Black Lab Linux 9 will be based on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

Jan 16, 2016 19:12 GMT  ·  By

Today, January 16, Black Lab Software was proud to inform Softpedia about the immediate availability for download and testing of the first Alpha build of the upcoming Black Lab Linux 8 computer operating system.

Dubbed Onyx, Black Lab Linux 8 distribution is now in development, based on the Ubuntu 15.10 (Wily Werewolf) operating system and powered by Linux kernel 3.19.43, which will be upgraded to the Linux 4.3 kernel branch used in Wily later in the development cycle, for the Release Candidate and final builds.

"Black Lab Software is pleased to announce the release of Black Lab Linux 8 Alpha 1 “Onyx” - our latest FOSS offering. Since this is a consumer-focused release we focused on issues that end-users bring to our attention," said Roberto J. Dohnert, CEO Black Lab Software in an email to Softpedia.

Black Lab Linux 8 comes with various interesting open source components and applications, among which we can mention the Mozilla Firefox 43.0.4 web browser, Mozilla Thunderbird 38.5.1 email and news client, Wine 1.7, Oracle Java 8, Boot-Repair, Device Manager, and Nitroshare.

Additionally, the operating system comes with the Aptik migration tool built directly into the installer, for those who want to make the switch from Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X, and even other Linux distributions. Moreover, there's now better support for the latest hardware components, and the artwork has been improved.

Looking forward to Black Lab Linux 9

After the release of Black Lab Linux 8, the Black Lab Software developers will concentrate their efforts on the next major release of the operating system, Black Lab Linux 9, which will be based on the upcoming Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) OS and its Linux 4.4 LTS kernel packages.

Until then, you can test this first Alpha build of Black Lab Linux 8 "Onyx" right now by downloading the Live ISO image for 64-bit platforms. Please try to keep in mind, though, that it's a pre-release version and it should not be deployed on production machines as some features are incomplete and might cause problems.