Posting on behalf of Denis Koryavov from ROSA Labs, who will be responsible for Mandriva Linux desktop distribution development from now on. Please welcome him in this role!).
Yesterday we went back to work on properly configured environment and as we promised, today Mandriva & ROSA team proudly announce that Mandriva 2011 RC2 is available for download.
In this release candidate we fixed more than 300 bugs and added or changed about 700 packages.
If you need more detailed information, OK, here are main changes since RC1:
– We added virtualbox guest additions by default. Now testing in VirtualBox gives more pleasure than ever.
– Minor fixes in programs for configuring pptp/vpn/wi-fi. Lets try to connect from outside!
– More network cards from Atheros&Intel are supported now.
– Restored some old and added some new epson/hp/lexmark printer drivers.
– Now USB 3G are supported much better. Some of us are working now without wires, so why you can’t?
– We are working hard to improve KDM and Dolphin. Now they work much better.
– Also, our hands added big chunk of code to SimpleWelcome, TimeFrame and RocketBar.
– Improver, Sphere and Sync work like a charm. OK, almost like a charm, but they work!
– ATI and NVidia proprietary drivers have been removed from the installation image. They don’t want to work properly with coool graphics effects. Anyway, you can install these drivers from the repository.
– Made final freeze of 2011 platform in build system. This news is for maintainers only. Thanks for good work, guys!
– We started working on Mandriva 2011 Long Term Support release. Currently we plan to release LTS version by the end of the year. Seriously!
– We started transferring some packages from PLF repository to the «main». Less actions in post install time are better, aren’t they?
Enough? We hope that not! Ok, the visual improvements are coming:
– We added new cursor theme. Now you can point to something so easily …
– We added new icons. Your eyes says thanks for this. We promise not to give up to add new icons in future.
– Also we added new wallpapers. Everybody can take some relax.
Please help us to make Mandriva 2011 better. No more release candidates:
next step is final release!
But because this is just release candidate, here is list of known bugs:
– It takes long start for live-mode
– You can see error message on impossibility to find file user-places.xbel
– Installer shows an error on reading data on flash at installation from it
– Some errors in testing network settings in the installer
– Non-optimal settings for the fonts and the Dolphin file manager
– ROSA Cursors are not used by default
– Graphics effects are turned off by default
– We miss kernel options for clean start
– Nepomuk&psync status is under heavy development, so some errors exist
– Low volume by default, because some of us like coding at night 
– Flash plugin in x64 mode consumes too much memory
– There are issues with some USB webcams
We fix them all as soon as possible. Try to update your RC2 copy on next week!
Again, no more release candidates: next step is final release!
You can download Mandriva Desktop 2011 RC2 from your favorite mirror, for example: http://mirror.yandex.ru/mandriva/devel/iso/2011/ (torrents are available from here http://torrent.mandriva.com/public/) and commit bugs in our bugzilla (qa.mandriva.com).
via Mandriva Blog