Debian 'Lenny' Update Scheduled For Valentine's Day

The Debian development team appears ready to send its longing followers a Valentine.

After delays stretching five months, the next version of the Linux operating system distribution, which serves as the technical foundation for Ubuntu, is now expected to finally make its debut sometime during the weekend of Feb. 14.

According to chatter across a number of open source Web sites, the Debian development team said it's bound and determined to deliver the "Lenny" release this weekend barring any unforeseen showstopping bugs.

Since the end of last month, the upcoming release has been placed in a deep freeze, with the development team carrying out all testing since then without adding any new features or fixes.

Debian developers for the last couple of months have made it clear they expected a fair number of bugs to turn up through the Release Candidate version of the product but that they would remain committed to drawing up what they hoped would be a short list of bugs that they'd stomp out.

Less-critical bug fixes that don't make it into the final code would be delivered in what some on the development team have referred to as the "Lenny-and-a-half" release. That release would likely add more drivers necessary for the latest hardware.

As expected, Lenny will contain new or improved support for full IPv6, Network File System (NFS) 4 and Large File System, and Asus Eee hardware.

The only interloper spoiling the Valentine's Day delivery is news that hackers put Debian on T-Mobile's G1 cell phone running Google's Android operating system. The hackers reportedly were able to get at all the programs while making and receiving calls.

Of course, Android users can always stay with their product. On Monday, Google released the 1.1 version of its software developers' kit.

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