At the moment on my desktop I switch between Debian 12 and Debian Unstable, which is in effect Debian 13 and great by the way. There wasn’t much reason to run Testing any longer as it isn’t very different from Unstable as they’ve locked down the OS for release with just a few packages now being updated. There is a lot of wokeness in the Debian project leadership, so I’ll probably move to Endeavor OS on this desktop as I get rid of Windows 10, though I might still run a Debian VM for a while to keep track of the project. I have a lot of Raspberry Pi projects, so I might not be able to fully escape Debian, though maybe they’ll back off the political wokeness and just concentrate on their software.
https://linuxiac.com/debian-13-set-to-launch-on-august-9/
Debian 13 (Trixie) is scheduled for release on August 9, featuring KDE Plasma 6.3.5, GNOME 48, and Linux kernel 6.12 LTS.
By Bobby Borisov
Debian 13 (Trixie) is just around the corner, but up until now, there hadn’t been an official release date. That’s finally changed. In a message shared on the Debian mailing list, Release Manager Emilio Monfort confirmed that Debian 13 is expected to launch on August 9.
That gives maintainers, testers, and derivative distribution builders just a few intense weeks to wrap up remaining work. Moreover, community release parties are being organized worldwide—an open invitation for users and contributors to celebrate and compare upgrade notes in real time.
As we informed you earlier (here and here), the final stable Debian 13 release will include the KDE Plasma 6.3.5 and GNOME 48 desktop environments. The distro itself will be running on the Linux kernel 6.12 LTS.
Now, let’s see what happens in the next 2-3 weeks. The Full Freeze begins on July 27, 2025. From that moment on, every package destined for the testing suite (which will become Trixie) requires an explicit unblock by the Release Team.
In other words, maintainers should treat the window between now and the Full Freeze as their last relatively frictionless opportunity to land non-critical updates.
Notably, any package that has not actually migrated to testing by the start of the Full Freeze is considered frozen, even if it was uploaded earlier.
There is a short grace period for targeted updates: uploads aimed at Trixie should have their unblock request filed before the end of July 30, 2025. After that point, the bar rises sharply, and only the most critical fixes will realistically move.
During the final week leading up to August 9, testing enters a complete freeze. At that stage, unblock approvals will be reserved strictly for critical issues—think release-critical bugs, severe regressions, or security vulnerabilities. That means routine polish, cosmetic adjustments, and minor enhancements should not expect a green light.
So, we’re now less than three weeks away from the release of Debian 13—and if there’s one thing we know about Debian, it’s that the wait is always worth it.