Debian Installer etch beta 2 released

Improvements in this release of the installer include:
 
     * base-config has been pensioned off: the installation is now
       done entirely before the reboot. Finally the entire Debian package
       installation process runs behind a user-friendly progress bar.
     * This new version of the installer uses and installs the 2.6.15
       kernel. As a consequence the installer now uses udev instead of
       discover for hardware detection for 2.6 based installs and supports
       the initramfs-tools and yaird initrd generators.
     * Installations on S/390 are again supported.
     * In addition to the architectures that already made the switch, 2.6
       is now the default kernel for alpha, ia64 and Netwinder/CATS (arm).
     * The installer will set up /etc/apt/sources.list for the installed
       system using the codename (etch) rather than the suite (testing) of
       the release being installed.
     * The installed system is set up to use UTF-8 encoding by default.
     * For some architectures it is now possible to automatically partition
       a disk using logical volume management (LVM). Other architectures are
       expected to be added later.
     * Automatically selects gpt disklabel instead of msdos disklabel for
       disks larger than 2 TB.
     * Option to cancel some operations (e.g. DHCP configuration).
     * Initial support for Broadcom BCM947XX and Linksys NSLU2 [1] added.
     * Improved rescue mode.
     * Added the following languages: Icelandic and Kazakh.

This release no longer supports the following:

     * Preseeding of base-config/early_command and base-config/late_command
       was removed with base-config. Existing preseed files using those
       values should be adapted to use preseed/late_command instead.
     * This release has limited localization of the installed system as the
       package localization-config (which was responsible for part of that)
       has not yet been adapted so it can be run before the reboot.
     * Installing Sarge is not supported; we expect to support this again
       in the next release.
     * sparc32: No support for installations using a 2.6 kernel.

Our thanks to everybody who has contributed to this release. Special thanks
go out to our friends from Ubuntu who laid the ground work for the first
two improvements mentioned above.

The graphical installer is not part of this release although significant
progress has been made in its development. We expect to integrate it into
the next beta release of the installer. Images are available for testing
from our website.

Installation CDs, other media, and everything else you'll need are
available from our web site: 

=46or the Debian Installer team,
=46rans Pop

[1] http://www.cyrius.com/debian/nslu2/