Debian Buster Installer Alpha 3 now available for testing

Jun 19, 2018 20:59 GMT  ·  By

The Debian Project announced the release of the third alpha build of the installer for the upcoming Debian GNU/Linux 10 "Buster" operating system series, due for release in mid-2019.

Developed under the Debian Testing umbrella, the forthcoming Debian GNU/Linux 10 "Buster" operating system series just received today the third alpha milestone of its installer, which lets people install the Linux-based operating system on their personal computers, servers, and IoT devices, such as the Raspberry Pi.

One of the most interesting changes that caught out eyes is the bump of the kernel support from Linux kernel 4.13, which was used in the second alpha build, to Linux kernel 4.16. Of course, this means that there's better hardware support, so chances are you'll be able to install the development version of Debian GNU/Linux 10 "Buster" on newer machines or if you have some exotic components on your PC.

Cryptsetup, the component that provides full disk encryption, has been updated to version 2.0.0, debootstrap, the tool used for installing a Debian base system into a subdirectory of an installed system, received support for bookworm and Acquire-By-Hash, and console and X11 VT (Virtual Terminal) switches were improved for espeakup, the connector between espeak and speakup kernel modules.

The installer can now also detect LVM logical volumes to allow the user to use them for finding the ISO image being scanned for, as well as to copy the ISO image to computer's system memory (RAM) before mounting it when setting the debconf question iso-scan/copy_iso_to_ram to true. As such, users will now be able to use the disk where the ISO image is located for automatic partitioning.

Improved hardware support

As expected with any new Debian Installer release, there's support for new hardware devices. The third alpha release of the Debian Installer for Debian GNU/Linux 10 "Buster" adds support for the CubieTruck Plus, NanoPi NEO, SolidRun CuBox, and SolidRun ClearFog single-board computers, as well as support for installing 32-bit kernels on Raspberry Pi 3 and support for NVMe devices.

It also improves support for PINE A64+, Wandboard, and CuBox-i single-board computers, as well as ARMADA 8K embedded processors. Also improved is the detection of Apple systems if you plan on installing Debian Buster on your Mac. You can download Debian Installer Alpha 3 right now through our web portal, but please keep in mind not to use it on a production machine.