First Alpha build to be available on December 31, 2016

Jan 18, 2016 03:07 GMT  ·  By

We've been informed by Roberto J. Dohnert, CEO of Black Lab Software, about the roadmap for the development of the Black Lab Linux operating system during the entire year of 2016.

According to Mr. Dohnert, in 2016, the Black Lab Software developers are planning on continuing the development cycle of the Black Lab Linux 8 "Onyx" operating system, which received a first Alpha build last week, with a second Alpha release on March 28, a first Beta version on June 27, and the second Beta on August 28, 2016.

The Release Candidate build will be available on October 11, and the final release of Black Lab Linux 8 "Onyx" should see the light of day on December 15, 2016. In the meantime, the team is planning on making available the fourth and fifth Developer Previews for the Enterprise editions of Black Lab Linux 8, on March 7 and April 25, respectively.

Moreover, the Black Lab Linux 7.5 maintenance release will be available on April 11, 2016, for legacy users. The final release of Black Lab Enterprise Linux 8 and Black Lab Enterprise Linux 8 for Education are planned for June 1, 2016, and the first Service Pack for Black Lab Server 7 on July 4.

"During the year we will working on ports to the Steam Machines as well as the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. We also have new plans for Enterprise, Education and the positioning of Server 7 Service Pack 1 as we will be working on making it available to SGI customers as well as IBM Linux mainframe users," said Roberto J. Dohnert.

Black Lab Linux 9 to be dubbed "Diesel"

The Black Lab Linux 8 operating system (all editions) will be based on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) and will feature kernels from the Linux 4.x series, folder level encryption, full UEFI support, a Migration Assistant tool for Windows and Mac users, a Device Driver Manager utility for easy installation of hardware drivers, and XFS as the default filesystem.

Moreover, the team is planning on adding Steam Machine compatibility and ports to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One gaming consoles. After the release of Black Lab Linux 8, they will start working on Black Lab Linux 9, which will be dubbed "Diesel.” A first Alpha build of Black Lab Linux 9 should be available on December 31, 2016, still based on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.