By The Debian project has announced the full freeze of the upcoming Debian Linux release 11, code named "Bullseye".
This means that all package versions are now "fixed" for the new release. A package update needs to be manually "released" by the release team. Usually this only happens for important bug fixes.
What about the installer bugs?
In a previous article (Debian 11 (Bullseye Release Candidate 1 available) we've highlighted some important bugs, which potentially break installations.
- Broken rescue mode with the graphical installer -> meanwhile fixed in Debian 11 RC2.
- amdgpu firmware required for many AMD graphic cards -> under current investigation, will be fixed before Bullseye is officially released
- GNOME may fail to start with some virtual machine setups -> under current investigation
- Desktop installations may not work using CD#1 alone -> will probably be dropped as CD capacities are limited
- LUKS2 is incompatible with GRUB's cryptodisk support -> will probably not be solved (grub issue, not Debian issue), but additional documentation is written
When can we expect Debian 11 GA release?
There is no fixed release date known yet. However some estimate date range can be guessed by looking at the earlier full freeze till release from the current Debian Buster release.
Debian Buster's full freeze happened on March 12th 2019, the official GA (General Availability) release was available on July 6th 2019. In Debian 9 (Stretch), the preparations took less time from the full freeze on February 5th 2017 till the release date of June 17th 2017.
Taking these ~4 to 5 months of release preparation into the Bullseye roadmap, we can expect Debian 11 to be released in November or December 2021.
Update: The Debian team announced the planned Bullseye release date: August 14th 2021.
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