Debian 7 is Nearly Here

After two plus years, Debian 7.0 is nearly ready. The Debian project lives by the principle of release when ready. According to Neil McGovern, Debian developer and release manager, Debian Wheezy 7.0 is just about there. It only has a handful of bugs left, so a projected release date has finally been set.

McGovern said today all the core teams think the weekend of May 4 seems acceptable. So final preparations for release have begun. The date would only be changed if a critical bug or event appeared. McGovern said the status stands as:

Blockers for Wheezy bugs (2 bugs)
Planned for removal bugs (4 bugs)
Ignored for Wheezy bugs (58 bugs)
17 bugs not yet tagged

McGovern said fixes are in the works for most of them. There was no mention of the new installer, but recent reports elsewhere state it is shaping up nicely as well with some new features. Ext4 is the new default filesystem, systemd is an option, and UEFI on 64-bit system is supported. Wheezy features Linux 3.2, GCC 4.7.2, Xorg 1.12.4, KDE 4.8.4, and GNOME 3.4.2.

In other Debian news, congratulations Lucas Nussbaum on being elected the Debian Project Leader.