http://www.debian.org/News/2005/20050606

Congrats to the Debian team for another great release! Rejoice fellow Debian users for today is a great day in computing history! lol Now lets get X.org into unstable!

Yes Congrats to all the developers that work on this release!!!!.... it's a great one... waiting was really worth it :-)
A.
PS: yup yup let's get X.org now... ;-)

It was the time to update .. the old debian was in stone age
But now look:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Debian Project http://www.debian.org/
Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 released press@debian.org
June 6th, 2005 http://www.debian.org/News/2005/20050606
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 released

The Debian Project is pleased to announce the official release of Debian
GNU/Linux version 3.1 codenamed ``sarge'' after nearly three years of
constant development. Debian GNU/Linux is a free operating system which
supports a total of eleven processor architectures, includes KDE, GNOME
and GNUstep desktop environments, features cryptographic software, is
compatible with the FHS v2.3, and supports software developed for the LSB.

With the development of the new debian-installer, this release features
a new, modular and sophisticated installation routine with integrated
hardware detection and unattended installation capabilities. The
installation is available in about thirty languages and includes
configuration of the X server for many graphic cards.

The task selection system has been revamped and made more flexible. The
debconf tool has been integrated into most packages that need to be
configured and makes this easier and more user friendly. Debian
GNU/Linux can be installed from various installation media such as DVDs,
CDs, USB sticks, a few floppies, or from the network. It can be
downloaded now, and will soon be available on DVD and CD-ROM from
numerous vendors <http://www.debian.org/CD/vendors/>.

Debian GNU/Linux runs on computers ranging from palmtops and handheld
systems to supercomputers, and on nearly everything in between. A total
of eleven architectures are supported, including Motorola 68k (m68k), Sun
SPARC (sparc), HP Alpha (alpha), Motorola/IBM PowerPC (powerpc), Intel
IA-32 (i386) and IA-64 (ia64), HP PA-RISC (hppa), MIPS (mips, mipsel),
ARM (arm) and IBM S/390 (s390).

This release includes a number of up-to-date large software packages,
such as the K Desktop Environment 3.3 (KDE), the GNOME desktop
environment 2.8, the GNUstep desktop, XFree86 4.3.0, GIMP 2.2.6,
Mozilla 1.7.8, Galeon 1.3.20, Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.2, Firefox 1.0.4,
PostgreSQL 7.4.7, MySQL 4.0.24 and 4.1.11a, GNU Compiler Collection 3.3.5
(GCC), Linux kernel versions 2.4.27 and 2.6.8, Apache 1.3.33 and 2.0.54,
Samba 3.0.14, Python 2.3.5 and 2.4.1, Perl 5.8.4 and much more.

This is the first Debian release that includes OpenOffice.org (1.1.3).
It also features cryptographic software integrated in the main
distribution. OpenSSH and GNU Privacy Guard are included in the default
installation, and strong encryption is present in web browsers, web
servers, databases, and many other applications available in this
release.

Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 includes the efforts of the Debian-Edu/Skolelinux,
Debian-Med and Debian-Accessibility sub-projects which boosted the number
of educational packages and those with a medical affiliation as well as
packages designed especially for people with disabilities.

Upgrades to Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 from the previous release Debian
GNU/Linux 3.0 codenamed ``woody'' are automatically handled by the
aptitude package management tool, and to a certain degree also by the
apt-get package management tool. As always, Debian GNU/Linux systems can
be upgraded painlessly, in place, without any forced downtime. For
detailed instructions about installing and upgrading Debian GNU/Linux,
please see the release notes
<http://www.debian.org/releases/sarge/releasenotes>.

Hmmm...... I was thinking of trying the Debian i'll wait a day or two before I download because the mirrors are probably busy! or slow.

trying debian?.... excelent idea but if you are thinking about testing or unstable... I would advise you to wait a little more than a couple of days... ;-)

Oh yeah lots of fun things are going to be happening in unstable and testing.

The mirrors are already going wacko. None of my non-us or testing security update mirrors are working. Can't wait to see how screwy things get. Good thing I have a play system for Sid. All I can say is apt-listbugs is a life saver.

hehe... yup I guess it is going to be quite shaky all that!
By the way talking about aptlistbugs, does someone know if it is syncronized with the bug tracking system of debian or still not? mmm... I gonna check it very carefully these days ;-)

I'm thinking of trying Debian "sid" because it's more "up-to-date" so to speak. To anyone whose tried "sid" is it really quote "unstable" or is it "easy" to break or "buggy"?

mmm... well nobody seems to agree with that... I have been using unstable for a while now without major problems but recently unstable was not really "unstable" because of the realease... before even if there were more updates I would not define debian unstable as unstable.
However, I am certainly not telling you to use unstable, I am very happy with that but it has to be your personal choice. For sure, if you never used debian before don't even think trying unstable it's ridiculous and you are going to be quite frustrated.
I think the good thing to do would be to install testing and stick with it for some months to learn how debian work. Then later if you feel like upgrading to unstable go for it because at that time if something wrong happens you'll be 1) able to solve it or 2) able to explain what went wrong to someone who can help you.
Also, sorry to say that but if you don't know debian I would actually advise you to stay away from unstable & testing for now because the realease was just today and it is probably going to be a mess ;-)
In brief: wait a couple of months, install testing, learn, and upgrade to unstable if you feel like...
Sorry not to be more helpful...
Good Luck!
A.

I have been running Sarge (testing) for a while. How do I upgrade to the new stable Sarge? Do I have to change things in /etc/apt/sources.list?

well if you are using sarge already there is no difference... but if you want to stay with sarge (new stable) you should make sure you see sarge in your /etc/apt/source.list and not testing. sarge will always points to sarge but testing will now point to the new testing... forgot the name sorry

yeah!
good question

Im doing a aptitude dist-upgrade

but is this the right way or I have to download some other ISO ?

dist-upgrade to what? If your system was already updated running Sarge you probably won't see alot of updates, since stable only receives security updates.

If all you want is to make sure you have the latest Sarge updates just do apt-get upgrade

Are you updating to Testing(Etch BTW) or Unstable(Sid)? If you are doing either you need to change your source.list to point to whichever. Something similiar to below but use mirrors close to where you live.

#Sarge stable
# deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian/ stable main contrib non-free
#Security Updates Stable
deb http://security.debian.org/ stable/updates main contrib non-free
# Testing Etch
deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian/ testing main contrib non-free
deb http://mirrors.kernel.org/debian/ testing main
# Testing(Etch) Sources
deb-src http://http.us.debian.org/debian/ testing main contrib non-free
deb-src http://mirrors.kernel.org/debian/ testing main
# Unstable Sid
# deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian/ unstable main contrib non-free
# deb http://mirrors.kernel.org/debian/ unstable main
# Unstable Sources
# deb-src http://http.us.debian.org/debian/ unstable main contrib non-free
# deb-src http://mirrors.kernel.org/debian/ unstable main

Anyone know why both the non-us mirrors and the testing security updates don't work ?

I merely changed all the lines that point to "testing" and replaced it with "stable", which worked beautifully........