A first Beta release is now available for public testing

Mar 26, 2017 22:55 GMT  ·  By

Martin Maurer, the Proxmox VE (Virtual Environment) project leader, announced the release and immediate availability for download of the first Beta of the upcoming Proxmox VE 5.0 series of the Debian-based operating system.

Proxmox VE 5.0 will be the next major release of the GNU/Linux distribution designed for small and medium-sized businesses that want to run virtual appliances and containers, and this first Beta milestone is here to show us the progress the team has made so far. It will be based on Debian GNU/Linux 9 "Stretch" and Linux kernel 4.10.

"With the first Beta, we invite you to test your hardware and your upgrade path. The underlying Debian Stretch is already in good shape, and the 4.10 kernel performs outstandingly well. The 4.10 kernel, for example, allows running a Windows 2016 Hyper-V as a guest OS (nested virtualization)," reads the announcement.

Providing packages for the Ceph Luminous 12.0.0.0 development release, which appears to be the basis for the next long-term supported Ceph series, Proxmox VE 5.0 Beta can be installed on top of your existing Debian Testing (Stretch) installations, as well as on machines running the stable Proxmox VE 4.4 release, but it's not recommended.

Beta users will be able to upgrade to Proxmox VE 5.0 stable

There are no changes or release notes published at the moment of writing, with the exception of the fact that many small improvements and bug fixes were made. However, the Proxmox VE team has revealed the fact that those who choose to install the Beta today will be able to upgrade to the stable release via APT.

We don't know when the final release of Proxmox VE 5.0 will hit the streets, but it should be sometime after the launch of Debian GNU/Linux 9 "Stretch," sometime in May. However, we do know that it will feature a pve-zsync GUI, support for external fencing devices, Cloudinit support, and live migration with local storage via QEMU.

Some qdevice and Ceph improvements will also be implemented, according to the roadmap, and you can download the Proxmox VE 5.0 Beta release right now from our website if you want to take it for a test drive. Please try to keep in mind that this is a pre-release version, not suitable for use in production environments.