The second release candidate of the new Debian installer has been released. The final release of Debian 7 is expected for next weekend.



Here the full announcement:

The Debian Installer team[1] is pleased to announce the second release
candidate of the installer for Debian 7.0 "Wheezy".


Improvements in this release of the installer
=============================================

* accessibility/gdm3: Introduce basic Orca support (#689559).
* brltty: Fix getting stuck in text mode installer (#705196).
* localechooser: Update to latest translations of ISO-3166.
* netcfg:
- Use dpkg-query -s instead of dpkg -l to check for package
installation (#700939).
- Fix netcfg/disable_dhcp vs. netcfg/use_autoconfig logic. The
latter was ineffective (#703747, #688273).
- Install iw along with wireless-tools on the target system, it's
the current de facto standard wireless tool (#697890).
* rootskel-gtk: Make sure theme=dark works despite some changes
in last brltty versions (#696968).
* ttf-cjk-compact: Update for wheezy (#690523).


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

* New netboot image on armhf: vexpress.
* initramfs-tools: Include more HID drivers into base, so that
input drivers available in the installer also work in the
installed system (#697619).
* linux:
- Replace DRM_PSB with DRM_GMA500 (and DRM_GMA600, DRM_GMA3600,
DRM_MEDFIELD).
- Reenable MS Virtual PC guests in the ata_piix module.
- Add hid-topseed to input-modules for use in the installer
(#702611).
- efi: Ensure efivars is loaded on EFI systems (#703363).
- efivars: Work around serious firmware bugs.
- Backport drm and agp subsystems from 3.4.37 for better graphics
support (intel, nouveau, radeon).
- Bluetooth: ath3k: Add support for VAIO VPCEH [0489:e027]
(#700550).
- media/rc: Add iguanair driver from Linux 3.7 (#696925).
- rt2800: add chipset revision RT5390R support (#696592).
- armhf/mx5: Fix missing storage drivers and fix network driver
selection for the installer.
- Add specialised USB keyboard/mouse drivers to input-modules for
use in the installer: hid-a4tech, hid-cypress, hid-ezkey
(#697035), hid-kensington, hid-keytouch, hid-kye, hid-multitouch,
hid-ortek, hid-primax, hid-quanta, hid-samsung, hid-speedlink.
- radeon: Relax firmware checks for DRM/KMS before R600 chips
(#697229).
- [armel/versatile,armhf/vexpress] i2c: Enable I2C, I2C_VERSATILE
as modules (#696182).
- net: Add alx driver for Atheros AR8161 and AR8162 (#699129).
- [x86] i915: Invert backlight brightness control for various models
including Packard Bell NCL20 (#627372) and eMachines G725
(#680737). Can also be enabled with the invert_brightness=1 module
parameter.
- Backport the virtio-scsi module (#686636).
- Enable the line6 module (#700211).


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

* 73 languages are supported in this release.
* Full translation for 57 of them.


Known issues in this release
============================

* Installation of GRUB bootloader may fail if more than one disk
device is available. The errata page[2] mentions two workarounds.
* Desktop installations on i386 do not work using CD#1 alone. This
isn't a problem on amd64 since the latter contains fewer linux
kernel flavours.
* Potential issues with UEFI booting on amd64.
* Installation process might fail to detect Windows 8, on UEFI
systems (#698914).

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

--
Cyril Brulebois
on behalf of the Debian Installer Team