Debian is one of our most popular distros.  Being very well suited for servers.  Debian 6.0 (aka squeeze) is now released.  It is a good option for a stable distro, with a good support life for package updates.  And right now it has a great, fresh set of new server-side app versions.

Squeeze is available from our order pages and as a VPS reinstall option.   VPS images for squeeze installs will use our well tested 2.6.32.x kernels.

For customers running dedicated servers there are a couple if interesting notes. If you are wanting to use your own virtualisation stack, the latest Xen 4 dom0 support is on offer. You can run that with a simple package  install. The boot loader now defaults to Grub version 2, although the Grub version one continues to be available as a legacy package.

If you are migrating from an older Debian version, you may need to check that any web applications support the updated software. Important versions installed by default include php 5.3, python 2.6, apache 2.2, and mysql 5.1.

Service scripts are still managed via the update-rc.d program, but that now uses a new dependancy based system for ordering service startups to run in parallel. Which should reduce boot times significantly and help keep downtime from the occasional server reboot to a minimum..

Users running Debian Lenny don’t need to upgrade right away. According to documentation on the Debian wiki no formal end of life has been determined yet, so security packages for that will continue to be available for a while.

Official updates for Debian Etch ceased on 15 Feb 2010 and all users running Etch should seriously consider updating to Lenny or Squeeze.

Those wanting to upgrade from and older Debian releases will likely find the process quite painless. Our Debian upgrade guide should show the way.

Anyone interested in upgrading or reinstalling can always pop in a support ticket with details on how we can help, and we can get that sorted for you.