We feel that it has proven itself sufficiently to be released. Installation of this port probably requires more expertise and knowledge than other ports. Expect the documentation for this port to be a bit rough. The 2.2 kernel series are a new kernel generation introducing several valuable changes both in the kernel and in other programs based on kernel features, along with a whole slew of new hardware drivers and bug fixes for existing drivers. There have been notable improvements in network installation support, including DHCP configuration support.
More architectures support serial console installation.
This means that tasks can be used at any time, not just installation time, and can be retained across upgrades. It is expected that for the next major Debian release, debconf will be the main interface users interact with during installation and configuration. All Debian architectures are now based on the new GNU C Library release 2.1.3. In this release, most of the basic system utilities have started using PAM, the Pluggable Authentication Modules, which provides system administrators with a powerful method of controlling system access and methods of authentication. PAM allows a single point of administrating authentication and account management.