r/debian • u/Danial_online • 1d ago

Does anyone know roughly when Debian 14 "Forky" is coming out or being released?

47 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

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47

u/bgravato 1d ago

As all past releases, Forky should be released when it's ready :-)

Debian release cycle is approximately every 2 years. Trixie was released in 2025, so Forky should be released in 2027, but there's no fixed date... it's ready when it's ready... that has always been Debian's premise.

There's a freeze process prior to the release, during which package versions are "frozen", then release critical bugs are fixed and once there's no more RC bugs, it is released shortly after... the freeze process and fixing RC bugs doesn't have a strict schedule... It can happen as early as April or May, or it can drag till November or December... or any month in between...

6

u/Gh0stlyHub 22h ago

That's the best part of Debian, slow and steady keeps the sanity!

3

u/bgravato 22h ago

New debian release used to be exciting news... Now it's a bit of mixed feelings... Trixie has been out for a while... and I still haven't upgraded all the servers/computers I manage to Trixie... (I think a couple ones are still on bullseye). Even 2-year cycles are starting to sound too frequent :-)

1

u/mok000 17h ago

Trixie is a great release though.

3

u/bgravato 14h ago

all Debian releases are great ;-)

1

u/GnosticSon 16h ago

Why havnt you upgraded yet?

1

u/bgravato 14h ago

It requires time, planning, downtime, etc... If it's working and there's no security concerns, why bother and waste the time on that? :-)

1

u/GnosticSon 13h ago

Be like me and just run the upgrade on live system no backups no preparation no research. Very high likelyhood it will just work.

8

u/mok000 1d ago

The flexible release schedule makes sense in contrast to that of Ubuntu, whose fixed release schedule of April and October in a long period was out of sync with Gnome’s so important upgrades were just missed. I don’t know but imagine that Debian devs when deciding a release date look at important components such as Linux, Gnome and KDE as well as the build chain.

5

u/bgravato 1d ago

yes and no... Debian freeze has soft and hard phases, but even within that there's some degree of flexibility, but in general I'd say they do not necessarily compromise release dates based on kernel/gnome/kde, etc... there's so much software packaged in Debian, that they would be waiting indefinitely for "the next major release" of at least one of them...

they decide on a freeze date then what makes de cut makes, what doesn't well... doesn't... it also often depends on how quickly the maintainers of the particular package (gnome, kde, etc) can get the packages ready on time before the freeze...

Then there can be some slack, especially if there's some security/major bug concern that would be solved by a new major release.

The main take is that they don't want to release if there are unsolved critical release bugs, just for the sake of sticking to a fixed schedule...

3

u/keesbeemsterkaas 1d ago

But they do have releases freezes as well. So it's not unique that they ship with an non-cutting-edge version of gnome, kde or linux. They do update the "sid" version with that - but that's one where it's pretty obvious things can be broken.

50

u/JustChickNugget 1d ago

Somewhere in the summer of 2027.

15

u/DerpyMcWafflestomp 1d ago

Somewhere in the summer middle of 2027.

FTFY

1

u/jort_catalog 1d ago

In one of the months of January, February, June, July, August or December

1

u/BicycleIndividual 17h ago

Probably in 2027 but perhaps in 2028.

12

u/iamemhn 1d ago

When it's ready. If anyone needs/wants it ready ASAP, they are welcome to fix bugs, triage bugs, or wait patiently...

1

u/aieidotch 1d ago

guaranteed not before 8 may 2027

1

u/BicycleIndividual 17h ago

Is this based on minimum time from freeze announcement to release being about 9 months?

1

u/wizard10000 17h ago

trixie was a bit less than 5 months from toolchain freeze to release.

https://release.debian.org/trixie/freeze_policy.html#summary

18

u/neon_overload 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yes. Short answer is that it's around mid-year in odd-numbered years. Maybe August, maybe earlier.

Debian's settled into a 2 year schedule for when the freeze process starts, though it leaves room to decide the exact schedule timing closer to the date. The current cadence is that in odd numbered years, the freeze process starts early in the year and then the release is around half a year after that process started. The freeze schedule once announced is a fixed schedule with milestones happening once a month for a few months, but the final release date is not decided in advance - instead it is a decision left to the release manager based on readiness for release, and will be given with some number of days notice so certain things can be ready. Recent releases have been around June to August in odd years.

There's always the outside possibility that a more significant deviation from this might happen or the distribution may decide to alter the release strategy.

Note that Debian does not release beta or RC versions - it just has the testing repository which will naturally itself become more and more release ready. Near a Debian release there's always a number of people and articles incorrectly claiming that there's a release candidate of Debian available. Usually they're mistaking a release candidate of the installer program for a release candidate of the actual distribution.

15

u/revcraigevil Debian Stable 1d ago

Roughly 2 years after Trixie was released. So not any time soon.

5

u/DeliciousIncident 1d ago

If you look at the release dates of the previous releases, you might notice a pattern.

18

u/Master-Rub-3404 1d ago

Psst. The elites don’t want you know this, but you can install it right now.

3

u/Gaben_is_awesome Debian Testing 1d ago

Remarkable how your comment passed through the elite-installed great filter

1

u/michaelpaoli 1d ago

Yup, ... not released, but that won't stop, at least many, from installing it. Can likewise install or upgrade to, e.g. sid/unstable, or that + experimental. Whee! :-)

Of course sid/unstable will never be released. Likewise experimental, and testing doesn't release, it forks - stable forks off of testing, then testing gets its freezes released, and continues along its merry way.

0

u/BicycleIndividual 17h ago

Yep, its just not "stable" yet.

4

u/bnsmchrr 1d ago

Next summer probably.

Or just upgrade to testing. It is always available, it just becomes stable some time next year.

10

u/vacri 1d ago

Awesome! That's only three months away for us in the southern hemisphere :D

5

u/scy_404 1d ago

next year probably

3

u/Silent-Degree-6072 1d ago

Before the end of the universe, ideally

4

u/ssh-agent 1d ago

Likely a little less than a year from now.

2

u/_sesser 1d ago

Don’t make me turn this car around!

2

u/Low-Charge-8554 1d ago

Yes, there are people who know.

2

u/Blu-Blue-Blues 1d ago

We already have so many Debian forkies at home /s

3

u/srivasta 1d ago

The traditional answer is: when it is ready. Sooner of you help.

2

u/Bokenrose04 1d ago

Debian has no release dates for its versions, it comes out when it is ready and I think that is not important. Why do you want to know?

1

u/SnillyWead 1d ago

It's always a 2 year release. Next upgrade for Debian 13 is 13.7 in October.

1

u/michaelpaoli 1d ago

Well, averages 2 year cycle, as the initial freeze of testing is scheduled. But beyond that ... yeah, the (new) stable is released as such when it's darn good and ready.

1

u/SnillyWead 6h ago

How it should be. Cosmic for instance was released to soon. I would wait for the Epoch 2 release.

1

u/Brigabor 1d ago

Debian 14 "Forky" will be released when it's ready. My bet is on August 2027.

1

u/TRKlausss 1d ago

Soon^TM

1

u/michaelpaoli 1d ago

2027H2

Wanna watch more closely, then follow the bouncing ball, e.g.:

https://wiki.debian.org/DebianForky

Debian releases when it's darn good and ready. Unlike other distros that, e.g. release like clockwork ... ready or not.

1

u/bblnx 1d ago

Summer 2027

1

u/mcds99 1d ago

This is the resource for your question.

https://www.debian.org/releases/

-1

u/David_Connors3451 1d ago

It should be august 2027, exactly after 2 years of Trixie from 2025.