Since Saturday, it is possible to download the first OpenSUSE 11 beta that brings as a main change from the last alpha the new kernel version 2.6.25 including completely ext4 support (note that Ubuntu Hardy will maintain kernel 2.6.24).

This beta version already includes the latest KDE4 and GNOME versions (4.0.3 and 2.22.1 respectively). Furthermore, YAST has been migrated to Qt4 platform (you’ll note on the visual style that it is now better).

Package management has been one of the most important features that the openSUSE team wanted to improve. On this version they’re using libzypp and it seems that they’ve been succeed and finally package management is faster than previous versions.

But, above all, the most well-known change is the newly styled green installer. However, development has to continue and the team is fixing some issues and bugs including the final ISO image size for amd64 and other problems with the gtk-installer crashing.

Links to download are at the bottom of the article. You can download it and report some bugs or problems you encounter…

• Link | Beta announcement
  
• Download | OpenSUSE 11 beta