SparkyLinux 4.6-dev20170307 ISO images are out for testing

Mar 8, 2017 23:26 GMT  ·  By

The development team behind the Debian-based SparkyLinux operating system have announced today, March 8, 2017, the availability of the first unstable builds of the upcoming SparkyLinux 4.6 release.

SparkyLinux 4.6 will be a major version of the GNU/Linux distribution, based on the forthcoming Debian GNU/Linux 9 "Stretch" operating system, and users can now get an early taste of what's coming. The first ISO images are now available for public testing and have been synced with the Debian Stretch repositories as of March 7, 2017.

Among the improvements, this first development version fixes installation issues on UEFI machines by installing the efi-grub bootloader in offline mode, removes various unnecessary packages and cleans up the system to make the ISOs a bit smaller, and fixes some minor issues with the LightDM login manager to make it list a certain user.

"Fixed installation on UEFI machines issue; it installs the efi-grub debs offline (no internet connection needed), in the same way as the Advanced and the present Live Installers do," explain the developers in today's announcement. "Test it and report on ours forums whatever you find, please."

SparkyLinux 4.6 to ship with the Calamares 3.1 graphical installer

The good news is that SparkyLinux 4.6 is shipping with the recently released Calamares 3.1 graphical installer, which makes it easier for users to install the GNU/Linux distribution on their personal computers, even with full-disk encryption support. However, this first ISO image doesn't offer properly configured encryption support.

If you want to help the SparkyLinux devs patch the remaining issues, you can download the SparkyLinux 4.6-dev20170307 MinimalGUI ISO images right now from our website for i686 (32-bit) non-PAE and x86_64/amd64 (64-bit) platforms. Please keep in mind that this is a pre-release version of Alpha quality so you shouldn't use it as your daily driver.