14 DAY TRIAL // Work on the upcoming Debian GNU/Linux 9 "Stretch" operating system is ongoing, and Debian Project's Cyril Brulebois announced today the availability of the first Release Candidate of the Debian Installer for Stretch.
A lot of things have been implemented since the eighth and last Alpha development release of the Debian Stretch Installer, but the most important changes outlined in the announcement for the RC1 build are the revert of the switch to merged-/usr as default setting for debootstrap and disablement of Debian Pure Blends support.
"As noted in the Stretch Alpha 6 release announcement, Debian Pure Blends appeared in the Software selection screen. Unfortunately, concerns voiced back then weren't worked on until after the freeze started, and a freeze isn't the time where critical screens should be revamped. Support was disabled accordingly," said Cyril Brulebois.
Debian GNU/Linux 9 "Stretch" Installer now supporting Linux kernel 4.8
Noteworthy changes in the first Release Candidate of the Debian GNU/Linux 9 "Stretch" Installer include HTTPS (Secure HTTP) support by using new ca-certificates and GNU wget udebs, use of fonts-dejavu-udeb as default font, use of fonts-noto-hinted-udeb font package for the Sinhalese language, and bump of Linux kernel to version 4.8.
Juliette Belin's super softWaves theme has been enabled by default (check it out in the screenshot attached on the right), and various of the core components needed by the Debian Installer during installation of the operating system received bug fixes and small improvements that will offer you a better user experience.
On the other hand, there's more good news on hardware support, which was updated with support for USB armory, CubieBoard4, Netgear ReadyNAS 104, and Marvell ESPRESSOBin boards. Additionally, DTB handling was improved, and it looks like support for DTBs that contain absolute paths has been restored.
The partition manager now supports direct-access storage device (DASD), and scratchbox2 support was removed from debootstrap. Last but not least, u-boot images were disabled for OpenRD and the FAT file system size calculation should now work correctly. You can now download and test drive the Debian Stretch Installer RC1 build.
In related news, the Debian Project announced this week the release of the Debian GNU/Linux 8.7 "Jessie" operating system, which does not constitute a new version of Debian GNU/Linux 8, but a collection of over 170 bug fixes and security patches that improve the overall performance of the OS. Debian GNU/Linux 8.7 "Jessie" Live and Installation ISO images are also available for download today.