14 DAY TRIAL // The Univention Corporate Server 4.0 Milestone 2, a Debian-based Linux distribution developed by Univention, has been released and is now available for testing.
Most corporate servers out there are not free, but Univention is different in this regard, at least for personal use. One of the reasons users will able to get it at no cost is the fact that it's based on an open source infrastructure, and that means a Debian base and a Linux kernel.
The Univention Corporate Server has a number of features that make it very attractive, like an integrated management system for the central administration of servers, compatibility with Microsoft Active Directory, an App Center that allows users to add UCS components and applications to the system, virtualizing options for various other operating systems, and it's cost effective.
What the developers say about Univention Corporate Server 4.0 Milestone 2
Unlike the previous milestone release for the Univention 4.0 branch, the developers have not detailed the changes, they’ve just made a few specifications. "The milestone aims at channel partners, technology partners and interested parties, who want to take a first glance at the upcoming release of Univention Corporate Server (UCS). It includes a preview of the rework of design and usability of the UCS management system and the connection with OpenStack and Amazon EC2 to manage hybrid clouds."
"The installed system is configured to retrieve package updates from testing.univention.de. It allows to easily follow the development of UCS 4.0 by just updating the packages. The milestone is not designated for production use and an update DVD from UCS 3.2 is not available."
We can tell you that Univention Corporate Server 4.0 Milestone 2 is based on Debian 7 "Wheezy" and that numerous packages have been updated from upstream. Most of the packages used in this distro are using Python 2.7. Also, users will be able to install applications from multiple architectures on the same system.
The Univention devs have also decided to drop their own installer and switch to the one used by Debian. The Linux kernel used in the operating system is from the 3.16 branch, which is one of the latest ones available.
More info about the pricing of this distribution for the non-personal use version, as well as other important details, can be found in the official announcement. You can download Univention Corporate Server 4.0 Milestone 2 right now from Softpedia. Potential users need to keep in mind that this is not the final version and that there might still be bugs and other issues present.