Hi!
Release pace ============ You might have noticed the first Alpha release of the Debian Installer for Stretch published in late July. This release took some time (almost 3 months) because we were mostly awaiting the linux kernel, and such a big version bump (3.16 → 4.0) needed quite some work to get into shape for testing. Since that big step is behind us, and since such a major change is less likely to happen during the rest of the release cycle, I would like to try and get more releases done, aiming for as many as a release per month. There are many ways to have an installer release stalled though, so it might be closer to a release every other month. Packages producing udebs, and limited freeze ============================================ Many components are used to build the installer, but some of them are not specific to it (e.g. cairo, libx11, xorg-server); they just happen to build one or more udeb packages (packages to be used within the installer). Since the release process of the installer usually takes some days to get everything ready, it is both possible and likely to have a few such packages migrating to testing while details are being polished. Such updates sometimes cause behavorial changes or even regressions. While those are being documented/fixed, some more packages can be sneaking into testing, causing more surprises, and longer cycles. That's why I'm going to use “block-udeb” hints to prevent the migration of all udeb-producing packages during the final preparation of the installer releases. Excuses produced by britney (the release team's migration tool) should now point at the “d-i release manager” when the migration of a package is blocked for this reason. If a speedy migration is needed for any reasons, feel free to talk to me so that we can figure out whether this package can be approved despite the block-udeb hints in place, or whether it's safer to delay its migration until after the installer release is published. Changes affecting the installer =============================== If you have a change affecting the installer, please coordinate with the installer team through our mailing list (debian-boot@lists.debian.org) so that we know about it before updated packages reach the archive. We can't follow all mailing lists, and it's way better to have a notification upfront than chasing strange behavorial changes after the fact. So far I've tried to quickly respond to such mails with either “that's fine, please go ahead whenever you're ready” or “please wait until the next release is published”. There should be no huge delay anyway if we can keep a steady release pace! Thanks for your attention and for your cooperation. -- Cyril Brulebois Debian Installer release manager
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