openSUSE 42.2 Pushed Back as Beta is Released

openSUSE 42.2 Leap received a Beta release today for "software testers and Linux enthusiasts." Douglas DeMaio announced the release saying, "openSUSE Leap focuses on well-established packages" but users can "bridge to a faster release cycle with openSUSE Tumbleweed." Today's release brought news of a delay as well in hopes of a more stable KDE Plasma.

DeMaio said in today's Beta 1 announcement that the road map had been "slightly modified to provide a more accurate release time line." The release of Plasma 5.8 had been pushed up two weeks for inclusion in openSUSE 42.2, but now the openSUSE project has decided to delay openSUSE 42.2 two weeks to wait for Plasma 5.8.1. Ludwig Nussel said it would be better to wait for the inevitable bug fixes that will come with that version. Beta 2 is still scheduled for September 21, but Release Candidate 1 will become Beta 3 and see release October 6. The new Release Candidate 1 is now planned for October 18 and RC2 November 2. Final is re-scheduled for November 16, 2016 according to the new road map.

DeMaio also made a point of mentioning the conservative package versions in Leap, chosen for stability. Some of the software this release includes Firefox 48.0.1, LibreOffice 5.1.3.2, GIMP 2.8.1.8, Linux 4.4.1.9, GCC 6.1.1, Wayland 1.9.0, Xorg X Server 1.18.3, Glibc 2.22, systemd 228, and Plasma 5.7.x. Nussel said this beta release "is mostly in sync with SLE12 RC2. Therefore it's pretty safe to use on most systems already."

"This hybrid community-enterprise distribution is the safe choice because it has the stability of an enterprise distribution with community-built packages; the hundreds of SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE) Service Pack (SP) 2 packages and the thousands of community-built packages allow for an effective development-to-production protocol," DeMaio added. He then encouraged testers to report those bugs. Downloads available through https://opensuse.org.