A new alpha release of the installer for Debian 9 has been released for testing

The Debian Installer team[1] is pleased to announce the sixth alpha
release of the installer for Debian 9 "Stretch".


Important changes in this release of the installer
==================================================

* This release fixes the package installation issue which appeared
lately with the previous alpha release (#814343).
* Debian Pure Blends can now be enabled directly from the Software
selection screen. This might change in a later release though
(#758116).


Improvements in this release
============================

* brltty:
- Install MATE desktop by default when brltty is used in d-i.
- Disable auto-detection of Cebra, Albatross, and BrailleMemo
devices in d-i, since they are rare and conflict with other
devices (#782732).
- prebaseconfig: Enable screen reader in KDE.
- prebaseconfig: Support 4th bootline parameter.
- brltty-udeb.udev.rules: Add new USB IDs.
* cdebconf:
- gtk: Auto-scroll when switching between entries.
- text: Print one screen worth of choices, and use +/- to switch
between choices screens (#809739).
* debian-installer:
- Bump linux kernel version from 4.3.0-1 to 4.5.0-2.
* espeakup:
- Add support for multiboard systems: request the user to press
enter at the right time to select a given board.
- Improve language/voice lookup.
- Install MATE desktop by default when espeakup is used in d-i.
* flash-kernel:
- Avoid waiting for Ctrl-c when debconf is running (#791794).
* net-retriever:
- Concentrate on SHA256 now, following archive-side changes.
* netcfg:
- Improve behaviour when user-submitted input contains spaces
(#818611).
- Improve error checking in various places.
* network-console:
- Improve support for multiple addresses (#816600).
* parted:
- Fix problems with LVM and DASD devices (#814076).
* partman-auto:
- Bump space requirements for a lot of recipes (#725642).
* partman-basicfilesystems:
- Call mkfs.ext2 with -F to avoid hangs (#817174).
* partman-ext3:
- Call mkfs.ext[34] with -F to avoid hangs (#767682).
* preseed:
- Invert env-preseed and initrd-preseed so that the former
overrides the latter (#805291).
- url: correctly handle IPv6 addresses (#815166).
* rootskel:
- Add GNU/screen support, when it's available.
* s390-zfcp:
- New component to activate and configure FCP devices (#808041).
* wget:
- Add udeb support, for later user.
* win32-loader:
- Switch signature checking from MD5 to SHA256.
- Improve support for new versions of Windows (#775055).


Hardware support changes
========================

* debian-installer:
- Provide u-boot images for OpenRD.
- Use marvell flavour for orion5x and kirkwood.
- Include mtd-modules in various images.
- Generate image for Seagate Personal Cloud and Seagate NAS.
- Improve armel/orion5x and armel/kirkwood for many different
Buffalo Linkstation devices.
- Add support for Firefly-RK3288.
- Add support for BeagleBoard-X15.
- ARM: sunxi: Add support for the Olimex A20-SOM-EVB.
- Add sata-modules for arm64.
* grub-installer:
- Install grub-xen when installing in a Xen PV guest.
* hw-detect:
- Improve and split harddrive detection into DASD and SCSI
dependency on s390x (#818586).
* libdebian-installer:
- armel: Add various orion5x/kirkwood based Buffalo Linkstation
devices supported by device-tree.
* linux:
- [armhf] usb-modules: Add modules required for BeagleBoard-X15
(#815848).
- [mips*/octeon] udeb: Add ahci_octeon and ahci_platform modules
to sata-modules.
- [arm64] udeb: Add leds-modules package containing leds-gpio
driver.
- [arm64] udeb: Add regulators and SoC modules to core-modules.
- [x86] udeb: Move scsi_transport_fc to scsi-core-modules, since
hv_storvsc now depends on it.
- [armhf] core-modules: Include regulator drivers by default.
- mmc-modules: Include MMC controller drivers by default.
- mmc-modules: Depends on usb-modules.
- usb-modules: Include USB PHY drivers by default.
- udeb: Combine scsi-{common,extra}-modules with scsi-modules.
- udeb: Use wildcards to include entire classes of drivers.
- udeb: Remove some obsolete drivers from nic-modules: Remove FDDI
and HIPPI drivers, and inet_lro module.
- udeb: Remove some obsolete drivers from nic-pcmcia-modules:
Remove Arcnet drivers.
- udeb: Move most USB wireless drivers from nic-usb-modules to
nic-wireless-modules.
- Extend ARM64 support: add amd-xgbe to nic-modules and
ahci_platform to sata-modules.
- [armhf] Add support for BCM2836 and Raspberry Pi 2: Add
sdhci-bcm2835 to mmc-modules, dwc2 to usb-modules.
- udeb: Make md-modules depend on crc-modules (#807661).
- udeb: Add hid-logitech-hidpp to input-modules (#796096).
- [s390x] udeb: include modules to mount ISOs (loop device).
- [s390x] udeb: include btrfs-modules (#812340).
- [armhf] udeb: Include usbhid in input-modules (#809521).
* micro-evtd:
- Support device-tree enabled kernel.
* network-console:
- Change LED to indicate SSH is ready on Seagate Personal Cloud and
Seagate NAS.
- Remove Cobalt support.
* oldsys-preseed:
- Add support for device tree based Buffalo Linkstation (#814342).
* rootskel:
- s390x: Do not always halt the machine after installation
(#813519).
- change LED to indicate d-i status on Seagate Personal Cloud and
Seagate NAS.
* s390-netdevice:
- qeth: ask for the relative OSA port number (#813033).
- qeth: remove portname (#813030).
- qeth: substitute layer and port number in qeth/confirm template
(#813121).
- netdevice: correct stack corruption due to numerous devices
(#813089).
* u-boot:
- Fixes eMMC boot selection on BeagleBone Black.
- Add u-boot-rpi package for Raspberry pi systems (rpi on armel,
rpi_2 on armhf).
- u-boot-sunxi: Enable orangepi_plus target.
- armel: Enable openrd_base, openrd_client and openrd_ultimate
(#810790).
- u-boot-omap: Add support for AM57xx boards.
- Fix gmac ethernet on sunxi systems (#818621).
* yaboot:
- Support ppc64 architecture (#322540).
- Load kernel and ramdisk at a lowest possible address (#719479).
- Support iscsi and pSeries (#641852).
- Correct ofpath discovery on newer kernels (#784387).


Localization status
===================

* 75 languages are supported in this release.
* Full translation for 5 of them.


Known bugs in this release
==========================

* There seems to be no known major bug as of yet.

See the errata[2] for details and a full list of known issues.


Feedback for this release
=========================

We need your help to find bugs and further improve the installer,
so please try it. Installer CDs, other media and everything else you
will need are available at our web site[3].


Thanks
======

The Debian Installer team thanks everybody who has contributed to this
release.


1. http://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/Team
2. http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/errata
3. http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer

  Debian 9 Installer Alpha 6 released