openSUSE Leap 16.0 pre-alpha released with general availability planned for next fall

openSUSE has initiated the development of openSUSE Leap 16.0, making its pre-alpha version publicly available. As a pre-alpha release, substantial modifications are anticipated before the final product reaches the alpha, beta, release candidate, and general availability phases. The current installer provides options for Base, GNOME, and KDE spins of the Linux distribution.

Leap 16.0 serves as the successor to Leap 15.6, with its general availability projected for fall 2025. The distribution is built on binaries from the latest SLES 16 and incorporates community packages from the Factory development codebase. The goal is to ensure a seamless transition for users of Leap 15.6.

This pre-alpha release is primarily aimed at early adopters and contributors, and it is advisable to install it in a virtual machine rather than as a primary operating system. Non-contributors are encouraged to wait for the beta release, anticipated in late spring 2025.