Software update: openSUSE Leap 42.1

The first version of openSUSE Leap 42 was released on Wednesday. Leap 42 is the successor to version 13.2, where ’42’ is the answer to the ultimate question about Life, the Universe, and Everything. Leap 42 is based on SUSE Linux Enterprise, so it should combine the stability of an enterprise edition with the versatility of a community-driven operating system. Leap 42 runs on kernel version 4.1 and for the desktop environment you can choose from KDE Plasma 5.4.2, Gnome 3.16.2 and Mate 1.10.

openSUSE Leap 42.1 Becomes First Hybrid Distribution

The wait is over and a new era begins for openSUSE releases. Contributors, friends and fans can now download the first Linux hybrid distro openSUSE Leap 42.1. Since the last release, exactly one year ago, openSUSE transformed its development process to create an entirely new type of hybrid Linux distribution called openSUSE Leap.

Version 42.1 is the first version of openSUSE Leap that uses source from SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE) providing a level of stability that will prove to be unmatched by other Linux distributions. Bonding community development and enterprise reliability provides more cohesion for the project and its contributor’s maintenance updates. openSUSE Leap will benefit from the enterprise maintenance effort and will have some of the same packages and updates as SLE, which is different from previous openSUSE versions that created separate maintenance streams.

Community developers provide an equal level of contribution to Leap and upstream projects to the release, which bridges a gap between matured packages and newer packages found in openSUSE’s other distribution Tumbleweed.

Since the move was such a shift from previous versions, a new version number and version naming strategy was adapted to reflect the change. The SLE sources come from SUSE’s soon to be released SLE 12 Service Pack 1 (SP1). The naming strategy is SLE 12 SP1 or 12.1 + 30 = openSUSE Leap 42.1. Many have asked why 42, but SUSE and openSUSE have a tradition of starting big ideas with a four and two, a reference to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Every minor version of openSUSE Leap users can expect a new KDE and GNOME, but today is all about openSUSE Leap 42.1, so if you are tired of a brown desktop, try a green one.