14 DAY TRIAL // Jerry Bezencon of the Linux Lite computer operating system has announced today, May 9, 2016, that the Linux Lite 3.0 release is now officially open for development, and that a first Beta build is out for testing.
From the announcement, it looks like Linux Lite 3.0 is preparing a whole lot of new features and improvements across the entire system, and it is great to see such involvement in a GNU/Linux distribution, especially that Linux Lite 2.8 was just announced two months ago.
"This release marks the start of the Series 3 release cycle. We are mindful of keeping that 'Linux Lite familiarity' in terms of look and feel. There have been a lot of changes, but we have remained loyal to our core - Simple, Fast and Free. Once again, the community is instrumental in our direction," reads today's announcement.
Revamped Package Manager, new theme, lots of improvements
Linux Lite 3.0 Beta is the proof that the final release will be awesome as it revamps the Lite Software package manager with support for installing multiple applications at once by holding down either the Ctrl or Shift keys, along with support for the well-known Audacity audio editor, Calibre eBook reader and manager, and Pinta image editor.
While trying to remain loyal to its initial vision of being a simple, fast and free desktop-oriented operating system, Linux Lite is also trying to keep up with the times and the Beta release of Linux Lite 3.0 ships with the widely used and light Arc GTK theme by default. Users will be able to choose between Arc, Arc-Dark and Arc-Darker styles, and there are also a bunch of new wallpapers.
The Applications Menu received support for accessing folders, the tray area was a bit redesigned too, in the way that Indicator Plugin was removed, and there's now a separate volume control called Volti. Moreover, there are fewer PPAs installed by default, system upgrades will be pushed to users automatically, and it looks like there won't by any Google software available in Lite Software for this series.
Lastly, Linux Lite 3.0 will let users upload screenshots to the Imgur free image hosting service, UEFI support won't make it into final Linux Lite 3.0 release, the Games menu entry has been dropped, there are brand-new boot and login screen themes, as well as a new package called Lite Themes which includes themes, icon sets, mouse themes, and wallpapers.
Updated applications in Linux Lite 3.0 Beta include Mozilla Firefox 46.0, Mozilla Thunderbird 38.7.2, LibreOffice 5.1.2.2, VLC Media Player 2.2.2, and GIMP 2.8.16. The Linux Lite 3.0 operating system will be based on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus). You can download Linux Lite 3.0 Beta for 64-bit and 32-bit computers via our website and check the gallery below if you want to see it in action.
