Today at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in Boston, Novell announced the upcoming availability of SUSE Linux 10.1. What Novell says is the first version of SUSE Linux created "in full partnership with the open source community" features more than 1,500 software packages, including the new Open Office suite (2.0, complete with Visual Basic macro support), the Firefox browser and multimedia tools.

"SUSE Linux 10.1 is a watershed accomplishment for Novell and the members of the openSUSE community," said Andreas Jaeger, Novell's chief maintainer of SUSE Linux. "Working with the community, we have extended and improved every element of the distribution to give the best possible desktop experience to first-time Linux users, while continuing to stabilize, integrate and provide the latest open source packages for experienced engineers."

In addition to the plethora of free software usually seen in distributions, SUSE also comes with some proprietary packages such as Adobe Reader and Macromedia Flash Player.

Novell also integrated the Xen 3.0 virtualization environment and "easy-to-use application level security services through Novell AppArmor."

The final 10.1 will not be available until late April, but developer builds are to be available today from opensuse.org and Softpedia. The retail edition, which will include a manual and 90 days of installation support will follow suit with a suggested price of $59.95.