diff --git a/bmaptool b/bmaptool
index 2b1bda0..10a35e9 100755
--- a/bmaptool
+++ b/bmaptool
@@ -46,7 +46,7 @@ also contribute to the mapped blocks and are also copied.
 #   * Too few public methods (R0903)
 # pylint: disable=R0903
 
-VERSION = "2.4"
+VERSION = "2.5"
 
 import argparse
 import sys
diff --git a/debian/changelog b/debian/changelog
index 73fd992..a1723ab 100644
--- a/debian/changelog
+++ b/debian/changelog
@@ -1,3 +1,11 @@
+bmap-tools (2.5) unstable; urgency=low
+
+  * Do not fail when lacking permisssions for accessing block device's sysfs
+    files.
+  * Improve debian packaging.
+
+ -- Artem Bityutskiy <artem.bityutskiy@linux.intel.com>  Mon, 05 Aug 2013 10:05:09 +0300
+
 bmap-tools (2.4) unstable; urgency=low
 
   * Add support for ssh:// URLs.
diff --git a/docs/RELEASE_NOTES b/docs/RELEASE_NOTES
index 6c6f7e1..e2bf833 100644
--- a/docs/RELEASE_NOTES
+++ b/docs/RELEASE_NOTES
@@ -1,3 +1,23 @@
+Bug-fix release 2.5
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+1. bmaptool (or more precisely, the BmapCopy class) has an optimization where
+   we switch to the "noop" I/O scheduler when writing directly to block
+   devices. We also lessen the allowed amount of dirty data for this block
+   device in order to create less memory pressure on the system. These tweaks
+   are done by touching the corresponding sysfs files of the block device. The
+   old bmaptool behavior was that it failed when it could not modify these
+   files. However, there are systems where users can write to some block
+   devices (USB sticks, for example), but they do not have permissions to
+   change the sysfs files, and bmaptool did not work for normal users on such
+   systems. In version 2.5 we change the behavior and do not fail anymore if we
+   do not have enough permissions for changing sysfs files, simply because this
+   is an optimization, although a quite important one. However, we do print a
+   warning message.
+
+2. Many improvements and fixes in the Debian packaging, which should make it
+   simpler for distributions to package bmap-tools.
+
 Bug-fix release 2.4
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
diff --git a/packaging/bmap-tools.changes b/packaging/bmap-tools.changes
index 893e776..00d6ada 100644
--- a/packaging/bmap-tools.changes
+++ b/packaging/bmap-tools.changes
@@ -1,3 +1,8 @@
+Mon Aug  5 07:05:59 UTC 2013 - Artem Bityutskiy <artem.bityutskiy@linux.intel.com> 2.5-1
+- Do not fail when lacking permisssions for accessing block device's sysfs
+  files.
+- Improve debian packaging.
+
 Wed Jun  5 15:16:42 UTC 2013 - Artem Bityutskiy <artem.bityutskiy@linux.intel.com> 2.4-1
 - Add ssh:// URLs support.
 
diff --git a/packaging/bmap-tools.dsc b/packaging/bmap-tools.dsc
index 35097e3..09a925c 100644
--- a/packaging/bmap-tools.dsc
+++ b/packaging/bmap-tools.dsc
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ Format: 1.0
 Source: bmap-tools
 Binary: bmap-tools
 Architecture: all
-Version: 2.4-1
+Version: 2.5-1
 Maintainer: Artem Bityutskiy <artem.bityutskiy@linux.intel.com>
 Standards-Version: 3.8.4
 Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 7), python-all, python-distribute
diff --git a/packaging/bmap-tools.spec b/packaging/bmap-tools.spec
index be6e63c..213a5bb 100644
--- a/packaging/bmap-tools.spec
+++ b/packaging/bmap-tools.spec
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
 
 Name:       bmap-tools
 Summary:    Tools to generate block map (AKA bmap) and flash images using bmap
-Version:    2.4
+Version:    2.5
 
 %if 0%{?opensuse_bs}
 Release: %{rc_str}.<CI_CNT>.<B_CNT>
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index ca61d37..72fbd36 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@
     description="Bmap tools",
     author="Artem Bityutskiy",
     author_email="artem.bityutskiy@linux.intel.com",
-    version="2.4",
+    version="2.5",
     scripts=['bmaptool'],
     packages=find_packages(exclude=["test*"]),
     license='GPLv2',