in brief Debian, a longstanding and steadfastly non-commercial Linux project, released version 4.0, called Etch, over the long weekend.
The new version, under development for 21 months, includes a graphical installation process, an encrypted file system and authentication to verify integrity of downloaded updates, the project said in a Sunday announcement. And it includes the Iceweasel browser and Icedove e-mail software -- versions of Firefox and Thunderbird that have been renamed because of a branding issue involving the Mozilla project.
Debian serves as a base for the Ubuntu version of Linux.
Debian project leaders also released an update to version 3.1, called Sarge. (Debian releases are named after Toy Story characters; the unstable version under development is called Sid.
Also, release notes can be accessible on
http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/release-notes/index.en.html#contents