may
also be directly used without prior installation. The special images
used, known as live images, are available for CDs, USB sticks and
netboot setups. Initially, these are provided for the amd64 and i386
architectures only. It is also possible to use these live images to
install Debian GNU/Linux.
The installation process for Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 has been improved in
various ways, including easier selection of language and keyboard
settings, and partitioning of logical volumes, RAID and encrypted
systems. Support has also been added for the ext4 and Btrfs filesystems
and — on the kFreeBSD architecture — the Zettabyte
filesystem (ZFS). The installation system for Debian GNU/Linux is now
available in 70 languages.
Debian installation images may be downloaded right now via BitTorrent
[13] (the recommended method), jigdo [14] or HTTP [15]; see Debian on
CDs [16] for further information. It will soon be available on
physical DVD, CD-ROM and Blu-ray Discs from numerous vendors [17], too.
13: http://www.debian.org/CD/torrent-cd/
14: http://www.debian.org/CD/jigdo-cd/#which
15: http://www.debian.org/CD/http-ftp/
16: http://www.debian.org/CD/
17: http://www.debian.org/CD//vendors
Upgrades to Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 from the previous release, Debian
GNU/Linux 5.0 (codenamed "Lenny"), are automatically handled by the
apt-get package management tool for most configurations, and to a
certain degree also by the aptitude package management tool. As
always, Debian GNU/Linux systems may be upgraded painlessly, in place,
without any forced downtime, but it is strongly recommended to read the
release notes [18] as well as the installation guide [19] 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.
18: http://www.debian.org/releases/squeeze/releasenotes
19: http://www.debian.org/releases/squeeze/installmanual
About Debian
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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 6.0 is another important
step in that direction.
