Posted by Steve on Sun 15 Feb 2009 at 10:25
Today, after several months of delays, the next new stable release of Debian Lenny was announced. This release features many changes not least of which is a newer kernel and supporting tools allowing for improved hardware support.
Debian Etch was released in April 2007, which means this release is just short of two years in the making.
What to expect
Almost every piece of software in the repository has been updated to a newer version, and many new packages have been added.
The following are some of the highlights:
- Kernel 2.6.26
- GNOME 2.22
- Emacs 22.
- X.Org 7.3
- OpenOffice.org 2.4
- Iceweasel/Firefox 3
- MySQL 5.051a
- GCC 4.3
- PHP 5.2.6
The Debian Wiki has a list of notable changes in Lenny, and we're almost certainly going to cover some of the new additions upon this site (such as the useful iotop package which was recently added to the Lenny distribution, and requires the use of a "modern" kernel.)
Upgrading To Lenny
If you're currently running Debian's previous stable release (etch) you should be able to upgrade via your preferred package manager.
The short version would be:
- Update your sources.list
Change etch to lenny in the file /etc/apt/sources.list.
If your sources.list currently lists stable you'll also be upgraded - whether you want it or not; always use the codename of the release you want to avoid surprises.
- Upgrade your system
Run "apt-get update; apt-get dist-upgrade", or use the preferred tool: "aptitude update; aptitude dist-upgrade".
This will take a long time to run if you're on a slow link, but if you're patient it should be mostly free of problems.
More thorough instructions and important caveats will be visible in the release notes - personally I believe you'd be crazy to upgrade without having read them, but the choice is yours.
Support Timescale
If you're still running Woody, or Sarge, you've been out of support for a considerable length of time.
Debian's Etch release will continue to receive security updates for another year - the general policy is that the previous stable release receives security updates for a year after the release of the replacement stable.
A big thank-you to all Debian developers, users, and supporters!
The release announcement contains a few more details.
This article can be found online at the Debian Administration website at the following bookmarkable URL (along with associated comments):
This article is copyright 2009 Steve - please ask for permission to republish or translate.