Debian 14 will continue the venerable Linux OS’ tradition of naming releases after Toy Story characters, according to an announcement on Debian Lists, with the release after next being named for the beloved Forky, the taped-together amalgam of spork and pipe cleaner from the fourth movie in the Disney series.
(Image credit: Debian Foundation)
The Debian 14 is a long way in the future, though, with a possible release date of 2027 if the OS sticks to its current release cadence. Debian 12, or Bookworm (a minor character in Toy Story 3), has yet to see the inside of a release server, and will hit its first milestone, the Transition and Toolchain Freeze, on January 12 2023. Following that, Debian 13 will be called Trixie, for the triceratops character voiced by Kristen Schaal, and will release in 2025. Debian 11 Bullseye (Woody’s horse) is the current release version.
The announcement also puts out a call for help fixing bugs and other testing, including removing software packages due to bugs, and reinstating those whose bugs have been fixed to the upcoming release. An IRC channel exists for reporting bugs, and bug-squashing parties are planned.
Debian is the basis for Ubuntu and Raspberry Pi OS, and is also available in the Windows Subsystem for Linux. Bookworm currently uses version 5.19 of the Linux kernel (as do backported versions of Bullseye, and unstable branch Sid), rather than the 6.0 kernel recently released, or the 6.1 version (including new Rust language support) that’s likely to be available when the OS is finished. This, of course, may change, as the distro is still in active development. The experimental branch kernel currently sits at 6.0.
Desktops may change too. The Gnome 43 interface, released in September is used in the 22.10 version of Ubuntu, which makes it an excellent candidate for Bookworm, but Gnome releases come every six months, making the March 2023 Gnome 44 release a possibility, if Bookworm is still accepting merges when it becomes available.
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Ian Evenden is a UK-based news writer for Tom’s Hardware US. He’ll write about anything, but stories about Raspberry Pi and DIY robots seem to find their way to him.
