14 DAY TRIAL // The first Mandriva 2011 alpha release was scheduled for today, but the developers are having a harder time than they anticipated with some of the components and changes planned for the upcoming release so the schedule has now been pushed back by two weeks.
Not to leave everyone waiting though, the team did release a Technology Preview version which is a snapshot of the upcoming alpha release.
Mandriva 2011 Technology Preview already includes some of the big changes and new components planned for the first alpha and even for the final, stable release, but is also missing quite a few pieces, not to mention that plenty of bugs should be expected.
"Due to a huge number of big changes in Mandriva 2011 so far, combined with rpm5 migration both in the repositories and inside the build system, we have decided to shift the release dates for Mandriva 2011 by two weeks, to give us a better time period to fit the remaining pieces," Eugeni Dodonov explained.
"However, as today’s date was promised to give you a preview on how Mandriva 2011 will look like, we have decided to prepare an additional release, calling it Mandriva 2011 Technology Preview, to show what is inside current Mandriva Cooker, and what will be available in Alpha," he announced.
Highlights of Mandriva 2011 Technology Preview:
· Linux kernel 2.6.37; · KDE SC 4.6.0; · X.Org Server 1.9; · Firefox 4 Beta 10; · Clementine 0.6.
There are plenty of other updated packages of course. The Technology Preview also incorporates NetworkManager support, native support for systemd and the new rpm5 package system.
There are some caveats as well, the NetworkManager daemon doesn't start automatically and the artwork is left over from the current release.
Mandriva 2011 Release Schedule:
· Mandriva 2011 Alpha - February 14 2011; · Mandriva 2011 Alpha 2 - February 28 2011; · Mandriva 2011 Beta 1 - March 14 2011; · Mandriva 2011 Beta 2 - April 11 2011; · Mandriva 2011 RC - May 9 2011; · Mandriva 2011 Final - June 13 2011.
Mandriva 2011 Technology Preview is available for download here on Softpedia.