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<chapt id="nexttime">Changes expected in the next major release of Debian

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<sect id="i18n">Extended support for non-English users

<p>Debian already has very good support for non-English users, see
<ref id="nonenglish">.

<p>We hope to find people who will provide support for even more languages,
and translate. Some programs already support internationalization, so we
need message catalogs translators. Many programs still remain to be
properly internationalized.

<p>The GNU Translation Project <url id="ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ABOUT-NLS">
works on internationalizing the GNU programs.

<p>Specifically for Debian lenny, we're working on things like the following:

 <list>
  <item>I18n support in all debconf-using packages: Packages using the Debian
configuration management must allow for translation of all messages displayed
to the user during package configuration.
  <item>I18n support for package descriptions: Update package management
frontends to use the translated descriptions of packages.
  <item>UTF-8 debian/changelog and debian/control.  This way, e.g. names of
people from asian countries can get typeset the right way in changelogs.
 </list>


<sect id="dependencybasedboot">Faster booting: Dependency based boot sequence

<p>Work is being done on <url
id="http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot" name="converting
the Debian boot sequence"> to use dynamic and dependency based ordering instead
of hardcoded sequence numbers.  Once that's finished, Debian systems will boot
much faster.


<sect id="di">Improvements in the Debian Installer

<p>Lots of work has been done on the Debian Installer, resulting in
major improvements.  We'll mention just two of them here.

<p>Starting the installer from Microsoft Windows: It is now possible to start
the installer directly from Microsoft Windows without the need to change BIOS
settings. Upon insertion of a CD-ROM, DVD-ROM or USB stick, an autorun program
will be started, offering a step-by-step process to start the Debian Installer.

<p>The debian-installer now includes experimental support for installing Debian
on systems with Serial ATA RAID.


<sect id="morearches">More architectures

<p>Complete Debian system on other architectures such as <url
id="http://wiki.debian.org/ArmEabiPort" name="ARM EABI"> (referred to as
"armel") (next to the old "arm") will likely get supported with lenny.  Support
for <url id="http://wiki.debian.org/SHPort" name="SuperH"> is expected soon.
Notice that even though some architectures are dropped for a given the release
there still might be a way to install and upgrade using the latest
<tt>sid</tt>.

<sect id="morekernels">More kernels

<p>In addition to Debian GNU/Hurd, Debian is being ported also to BSD kernels,
namely to <url id="http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/" name="FreeBSD">.
This port runs on both AMD64 ("kfreebsd-amd64") and traditional Intel
("kfreebsd-i386").

