Even if everyone expected the first release candidate of the upcoming openSUSE 11.1 Linux distribution, on November 13th, the development team decided to release a fifth beta version, because of the unresolved bugs. The good news is that this unforeseen beta version will not push back the final release of openSUSE 11.1, and they'll publish only one release candidate, not two, as promised in the release schedule.

Without any further introduction, here are the changes since openSUSE 11.1 Beta 4:

· The Linux kernel packages were updated to version 2.6.27.5;
· K Desktop Environment (KDE4) was updated to version 4.1.3;
· The lightweight Xfce desktop environment was updated to version 4.4.3;
· PackageKit was updated to version 0.3.9;
· NetworkManager and power management Plasmoids are now available for the KDE4 edition;
· Smolt was fully integrated;
· Many applications were updated, like Amarok, Blender, Bazaar, Banshee, Digikam, Frozen Bubble, LyX, The GIMP and Wine;
· More translations were added.

Among the new technologies and applications that will be part of the final version of openSUSE 11.1, due for release on December 18th, you'll find the latest version of Linux kernel 2.6.27, KDE 4.1, GNOME 2.24, OpenOffice.org 3, software update stack improvements, and many more...

openSUSE 11.1 release schedule:

July 24th, 2008 - openSUSE 11.1 Alpha 1
August 21st, 2008 - openSUSE 11.1 Alpha 2
September 18th, 2008 - openSUSE 11.1 Beta 1
October 3rd, 2008 - openSUSE 11.1 Beta 2
October 16th, 2008 - openSUSE 11.1 Beta 3
November 3rd, 2008 - openSUSE 11.1 Beta 4
November 13th, 2008 - openSUSE 11.1 Beta 5
November 27th, 2008 - openSUSE 11.1 Release Candidate
December 4th, 2008 - openSUSE 11.1 Goldmaster release (internal)
December 18th, 2008 - openSUSE 11.1 Public release

Download and test openSUSE 11.1 Beta 5 right now from Softpedia. Remember that this is a beta release and should NOT be installed on production machines. It is intended to be used for testing purposes only. Please report bugs to the openSUSE Bug Tracker.

The stable openSUSE 11.0 release can also be downloaded from Softpedia.