Mandriva 2011 RC1 arrives after slight delay

The first release candidate for Mandriva Linux 2011 is now available to download after being announced 24 hours in advance of it being available on the servers. That pre-announcement explained that the images were undergoing extra internal testing as the final changes were being made to the UI, login manager, desktop themes and more. Between beta 3 and RC1, the developers have made a "huge number of changes" and wanted to ensure "the most adequate experience with this first release candidate". The UI update is described as "(almost) final"

Beyond the newly integrated UI, Mandriva 2011 RC1 includes updated versions of Mandriva's own Sync, Sphere and Improver applications. There are also updated packages which deliver Firefox 5.0, X.org 1.10.2, pidgin 2.9.0, kdepim 4.6.0, OpenStack, Chromium 12 (and 13 available), GCC 4.6.1, vlc 1.1.10, Opera 11.50, sqlite 3.7.7, Samba 3.5.9 and more.

ISO images of this release candidate can be downloaded from Madriva mirror sites; for example, the UK Mirror at UKC has the 32-bit compatible Mandriva.2011-rc1.i586.iso and 64-bit compatible Mandriva.2011-rc1.x86_64.iso available. When searching on other mirrors to locate the ISO files, look in the devel directory, then the iso directory within that and the 2011 directory within that.

(djwm)