Lenny the First - Debian Installer Beta
The Debian Installer team has just released the first beta version of its installer for the next Debian release, Lenny.
This is the first installer version since the publication of Debian Etch. The developers have put around eleven months of work into fixing bugs and introducing new features: for example, the installer now tries to set the system time via NTP as soon as an Internet connection is established. The time is written to the hardware clock on rebooting.
The Debian installation routine can now be launched under Windows using the "win32-loader" package. Users do not need to modify their computers’ BIOS settings; an autorun run program takes care of booting form a CD, DVD, or USB stick.
One option available in earlier versions, that of including additional media for the install, has been reintroduced into the current release.
A detailed list of all the changes is available in the Changelog. Images for CDs and other installation media can be downloaded from the Debian Installer homepage.
The next beta version will be moving from kernel 2.6.22 to the 2.6.24 version, and there is some talk of support for proprietary firmware and enhancements to the partitioning tool.
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