The code name for the next major Debian release after wheezy is "jessie".

This release started as a copy of wheezy, and is currently in a state called "testing". That means that things should not break as badly as in unstable or experimental distributions, because packages are allowed to enter this distribution only after a certain period of time has passed, and when they don't have any release-critical bugs filed against them.

Please note that security updates for "testing" distribution are not yet managed by the security team. Hence, "testing" does not get security updates in a timely manner. You are encouraged to switch your sources.list entries from testing to wheezy for the time being if you need security support. See also the entry in the Security Team's FAQ for the "testing" distribution.

For installation images and documentation about how to install "testing", see the Debian-Installer page.

To find out more about how the "testing" distribution works, check the developers' information about it.

People often ask if there is a single release "progress meter". Unfortunately there isn't one, but we can refer you to several places that describe things needed to be dealt with for the release to happen:

    Generic release status page
    Release-critical bugs
    Base system bugs
    Bugs in standard and task packages

In addition, general status reports are posted by the release manager to the debian-devel-announce mailing list.