Article 766 of gnu.announce: Message-ID: Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 10:13:11 -0400 From: Debian Project To: info-gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu Subject: Debian GNU/Linux 0.93 release update Distribution: world Approved: info-gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu Path: nntpd.lkg.dec.com!crl.dec.com!pa.dec.com!news1.digital.com!decwrl!enews.sgi.com!sgigate.sgi.com!uhog.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!ai-lab!prep.ai.mit.edu!gnu Newsgroups: gnu.announce,gnu.utils.bug,comp.os.linux.misc Followup-To: gnu.utils.bug Lines: 46 Xref: nntpd.lkg.dec.com gnu.announce:766 gnu.utils.bug:12793 comp.os.linux.misc:73616 Debian GNU/Linux 0.93 will be released on September 25, 1995, the Debian Project announced today. This release will be the sixth of version 0.93, which has been under development for over a year. It represents the first official release from the Debian Project since January 1994. Release 5 of version 0.93, an unofficial BETA release, has been available to the public since March 1995, and has received rave reviews from its users. "Many people have criticized us for not releasing something every few months," says Ian Murdock, founder of the Debian Project, "but the end result is a system that is far more robust and stable than the competition. This is due to the fact that we are releasing a system that has been in extensive production use for almost a year. Not many people about to release a new system can say that." Debian GNU/Linux includes hundreds of software packages, including most GNU software, TeX, and the X Window System. Each package is an independent and modular unit, in that it is not associated with any particular release of the complete system or distribution scheme. Anyone can create their own packages and even upload them to be made available with the distribution or as a part of the distribution. Release 6 features an easy-to-use installation program that does not require knowledge of disk partitioning. A user need only select a disk with sufficient space available and the system is automatically installed to it with a minimum of questions. Also new in Release 6 is a 100+ page manual documenting the installation process in detail. Of course, Debian GNU/Linux is best known for its upgradability. It is upgradable incrementally and "in place". This means that users can upgrade individual packages or entire systems when they become available without having to reformat and reinstall. A user can choose to upgrade certain new or updated components as they are released, or she can choose to install an entire new release at once. The package maintenance system, called dpkg, makes sure that package conflicts and dependencies are resolved, and it intelligently updates configuration files to preserve any changes the user made before the upgrade process. Debian GNU/Linux 0.93 will be the last release that uses the a.out binary format. Version 1.0 and beyond will use the ELF binary format. As always, Debian GNU/Linux 0.93 will be upgradable to 1.0, without the need to reformat or reinstall. For more information about Debian GNU/Linux, please visit the World Wide Web page `http://www.debian.org/'.