In Stretch, the default MySQL variant is now MariaDB. The replacement of packages for MySQL 5.5 or 5.6 by the MariaDB 10.1 variant will happen automatically upon upgrade.
Firefox and Thunderbird return to Debian with the release of Stretch, and replace their debranded versions Iceweasel and Icedove, which were present in the archive for more than 10 years.
In addition, Debian GNU/Hurd also has a new release.
I’m out of the loop on MariaDB. Why are they replacing MySQL with it now, as opposed to several years ago when it was first forked? (Which, according to Wikipedia, was in 2009.)
Cause Debian releases are sllloooowwww. They probably did do it in 2009 or shortly thereafter – its just now hitting a release.
edit: nevermind. I see what they did. They have had a package for both MySql and MariaDB for a few releases now. They also had a “mysql-server” package that just pointed to the latest stable MySql version.
What they did was change this so that the package “mysql-server” now installs MariaDB instead. You can still install either by referencing the actual package instead of this meta package.
Guess they figured its time to start moving away from MySql a bit more forcefully…
Edited 2017-06-20 01:03 UTC
IMHO, they focus more to backward compatibility, and maturity of the package (MariaDB).
I remember Debian swapping Iceweasel for unmodified firefox-esr around a year ago, seems odd for that to be a highlight for the new release.
I also remember thinking “that’s a shame”, since Iceweasel made some good choices in terms of default settings for privacy; I’m surprised that Debian have still to do anything to remedy the situation despite reports to them.
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=827395
Debian Edu / SkoleLinux also has a new release:
https://lwn.net/Articles/725828/
Ah, thank you for that Hurd tidbit, I will be giving it quite the test run.
I run a file server/scanning desktop, plus a number of other laptops. I have been updating them to Stretch. I have also done a couple of clean installs, one in a Dell XPS 13. The latter came with Ubuntu 16.04. Unfortunately, the wireless networking would not work. Stretch got it working at install time.
In short, I have had a boring time with Debian Stretch. I like boring.
Grateful about seeing i386 still there, also. I%D 🙂