The Debian Installer team[1] is pleased to announce the first release
candidate of the installer for Debian 7.0 "Wheezy".


Improvements in this release of the installer
=============================================

* brltty:
- Fix support for the theme=dark accessibility option (#696972).
- Enable orca in gnome3 sessions too.
Please note: the gdm3 prompt isn’t accessible (#694937).
* cdebconf:
- Fix display of info messages (e.g. "Rescue mode" in the banner).
- Improve speech synthesis support.
* debconf: Fix misleading man-db title for GRUB prompt (#679327).
* debian-cd:
- Improve GRUB menus used when booting in UEFI mode so they match up
better with the equivalent syslinux menus.
- Change the default UEFI display resolution to 800x600 for maximum
compatibility.
- Fix README.html generation (#699198).
* debian-installer-utils: Fix procfs mounting on GNU/kFreeBSD (#696901).
* grub2:
- Improve support for EFI installs: make sure /boot/grub exists,
and copy unicode.pf2 there (#696962, #661789).
- Fix infinite recursion in gettext when translation fails (#611537
and many others).
* mountmedia:
- Revert kernel bug workaround (#694082).
- Firmware loading issues should disappear accordingly.
* netcfg: Write network-manager configuration (included wireless
settings when applicable) if it’s found in the installed system;
configure ifupdown for wired networking otherwise (#682608).
* oldsys-preseed:
- Ignore a missing gateway with DHCP (#687212).
- Use netcfg/disable_autoconfig instead of netcfg/disable_dhcp
(#689531).
* preseed: Deal with URLs that consist of an unqualified machine name
and a port (#695908).
* qcontrol: Disable firmware watchdog on TS-219p II and TS-419p II
(#693263).
* rootskel: Use the same keymap in the virtual consoles as the one
selected in the graphical installer (#606395).
* xorg-server: Avoid cursor jumps in VirtualBox (#694598).


Hardware support changes
========================

* linux: Add many drivers to the installer:
8021q, adm8211, at76c50x-usb, b43legacy, bnx2fc, cxgb4, cxgb4vf,
fnic, igbvf, int51x1, isci, iwl4965, ixgbevf, libertas_tf_usb,
micrel, mlx4_en, mwifiex_pcie, mwl8k, orinoco_usb, pata_piccolo,
pch_gbe, pmcraid, prism2_usb, qlge, r8187se, r8192e_pci, r8712u,
rtl8192ce, rtl8192cu, rtl8192de, rtl8192se, smsc75xx, smsc9420,
smsc95xx, tehuti, ums-eneub6250, ums-realtek, vt6656_stage, vxge
(#686605, #689159, #690886, #694348, #695437).
* linux: Add Ralink wifi device IDs: 5362, 5392, 539b (#694312).
* linux: Add support for Lenovo 10/100 Ethernet USB dongle (#696248).


Known issues in this release
============================

* Installation of GRUB bootloader may fail if more than one disk
device is available. The errata page[2] mentions two workarounds.
* Desktop installations on i386 do not work using CD#1 alone. This
isn’t a problem on amd64 since the latter contains fewer linux
kernel flavours.
* Potential issues with UEFI booting on amd64.

See the errata[2] for details and a full list of known issues.


Feedback for this release
=========================

We need your help to find bugs and further improve the installer, so please
try it. Installer CDs, other media and everything else you will need are
available at our web site[3].


Thanks
======

The Debian Installer team thanks everybody who has contributed to this
release.


1. http://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/Team
2. http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/errata
3. http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer

--
Cyril Brulebois
on behalf of the Debian Installer Team