Developers of the popular Debian Linux distribution are ramping up coding efforts as they plan to release the next version of their operating system in December this year.

The schedule was today outlined in an e-mail to the Debian community from developer Andreas Barth, a member of the team which coordinates the process by which Debian is formally handed over to the public.

"We expect to release Etch as planned in the beginning of December 2006," Barth wrote. In keeping with the Debian tradition of naming each version of its Linux distribution after a character from the film Toy Story, "Etch" is the code name for the December release.

The date represents a dramatic improvement in the regularity of Debian's development cycle. Etch will be shipped only 18 months after the previous release, version 3.1.

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