14 DAY TRIAL // After a two-month delay period, Mandriva, through Per Øyvind Karlsen, has announced on September 18th that the first Alpha version of the upcoming Mandriva Linux 2012 operating system is now available for download and testing.
Dubbed Tenacious Underdog, Mandriva Linux 2012 Alpha incorporates lots of improvements in various areas, updated applications, as well as some new features.
Mandriva Linux 2012 Alpha features the amazing KDE SC 4.9 environment, Linaro's GCC 4.7 branch, finally removes HAL from the installation images, a much better Dual Arch CD with a nice selection of packages, an improved installer and rescue mode, and many more small improvements and fixes.
The Mandriva Linux 2012 develop cycle will continue with two Beta releases in October, and two Release Candidate versions in November. The final release of Mandriva Linux 2012 is expected sometime in mid-November 2012.
"This release has been almost two months delayed due to a complex amount of reasons that I won't even consider getting started on going into details on why, except for the one relating to our current build system getting terminally ill."
"Due to the severity of this pressing issues and the consequences rising from it, we've decided to now focus fully on migrating awat to ROSA's ABF to replace it and give us a more powerful and actively maintained build system for us to use, which in addition also will mean that we're moving closer towards more direct collaboration with ROSA again," Per Øyvind Karlsen said in the release announcement.
Highlights of Mandriva Linux 2012 Alpha:
· KDE Software Compilation 4.9; · Smaller, faster and smarter installer; · Working text mode installer; · Better rescue mode; · Improved Dual CD ISO image; · Added Linaro GCC 4.7; · Removed HAL; · Lots of updated packages and bug fixes!
Mandriva Linux 2012 Alpha is distributed as installable Dual CD and DVD ISO images supporting both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures. Download Mandriva Linux 2012 Alpha right now from Softpedia. Remember that this is an alpha release and it should NOT be installed on production machines. It is intended for testing purposes only.