Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 "Etch"

Released January, 2010

Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 "Etch" is the 9th release, and current oldstable version of Debian GNU/Linux. It is supported until one year after the next release, which happened in February 2009. Etch can be ran with either KDE, GNOME, or Xfce as the default GUI.

It can also be ran with no GUI whatsoever, and can be used as a server. Major features that were added to Etch are the ability to install on the amd64 architecture, transition to X.Org and udev, as well as a graphical installer.

Installation

Etch was the first release of Debian to have a graphical installer that allows the user to use a mouse to point and click during the install, rather than just the keyboard. To initiate the graphical installer, which does not start by default, type "installgui" at the boot screen, as shown below.

Supported Architectures

Etch can be installed on the following computer architectures:

i386 – x86-32 architecture designed for Intel/AMD 32-bit PCs and various other systems
amd64 – x86-64 architecture designed for Intel/AMD 64-bit PCs and various other systems
alpha – DEC Alpha architecture
sparc – Sun SPARC architecture on Sun-4m, Sun-4u, and Sun-4v systems
arm – ARM architecture on Risc PC and various embedded systems (little-endian)
powerpc – PowerPC architecture
hppa – HP PA-RISC architecture
ia64 – Intel Itanium (IA-64) architecture
mips, mipsel – MIPS architecture (big-endian and little-endian)
s390 – IBM ESA/390 architecture and z/Architecture