The first release candidate for OpenSuse 11.3 has been released and the team looks to be well on track for a final release on July 15.

Chief changes in 11. 3 are btrfs file support, which will be offered as an option during installation, and the integration of the Noveau driver to support NVIDIA graphics cards.

The new btrfs filesystem has a number of advantages over pre-existing filesystems. One of these is the ability to take filesystem snapshots and then revert to those at a later stage. Btrfs is still under heavy development so you probably don’t want to install this on production servers but if you’re keen to take a look-see then go ahead.

The Nouveau driver is gradually becoming a fairly standard addition to Linux distros and OpenSuse 11.3 RC includes this as well.

OpenSuse’s KDE has a new feature in 11.3 that could best be described as “packages on demand”. When a user opens up a new filetype but they don’t have an appropriate application KSuseInstall kicks in and finds the best application for the task. Sounds very cool.

For a more detailed look at what to expect from OpenSuse 11.3 it’s worth reading Joe ‘Zonker’ Brockmeier’s Seven Reasons to Upgrade to openSUSE 11.3. After all, until recently he was community manager for OpenSuse so has a fairly good handle on what’s good about OpenSuse.