The openSUSE team has released the first Beta release of openSUSE 10.3. The next planned release is openSUSE 10.3 Beta 2 on Thursday, August 23.

There are many exciting enhancements and features in the new release. Among these are a whole new and greatly improved package management stack (libzypp), significantly faster boot time, parts of KDE 4, a 1-CD KDE Install and a 1-CD GNOME install, beautiful green artwork, a new One-Click Install technology that integrates with the openSUSE Build Service and much more.

What’s New

Desktop Advances
1-Click Install: As we recently announced, the openSUSE Build Service front-end got a complete makeover and now also utilizes the new One-Click Install technology. This new feature allows you to install applications at the single click of a button. More announcements on the way this is used are to come.

KDE 4: In the early stages of development we noted that openSUSE was to be among the early adopters of KDE 4.0, and we can start to see this coming through in openSUSE 10.3. The latest stable KDE 3.5.7 is included as the default KDE session, but this release also includes some KDE 4 applications (such as KDE games) in by default. All other parts of KDE 4 are directly available in the official online repositories, and of course the KDE 4 repository in the openSUSE Build Service will continue to regularly release snapshots.

New Media Selection
This new release has a few changes in media, which also includes two new CDs: one KDE installation CD, and one GNOME installation CD, so you no longer have to download three CDs to get openSUSE running! See below for more details.

Under the Hood
New Package Management: The new package management system (libzypp) is a significant improvement over the old one offering you many advanced features, increased reliability, and an incredible speed-up.

Improved Boot Time: Improvements in boot time were frequently-suggested enhancement requests from openSUSE users. As the result of continued tests (1, 2), we can now release the first set of improvements to the init (boot) scripts, with even more to come in the future.

Other:

Linux kernel 2.6.22.1
gcc 4.2.1
libzypp 3.12.1

Important Changes Since Alpha 7
GNOME 2.19.6
Revised DVD5 (the DVD is now made up mainly from patterns)
Revised GNOME CD (after a lot of valuable feedback - thanks)

It has only been one week since Alpha 7, but we have seen 575 package submissions since then, so we have got plenty of features finished. As a consequence you will also find a few more bugs around, so do not be too surprised when you find these..

Announcing openSUSE 10.3 Beta 1
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