14 DAY TRIAL // OpenMandriva is working hard this summer to release the OpenMandriva Lx 4 Linux-based operating system, which will include numerous new features and all the latest technologies.
The team announced some of the upcoming features that users should expect from the final OpenMandriva Lx 4 release, which should be launched sometime this summer or early this fall. Being a KDE-oriented distro, OpenMandriva Lx 4 will feature the latest KDE Plasma 5.13 desktop environment by default.
Of course, it will ship with the most recent point release of the KDE Plasma 5.13 desktop environment, which will be accompanied by the latest KDE Applications 18.04.3 software suite, due for release on July 12, 2018, as well as the KDE Frameworks 5.48.0 software suite, which is expected to land at the end of next, probably on July 14.
Cooker, the development version of OpenMandriva Lx already contains all the latest software releases, including KDE Plasma 5.13.2, KDE Applications 18.04.2, KDE Frameworks 5.47.0, LibreOffice 6.0.2, Python 3.7, LLVM/Clang 7, GCC 8.1, Glibc 2.27, and Qt 5.11.1. LXQt 0.13.0 and Lumina 1.4.0 are also present as alternative desktops.
OpenMandriva Lx 4 to support ARM64 and ARM v7 architectures
Probably the most exciting thing about the forthcoming OpenMandriva Lx 4 release is the fact that it will include out-of-the-box, complete support for ARM64 (AArch64) and ARM v7 hardware architectures, which means that you'll be able to install the operating system on a wide range of embedded devices like the Raspberry Pi.
"A RISC-V board has arrived - now we can start porting to that first open source CPU (this is not expected to finish in time for 4.0)," said the devs in an announcement. "We’re about to start a mass rebuild of everything that will expose stuff that hasn’t been updated for a long time (esp. in contrib), to be either fixed or removed."
It would appear that OpenMandriva Lx 4 may be powered by the upcoming Linux 4.18 kernel, which is expected to land in early August 2018, as both Linux kernel 4.17 and 4.18 are currently offered in the Cooker branch, which includes a revamped base system based on RPM4 and latest DNF package management systems.
There's no release date set in stone for the final OpenMandriva Lx 4 release, but we expect to get our hands on it soon. We'll let you know as soon as we know ourselves. Until then, you can try the Cooker branch if you can't wait for the final release and you like running a pre-release, bleeding-edge operating system on your PC.