The final release of the distro launches November 1, 2016

Oct 12, 2016 15:35 GMT  ·  By

After informing us earlier today, October 12, 2016, about the fact that the Black Lab Linux project has become a commercial product, Black Lab Software CEO Robert Dohnert announced the release of Black Lab Linux 8.0 RC1.

Based on the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) operating system, the first and most probably the last Release Candidate (RC) snapshot of the upcoming Black Lab Linux 8.0 distribution is now here, available for free for early adopters and those who want to help the developers polish the final release of the OS.

"Today the Black Lab development team has released Black Lab Linux 8.0 RC1 bringing us closer to our November 1st release of Black Lab Linux 8.0. We have worked on a number of bug fixes and have now made it to RC1," says Robert Dohnert, Black Lab Software CEO, in today's release announcement.

Here's what's new in Black Lab Linux 8.0 RC1

If you're wondering what's new in the Black Lab Linux 8.0 RC1 release, we can tell you right now that it uses the Linux 4.4.0-42 kernel from the Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS release, offers support for booting the distro on UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) machines, as well as full support for installing Snap packages.

Since the third Beta milestone announced last month, the developers also managed to fix some GNOME 3 crashes that occurred when attempting to install the Steam for Linux client, resolved the GRUB bootloader installation on HPE Proliant DL20 systems, and prolonged disk selection.

Black Lab Linux 8.0 RC1 is now available for download if you want to test it, and it includes the LibreOffice 5.2 office suite, Chromium web browser, Mozilla Thunderbird email and news client, GIMP image editor, Dropbox file sharing client, and various games from the GNOME Games package.

The final release of Black Lab Linux 8.0 is expected in two weeks from today, on November 1, 2016, but you'll have to pay the sum of $9.99 USD for a digital download or $19.99 USD for a boxed set containing a USB flash drive. The OS will be shipping with the GNOME 3.20 desktop environment. It will be free after 45 days from the official launch, on December 15, 2016.