Think of Arch minus AUR as a constantly rolling distro, and Arch plus AUR as constantly rolling breakage, and you'll get my drift.
AUR for best results?As I'm juggling away between this install and beginners' guide wikis I gotta say that at my current level it's a
PITA anyway atm.
Release notes for Γῆρας
New features in aptosid 2011-01 "Γῆρας" are in particular kernel 2.6.37 and numerous integration and stabilization fixes after completing the transition to aptosid. Kernel 2.6.37 doesn't only improve and stabilise hardware support for newer devices, it also improves ext4 performance (lazy inode table initialization), implements the USB Attached SCSI Protocol (UASP) for USB 3.0 storage and adds support for Intel's new Sandy Bridge graphics cards. Wlan support has been consolidated, with carl9170 now replacing ar9170usb for 802.11n Atheros USB wlan cards, which now support HT/ aggregation operations and AP mode. A major improvement for low latency uses (like audio mastering) is the completed Big Kernel Lock (BKL) removal, which premiers in aptosid 2011-01 "Γῆρας".
As usual, a large number of individual functionality enhancements and bugfixes have been applied to the full package line up and aptosid's own packages, in order to improve the general distribution infrastructure. The past months have allowed to take special care of the small aspects in many packages, to improve general policy compliance and functionality.
Although this release happens in close temporal proximity to the Debian 6.0 "Squeeze" release, it is still based on Debian sid as of this day and is not meant or suited as an alternative way to install "Squeeze". Many security sensitive packages in aptosid (Debian sid) already sport a higher version number than their corresponding version in "Squeeze" or are even uninstallable in a "Squeeze" context.
aptosid after the "freeze"
Now that "Squeeze" is about to be released, the version freeze that reached up to sid will be lifted again within the next few days. Given that there are a number of high impact changes (KDE 4.6, xserver-xorg-core 1.9.3, gtk3, udisk/ upower replacing hal) staging in experimental and are just waiting for the freeze to be lifted, the following 2-3 weeks might be slightly more vibrant and potentially less coordinated than usual in regards to package updates from Debian, therefore we recommend a little caution during dist-upgrades. This might involve checking for eventual upgrade warnings on aptosid.com or to wait a few hours if KDE 4.6 or X.org are among the upgrading packages for experiences from advanced users. Please be aware that it might not always be possible to react in time, now that Debian employs four mirror pushes a day.
Our special thanks go to the aptosid art- and manual teams and especially all mirror hosters for their efforts regarding aptosid.
Minimum system requirements:
amd64:
CPU requirements:
AMD64
Intel Core2
Intel Atom Series (2xx/ 3xx, N4xx/ D4xx/ D5xx; the N2xx series does not support EM64T)
VIA Nano
any x86-64/ EM64T capable CPU
newer 64 bit capable AMD Sempron and Intel Pentium 4 CPUs (watch for the "lm" flag in /proc/cpuinfo or use infobash -v3).
RAM requirements:
KDE: ≥512 MB RAM (≥768 MB RAM recommended), ≥1 GB RAM for liveapt.
XFCE: ≥256 MB RAM.
VGA graphics card capable of at least 640x480 pixel resolution.
optical disk drive or USB media.
≥3 GB HDD space, ≥10 GB recommended.
i686:
CPU requirements:
Intel Pentium pro/ Pentium II
AMD K7 Athlon (not K5/ K6)
Intel Atom Series (Z5xx/ Z6xx, N2xx)
VIA C3-2 (Nehemiah, not C3 Samuel or Ezra)/ C7
any x86-64/ EM64T capable CPU or newer
the full i686 command set is required.
RAM requirements:
KDE: ≥384 MB RAM (≥768 MB RAM recommended), ≥1 GB RAM for liveapt.
XFCE: ≥192 MB RAM.
using i686, only 3.1—3.4 GB RAM are accessible, amd64 (x86-64/ EM64T) is strongly recommended for 64 bit capable hardware.
VGA graphics card capable of at least 640x480 pixel resolution.
optical disk drive or USB media.
≥3 GB HDD space, ≥10 GB recommended.
Now to the interesting topics, like what's on the menu for now:
~ Debian sid, as of 2011-02-05.
~ kernel 2.6.37 (smp, hard preemption).
~ xserver-xorg-core 1.7.7.
~ enable KMS support for ATi and Intel based graphics chipsets.
~ DRI (3d) support for ATi Radeon chipsets up to r7xx (refer to non-free sources and Drivers).
~ KDE 4.4.5 (en + de).
~ Iceweasel 3.5.16
~ new, SVG based, art theme created by the aptosid art team.
~ offline manual for en + de directly on the disc, online manuals for more languages online at
http://manual.aptosid.com/ and available via apt;a big thank you goes to the documentation and translation teams!
~ Please note that the offline manual is only available on the running live CD or the installed system.
~ many changes for the manual.
~ ath5k support for 54/ "108" MBit/s Atheros wlan cards (AR2425, AR5210, AR5211, AR5212, AR5213 and AR5414).
~ ath9k support for 802.11n Atheros wlan cards (AR5418+AR5133, AR5416+AR5133, AR5416+AR2133, AR9160, AR9280, AR9281 and AR9285).
~ ath9k_htc support for 802.11n Atheros USB wlan cards (AR7010/ AR9271).
~ carl9170 support for 802.11n Atheros USB wlan cards (AR9170 "otus"), now supporting HT/ aggregation and AP mode.
~ b43/ b43legacy support for Broadcom wlan cards.
OpenFWWF 5.2 opensource firmware for the following Broadcom AirForce 802.11b/g wireless cards:
BCM4306
BCM4311 revision 1
BCM4318
BCM4320
experimental support for LP-PHY, non-free firmware images (firmware-b43-lpphy-installer) required.
iwl3945 support (Intel Pro Wireless 3945 chipsets).
iwlagn support for IPW 4965 and the IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n part of the Intel Wireless WiFi Link 1000/ 5xxxAGN/ 6000/ 6050 family.
iwmc3200wifi support for Intel Wireless Multicomm 802.11.
rt2x00 support for RaLink rt2400, rt2500, rt2570, rt61 and rt73 802.11b/g cards.
support for RaLink rt2770, rt2870 and rt3070 802.11b/g/n USB cards through rt2x00.
support for RealTek RTL8180L and RTL8185 PCI/ cardbus wlan cards.
support for RealTek RTL8187 and RTL8187B USB wlan cards.
memtest86+.
OpenJDK 6 as part of the kde-full variant.
support kvm (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) for kde-full; kvm depends on hardware virtualisation support (AMD pacifica virtualisation extensions "svm" or Intel IVT (vanderpool) virtualisation extensions "vmx")
access point support for many mac80211 based wlan cards through nl80211 and hostapd (optional).
client support for network booting over PXE/ NBD.
fixed persistency on vfat/ ntfs for the live system.
switch to squashfs-xz, improving compression ratio by ~15% and reducing disk seeks.
add Dutch to supported languages and liveapt.
add Polish to supported languages and liveapt.
add Czech to supported languages and liveapt.
relatime is now used for linux filesystems on default, ext4 employs barriers.
fix ntpdate dependencies.