openSUSE is pleased to announce that the newest Milestone for the upcoming version of openSUSE 13.1. is available for testing. As early version, it is expected that this Milestone is not fully functional or very stable and we welcome bug reports and fixes for the issues. This is the first in a series of upcoming updates to the distribution that will end with the final release of 13.1 projected by November of 2013. As usual with an alpha release, the most prominent changes in openSUSE 13.1 Milestone 1 come from the upgrades that packages are going through.
Major updates
Some major updates below:
- GNOME 3.6 > 3.8.1
- apache2 2.2.22 > 2.4.3
- digikam 3.0.0 > 3.1.0
- giflib 4.1.6 > 5.0.3
- icecream 0.9.7 > 1.0.0
- kernel 3.7.10 > 3.9.0
- libreoffice 3.6.3.2.4 > 4.0.2.2.1
- ocaml 3.12.1 > 4.00.1
- qemu 1.3.0 > 1.4.0
- qt-creator 2.6.2 > 2.7.0
- ruby 1.9.3 > 2.0
- systemd 195 > 202
- wpa_supplicant 1.1 > 2.0
- xorg-x11-server 1.13.2 > 1.14.1
Most Annoying Bugs
The list of most annoying bugs is still short. We’re looking towards you to help us make that list bigger! We need to find out what’s wrong so we can fix it. You can report bugs with this link. The process of reporting bugs involves a couple of steps that you can take in order to contribute with the distribution. Reporting bugs and problems with the packages is essential for openSUSE to retain its stability. Please review our sections on how to contribute to factory, and submitting bug reports.
You’re more than welcome to organize some bug-finding-and-squashing sessions! Take a look at previous efforts in our last beta-pizza-party!
Planned Changes
Some time ago, the team posted a suggested list of changes for openSUSE 13.1. The idea behind this is to accept the changes provided by the community and at the same time meet specific team goals. Please keep in mind that this list is subject to change but it helps when understanding where the next release of openSUSE would like to go.
For the base system, planned changes include updating GCC to version 4.8 and working on the latest integrations for the Linux Kernel. On booting there was a discussion looking to completely move to SYSTEMD and dropping SYSVINIT. Replacing MKINITRD with Dracut.
On the KDE environment the planned list includes making PHONON support GSTREAMER 1.0 and replacing Kopete, largely unmaintained now, to KDE Telepathy. Gnome is also looking to change a few things in 13.1 starting by adding Gnome 3.10, cleaning out some outdated libraries and changing its default theme to a greener one.
On security the list is simple so far, AppArmor will be promoted further as a preferred security suite and updating SELinux.
Get involved!
This list of possible changes can also be altered by your participation. If you are a developer looking to learn and participate of the openSUSE project through coding, packaging or coordinating efforts to include certain software on the distribution, go to our factory page and learn more about how to contribute code. The process of working packages into the factory release is also documented in an article for the release of openSUSE 12.3. If you are interested in making contributions for packages, please go here and get packaging! Although the link is for 12.3, keep in mind that the packaging process done on 13.1 is the same. If your are familiar with branching projects through GIT, making contributions to the factory development should be easy for you. In simple words, you access the openSUSE repository, branch the specific part you would like to work on, make the appropriate updates and then you make requests to our team to include your changes.
However, the work on openSUSE is not only belonging or limited to packaging. There is far more that can be done here. Marketing, team coordination, translation, artwork, etc. These are simple examples of what more of you could be doing for the team. If you are willing to participate, take a look at this page and choose!
Schedule
Master Coolo published a simple road map. The next milestone is expected for 6 of June, 2013. the next milestones come with about a month in between, Beta 1 is planned for the 19th of September, RC one will be on October 10 and RC2 on October 31st.
Booting up openSUSE, you notice the nice new splash screen as well as the short boot times, courtesy of Plymouth and an improved systemd. But you’ll notice speed everywhere: this openSUSE release ships with Linux 3.4.6, a kernel release with a nice number of improvements to the storage layer. Moreover, openSUSE is build with GCC 4.7 and glibc 2.15, bringing speedups all over the system. You’ll notice this especially in the performance of low-level tools like the command line and GUI versions of zypper, our package manager. Especially relevant for the desktop is the inclusion of Qt 4.8.1 which makes your applications noticeably more responsive. The version of KWin part of KDE 4.8 comes with its 
