| Lenny installer hits second RC |
Feb. 02, 2009
 The Debian Installer team has released a second "release candidate" installer for Debian 5.0, codenamed "Lenny." In announcing the release, maintainer Otavio Salvador offered few clues as to when Lenny might finally ship, however.
(Click for larger view of "Lenny," captured from Pixar Animation's Toy Story trailer)
Lenny was originally slated for release last September. Debian would not be Debian, however, without release delays. The project's motto has long been, "We'll release it when it's ready," a jab at the artificial, marketing-driven release dates associated with commercial software.
Better late than lame
In fairness, regular releases typically matter little to Debian users. There are two reasons for that.
First off, Debian has long enjoyed great in-place upgrade tools. Most users upgrade constantly, rather than reinstalling.
Second, unlike CD download-oriented distros like Ubuntu, Debian is typically installed initially from a USB key or even three floppy disks, as a very minimalist system. The user then reboots into the new system, and downloads only the software they actually need, along with any updates to the handful of files in their minimalist system. This approach pretty much solves the problem of massive post-install network updates, such as Ubuntu would have if they failed to keep the six-month release schedule they've committed to.
Really, the only issue with Debian's long release cycles is that the Debian installer is only maintained for the "stable" branch of Debian (currently Etch, soon to be Lenny). So, the more time elapses between stable releases (like Lenny), the more likely you are to find yourself with hardware unsupported by the kernel version used in Debian's installer. It's tough to do a network install when your NIC isn't recognized (though it can be done -- you just back-port the driver, or look for some kind soul who has posted a download).
Luckily for everyone, while Debian hashes through press-stopping issues such as the always lively binary blobs debate (nice story on that, Ryan), Salvador and his team are making sure the installer is pretty much ready to go now (software RAID issues excepted).
More frequent Debian releases ahead?
And why, you may be wondering, does Ubuntu continue to favor CD-oriented installs, when Debian-style network installs seem so much more efficient? It's because installing from a live CD can happen much faster. (At least, if you don't count the time it takes to download the CD, initially). The OS is simply block-copied wholesale onto the disk, instead of file-copied over the network. That saves the overhead of building all the inode tables and other file metadata on the fly.
Interestingly, the new Debian installer also now supports "install-from-live-CD." The feature works quite well, in our limited testing, though more than six months from now, we suspect the time-honored network install method will be faster, if you count the time it'll take to download 600MB the first time you apt-get upgrade (or its update-manager equivalent).
Unless Debian starts releasing every six months, that is.
Yeah, that'll happen.
So, give the installer a try, and enjoy blazing fast Debian installs, while they last!
For a list of changes since the RC1 installer release last November, as well as a list of remaining issues, peruse Salvador's announcement, here. For more details, or to download and test the installer, visit Debian.org's news page, here.
-- Henry Kingman
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