We now have a Debian 8 image available for new VM setups and reinstalls. Debian 8 is code named “Jessie”.

There is only a 64 bit image.  Most customers are now ordering 64 bit distros.  And some distros only come in a 64 bit flavor now, e.g. Centos 7.

Debian 8 is also an option for regular dedicated server setups.

The Jessie install is very minimal.  After setup most customers would want to install Apache and Mysql. That is easy enough, do something like “apt-get install apache2 postfix mysql-server”

Some highlights from the release notes:

• Apache goes to version 2.4 (was 2.2 in Wheezy)
• PHP from 5.4 to 5.6
• uses systemd to mamaneg services, with the option to install sysvinit if you prefer.
• Choice of MariaDB 10 or MySQL 5.5
• New packages like php-horde, tomcat8

If you’re wishing to dist-upgrade from Wheezy to Jessie see the upgrade notes.  Some tips:

• Run a snapshot in our control panel before doing any work.  Then you can always revert back to that in the event of problems.
• In some cases our upgrade script at https://github.com/pbkwee/distrorejuve can do the work for you.  wget -O distrorejuve.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pbkwee/distrorejuve/master/distrorejuve.sh; bash distrorejuve.sh –to-jessie  That script will update apt.sources and run a dist upgrade.