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The Debian GNU/Linux FAQ
Chapter 15 - Changes expected in the next major release of Debian

15.1 Extended support for non-English users

Debian already has very good support for non-English users, see How does Debian support non-English languages?, Section 5.9.

We hope to find people who will provide support for even more languages, and translate. Some programs already support internationalization, so we need message catalogs translators. Many programs still remain to be properly internationalized.

The GNU Translation Project ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ABOUT-NLS works on internationalizing the GNU programs.

Specifically for Debian lenny, we're working on things like the following:

I18n support in all debconf-using packages: Packages using the Debian configuration management must allow for translation of all messages displayed to the user during package configuration.

I18n support for package descriptions: Update package management frontends to use the translated descriptions of packages.

UTF-8 debian/changelog and debian/control. This way, e.g. names of people from asian countries can get typeset the right way in changelogs.

15.2 Faster booting: Dependency based boot sequence

Work is being done on converting the Debian boot sequence to use dynamic and dependency based ordering instead of hardcoded sequence numbers. Once that's finished, Debian systems will boot much faster.

15.3 Improvements in the Debian Installer

Lots of work has been done on the Debian Installer, resulting in major improvements. We'll mention just two of them here.

Starting the installer from Microsoft Windows: It is now possible to start the installer directly from Microsoft Windows without the need to change BIOS settings. Upon insertion of a CD-ROM, DVD-ROM or USB stick, an autorun program will be started, offering a step-by-step process to start the Debian Installer.

The debian-installer now includes experimental support for installing Debian on systems with Serial ATA RAID.

15.4 More architectures

Complete Debian system on other architectures such as ARM EABI (referred to as "armel") (next to the old "arm") will likely get supported with lenny. Support for SuperH is expected soon. Notice that even though some architectures are dropped for a given the release there still might be a way to install and upgrade using the latest sid.

15.5 More kernels

In addition to Debian GNU/Hurd, Debian is being ported also to BSD kernels, namely to FreeBSD. This port runs on both AMD64 ("kfreebsd-amd64") and traditional Intel ("kfreebsd-i386").