Via Slashdot, I found out that Debian “Lenny” (or 5.0, so you will) has been released. On February 14th. I can feel the Debian love at Slashdot.
Seriously, this looks like a major release (or setback if you’re in the other camp), with features like KDE 3.5, OpenOffice 2 and, yeah, oh, dear, I know where this is going to, why, Debian, why? From the earlier mentioned/linked to interview with the Debian Project Leader:
TR: But have you ever considered a Gnome-like approach to releasing – that is, always release after 6 or 12 months, and stick steadfastly to that?
SM: So far within Debian we’re happy with the ‘release when it’s ready’ approach. We like to do stable releases, it’s very important for us and to our users, but we want to make sure that it’s right. We can aim for a particular date, but unless we get a lot of buy-in and know for a fact that it’s going to be ready, we’ll happily let it slip another couple of months and make sure it’s good.
On the flip-side, Debian’s careful release schedule at least ensures that users won’t get the KDE 4.0 and other bleeding-edge crap: By the time KDE has matured, Debian user will have a working desktop environment. And as they say, when packages land in Debian ‘stable’, they’re most likely stable.
I also see that the website finally contains that note that you (only) need the first CD to install a standard Debian install. To find out what’s new in Lenny, check the Debian Wiki. Previously on xsamplex (“Etch”, “Sarge” or just all related posts or tags).