http://www.debianplanet.org/node.php?id=1232

"The expected timeline for the release is as follows:

3rd May (Today): Freeze time and security support now available for testing
5-8th May: BSP to bring bug count down from ~85 to ~60/70
15th May: Debian installer finalised
27th May: Zarro RC boogs
30th May: Release

Now that there is official security support for testing you are very much encouraged to test the upgrade path between woody and sarge and report any issues to the BTS."

will Etch be released as testing at the same time Sarge will be released as stable? if not, when will the next testing release be? Once sarge is stable, will my sources list automatically get me etch, they are pointed to testing as opposed to sarge.

Whoo Hoo!!! Yes! All rejoice, Debian lives . Thanks for the heads up.

I've not been through a Debian release cycle, but I believe you're correct in that if your repo's labeled testing you will automagically go to etch, and if they are labeled Sarge, you will migrate into stable. Maybe someone with more Debian experience will enlighten us . Personally I want to migrate to stable (temporarily), so I made sure I had Sarge repo's, hoping that's how it works. I'm going to sit back for a while and see what happens with Etch, there will be alot of major software changes coming into testing after release, and I'm gonna play it safe for a short while.

Oh, btw, what on earth does " Zarro RC boogs" mean?

Yes. Probably the shift from Xfree to Xorg will be one of the major enhancements.

Debian, like Slack, these are the real stuff

"will Etch be released as testing at the same time Sarge will be released as stable?"

After May 30th, it will be so, AFAIK.

Everything is a matter of taste and choice. Me? I changed my sources.list from "testing" to "sarge" yesterday, so when the change comes i'm all set up. I want Sarge/Stable because of the security upgrades which in the past, have been updated more often than in Testing.

In the past, with Woody obsolete for the desktop, Testing breaking all the time (which basically, is the intended purpose), i chose to use Sid because of the apps, and because IMO, it was more stable than Testing .All this could be different now that the amount of platforms has been reduced to 4 in the practical sense of the word.

So now, i'm gonna lay low in Sarge/Stable, until the tsunami passes me by, and then move to Sid on my second hd, leaving always Sarge/Stable on my hda, or maybe not. Unless Sid comes with some app, (like wm Pek) which will break the monotony of a well-oiled machine, i intend to lead a boring happy life.

Like i said, depending on your needs, ambition to use the latest, or simply, to put more pizzaz in your life -lets face it- Debian Sarge Stable is gonna be boring, nothing will break. =)

Thanks for sharing that insight macondo. I think I'll do the same and stick with sarge for a while until Etch becomes "safe". I'm excited to migrate to X.org though, I just hope it goes smoothly.


Wow, this is my first Debian release cycle. I should like, hold a block party or something.

What are the advantages of running Xorg over Xfree?

i believe the Xorg project started(1 or 2 years ago i think) because of XFree licensing. Xorg was based on XFRee. I don't know how it evolved, i just use it :-).

ok, but why Xorg over XFree?
this
doesn't tell us anything. Does it have more hardware compatibility?

I spent a week last month playing with FreeBSD and ArchLinux, it had xorg by default, except for the change in licences, the graphical quality was the same, i didn't notice any diference. No biggie. It could be my sub-standard video card (nv with 4 MB of RAM), or the rest of my old hardware. But it was nothing to write home about.

so if there's no real performance boost or anything, the why is everyone so excited by the fact that it's coming to sarge?

Because we're all open source geeks, and so of course when we compare two virtually identical software packages that only differ in terms of licensing, the one with the "dubious" license is always 99999999 times worse than the one with the "OSS friendly" license.

I'm just happy for new stuffs, but alot of people want the added eyecandy, transparency, dropshadows, live rendering within pagers, wiggly windows, shiney stuff.

true, i didn't go to see to Xorg website about it since my hardware hasn't changed.

Xorg is not coming to Sarge, it's coming to Etch. The next stable release is always made from the "testing" development branch. When Sarge, that is currently the "testing" branch, becomes the next stable release, a new "testing" branch is established. The next "testing" branch will be called Etch and in time it will become the next stable release after Sarge.

Problems and delays with Sarge's release have resulted in Debian's development branches lagging behind the speed of development in most other leading distros and it's about high time that Debian starts to catch up. I'm determined to help in this by using Etch after Sarge's release (with apt-listbugs installed) and reporting all the bugs I can detect.