• DebianEtch

Debian Releases > Debian Etch

The current DebianOldStable distribution was developed under the code name Etch. It was released on Apr 8th 2007 as Debian GNU/Linux 4.0. It was superseded by Debian/Lenny on Feb 15th 2009.

Debian/Etch Life cycle

• 24 Jul 2006 : Announcement of Upcoming Release (press release).

• 08 Apr 2007 : Initial released : 4.0r0 (press release).

• 17 Aug 2007 : Updated (4.0r1) (preparation; press release).

• 27 Dec 2007 : Updated (4.0r2) (preparation; press release).

• 17 Feb 2008 : Updated (4.0r3) (preparation; press release).

• 27 Jul 2008 : Updated (4.0r4) aka etch-and-a-half (preparation; press release).

• 23 Oct 2008 : Updated (4.0r5) (preparation; press release).

• 18 Dec 2008 : Updated (4.0r6) (preparation; press release).

• 10 Feb 2009 : Updated (4.0r7) (preparation; press release).

• 15 Feb 2009 : Etch becomes old-stable. (i.e A new stable is released: Debian Lenny)

• 08 Apr 2009 : Updated (4.0r8) (preparation; press release).

• ..

• S1 2010 : planned : End of security updates / End of life. i.e one year after the next stable distribution has been released.

See Etch point-releases ChangeLog.

Architectures

• Etch is officially supported on the following architectures : alpha, amd64, arm, hppa, i386, ia64, mips, mipsel, powerpc, s390, sparc (see Etch's release page, release architecture criteria, and architecture re-qualification status).

  • (m68k support was dropped).

New Features

• Secure/Signed repositories (SecureApt).

• Graphical Installer (DebianInstaller/GUI).

• Debian-Installer supports 58 languages (i.e 18 new ones ; map)

• UTF-8 enabled by default.

see NewInEtch (Deutsch - Русский (Russkij) - Español)

Packages & versions

• apt 0.5.3
• kernel : linux 2.6.18
• libc : libc6 2.2.3
• gcc : 4.1.1
• X-server : Xorg 7.1

links

• Download CD : http://www.debian.org/CD/

• Package Repository : http://ftp.debian.org/dists/etch/

• Installation :

• Upgrade from Sarge: Sarge2EtchUpgrade

• Release Party : ReleasePartyEtch

FAQ

• Many answers can be fount in the 4.0r0 press release or in the Release Information.

Q) What were the release goals for Etch ?

see Etch 4.0, Blockers and Goals, Arch status, kernel 2.4, etc. A summary of the initially planned features, as discussed on debian-devel, went to EtchTODOList.

See also :

• Debian old-stable - Etch is the current old-stable distribution.

  • Debian Sarge - The previous stable distribution.

  • Debian Lenny - The next stable distribution.