The last Release Candidate in the development cycle of Mandriva 2007 Spring (a.k.a. Mandriva 2007.1) was released today with the codename "Beijing". It includes the latest technologies like KDE 3.5.6 and GNOME 2.18 desktop environments, 3D desktop support, new beautiful desktop themes and a lot of improvements over the previous versions: "Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring is the best Mandriva Linux release yet. Beijing features fixes to all major bugs in previous betas and release candidates, the final version of GNOME 2.18, and the full feature set intended for the final release." - says the Mandriva team. The final version of Mandriva 2007.1 (Spring) will be released later this month.

Major desktop components:

• KDE 3.5.6
• GNOME 2.18
• OpenOffice.org 2.1
• Mozilla Firefox 2.0

Updated configuration tools:

• New, simplified updater called "MandrivaUpdate";
• Many enhancements and bugfixes to rpmdrake software installation and removal tool;
• Updated drak3d supports configuration of Metisse alongside compiz and beryl.

Improved hardware support:

• More extensive and accurate than ever support for the most popular graphics cards: NVIDIA, Intel, and ATI/AMD
• Support for many laptop built-in SD card readers
• Improved and standardized suspend-to-RAM and suspend-to-disk support
• Beautiful new boot splash and desktop themes

Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring will be available in several different editions:

• The "One" edition is an installable live CD integrating the latest proprietary drivers, available free of charge;
• The "Free" edition is a pure free / open source software edition, without any of the non-free packages bundled with other editions; it is also available as a free download;
• The "Discovery", "Powerpack" & "Powerpack+" editions, for beginner users, power users and SOHO users respectively, include support, services, a wider range of packages, and many third-party proprietary applications like LinDVD and Cedega.

You can download the last Release Candidate of Mandriva 2007.1 and the stable version 2007.0 now from Softpedia.