14 DAY TRIAL // The Debian Installer Team announced that Debian 8.0 "Jessie" Installer RC1 is now available for download and testing. This latest version has landed with a ton of fixes and improvements, but it looks like users will have to wait a little bit more for the stable version.
Before getting all excited about this release, you have to keep in mind that this is actually the installer. This is the first one to get released and it can help users and developers better test the latest changes made to the system. You won't find any Live CD and the installer is not exactly user friendly, but that doesn't mean that you can install it on a testing machine.
This is the Debian branch that gets all the cool stuff, although there is another one more advanced than this one. All kinds of patches and changes can be spotted in the changelog and users can see beforehand what some of the components that will eventually land in the final version are.
Debian 8.0 "Jessie" Installer RC1 is close, but no cigar
There was some information released a while back that allowed users to hope for a quick release, by the end of January, but this is Debian we're talking about. Even if they have become faster and more efficient over time, they are still taking their time when they need to.
"Due to a change on the linux kernel side, the "---" separator is now used instead of the historical "--" one to separate kernel parameters from userland parameters. This makes it possible for user-params to do its job, and copy e.g. console="..." settings where they're expected in the installed system," is noted in the official changelog.
Also, the artwork has been upgraded, numerous modules have been added, new hardware is now better supported, and a lot of bugs have been squashed. As usual, there is no indication about the launch date of the stable version.
More details about this release can be found in the official announcement. You can download Debian 8.0 "Jessie" Installer RC1 right now from Softpedia. This is still a work in progress, so it's very likely that you will encounter bugs or various problems.
