The long-awaited stable version of Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 is available:

The Debian Project is pleased to announce the release of Debian GNU/Linux version 3.0. Debian GNU/Linux is a free operating system, which now supports a total of eleven processor architectures, includes KDE and GNOME desktop environments, features cryptographic software, is compatible with the FHS v2.2 and supports software developed for the LSB.

With the addition of the IA-64 (ia64), HP PA-RISC (hppa), MIPS (mips, mipsel), and S/390 (s390) architectures, Debian GNU/Linux now supports a total of eleven architectures. It now runs on computers ranging from palmtops to supercomputers, and nearly everything in between, including the latest generation of 64 bit machines.

What's New in the Distribution?
The Debian package management tools apt and dpkg have been improved considerably in this release. Now apt supports "pinning" in which the user can opt to download certain packages from different distributions, e.g. testing or unstable, while still keeping the bulk of packages in the stable distribution. APT will automagically download and install appropriate dependent packages from the advanced distribution as required. An APT "pinning" howto is available.

Build dependencies have been added to aid the compilation of source packages. The "build-dep" apt-get method can be used to retrieve all packages needed for a build before compilation is commenced.

To replace the aging, much-maligned, yet still popular dselect, many apt frontends have been in development during the woody release cycle. Interested users should investigate the aptitude package.

This release of Debian GNU/Linux contains the much improved XFree86 4.1 release, which includes support for a greater range of hardware, better autodetection support, and improved support for advanced technologies such as Xinerama and 3D acceleration. XFree86 3.3.6 is available as an option, to support older hardware that is not supported by XFree86 4.1.

Debian 3.0 is much more secure than previous releases. The base installation provides fewer unnecessary services that might be the target of attack. Debian 3.0 includes many more security-oriented applications such as firewall administration, server hardening, and intrusion detection. The packaging system has also been improved so it can be configured to automatically check digital signatures. When configured, it will refuse to install Debian packages if the digital signature doesn't match. This limits the possibility of trojan horse installation and makes it easier and safer for systems to automatically upgrade themselves over the Internet. Lastly, Debian now provides intensive documentation for the security-aware administrator including the 'Securing Debian Manual' from the Debian Documentation Project (also available in the harden-doc package).

Debian 3.0 is also much more internationalized than previous releases thanks to the ongoing work of free software translation teams. Debian includes default settings for more languages than previous releases, and more of its programs are international-ready. This includes the boot-floppies installation which has been translated to a number of languages. There is extensive support for French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan and Danish, and there are more than fifteen active translation teams.

For the first time, Debian GNU/Linux includes several full featured free graphical web browsers in the form of Mozilla, Galeon and Konqueror. With the inclusion of KDE 2.2 for the first time, as well as the new GNOME 1.4 release, Debian's desktop provision has been radically improved.

The official Debian GNU/Linux distribution now ships on six binary CDs with a similar number of source CDs, and a DVD version of the distribution is now also available.

Download

For a package overview: Check out the Debian page at Distrowatch