This page is used to prepare the next release announcement to be sent to debian-boot and debian-devel-announce mailing lists.
Caution!
This announce has now been published. If something has to be updated, that's on the website (webwml repository).
Title: Debian Installer Wheezy Beta1 release
The Debian Installer team is pleased to announce the first beta release of the installer for Debian Wheezy.
Improvements in this release of the installer
- debian-installer: Switch the boot backgrounds to the Wheezy joy theme.
- debian-installer: Adjust syslinux boot menu to not overlap with Debian logo.
- debian-installer: Update to 3.2.0-3 linux ABI.
- apt: Fix crashes on s390x.
- apt: Improved behaviour with proxies (redirection handling improved, and HTTP/1.1 pipelining disabled by default).
- brltty: Add new braille USB IDs to d-i udev rules.
- busybox: Enable ping applet for udeb build.
- debian-archive-keyring: Wheezy keys were added.
- fonts-lohit-telu: Fix some glyphs for Telugu language support.
- grub2: Prevent EFI systems from running out of memory due to large disk cache.
- hw-detect: check-missing-firmware now supports looking into xz-compressed udebs.
- libx11: Some Compose sequences were tweaked or removed.
- linux kernel: Updated from 3.2.15 to 3.2.21 (many fixes).
- rt2x00: Identify rt2800usb chipsets (#658067).
- rt2800usb: Add support for Ralink RT5392/RF5372 chipset (#673186).
- [sparc,sparc64] Build virtio-modules-udeb for use in qemu (#673320).
- [ia64,powerpc] udeb: Add crc-itu-t to crc-modules; make firewire-core-modules depend on it.
- input: Add Synaptics USB device driver (Closes: #678071).
- udeb: Add missing dependencies for various modules (see #678587).
- lowmem: Improved low memory mode.
- mkvmlinuz: Compress initrd with xz to significantly reduce vmlinuz size (Closes: #549681).
- netcfg: Fix for "Enter the passphrase for WPA PSK" missing a "go back" button (#636211).
- netcfg: Make link detection timeout preseedable (#610752).
- netcfg: Fix link detection progress bar.
- network-console: Add support for public-key authentication (#592550).
- newt: Fix 'Escape' detection when 'No' is selected (#665784).
- pciutils: Update pci.ids to the 2012.06.25 version.
- rootskel-gtk: Use the Wheezy Joy theme for the installer.
- wpa: Fix authentication issues with WPA2 passwords.
Behavioral changes in this release
- kfreebsd-*: When more than one kfreebsd version is available, make kfreebsd-9 the default boot option.
- preseed: Point the keymap alias to keyboard-configuration/xkb-keymap instead of the now-gone console-keymaps-at.
- rootskel-bootfloppy support has been removed (#653840).
Hardware support changes
libdebian-installer: Add support for ?LaCie NAS devices (Kirkwood), #670527.
- linux kernel: Updated from 3.2.15-1 to 3.2.21-3.
- rt2x00: Identify rt2800usb chipsets (#658067).
- [armhf] Add vexpress support (Closes: #670462)
- [armel] Introduce a new udeb module for leds and use it on kirkwoord kernel (Closes: #671200)
- rt2800usb: Add support for Ralink RT5392/RF5372 chipset (#673186).
- [sparc,sparc64] Build virtio-modules-udeb for use in qemu (#673320).
- be2net: Add support for Skyhawk cards.
- [x86] udeb: Add hyperv-modules containing Hyper-V paravirtualised drivers
- [x86] ata_piix: defer disks to the Hyper-V drivers by default
- [x86] udeb: Add hyperv-modules containing Hyper-V paravirtualised drivers.
- DFSG: video: Remove nvidiafb and rivafb
- input: Add Synaptics USB device driver (Closes: #678071).
- [armel/kirkwood] Add dreamplug and iconnect support (Closes: #675922).
network-console: Set LED signal on ?LaCie Kirkwood NAS devices when SSH is ready (#670941).
Localization changes
- Welsh language enabled
- Sinhala, Burmese and Tibetan now really supported with the right font for each
- 73 languages are supported in this release. Full translation for 56 of them.
Known issues in this release
- Installing from the 1st CD without a network mirror doesn't install a full desktop environment.
- espeak: Incomplete migration to multi-arch, which leads to a failure to switch languages for software speech in the Debian installer environment (#682313).
- kfreebsd: grub-install may fail to find a GRUB drive (#637684).
Feedback for this release
We do 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.
Thanks
The Debian Installer team thanks everybody who has contributed to this release.