Bringing an end to the uncertainties, elementary project has announced availability of elementary OS 0.4 beta, first development release of upcoming stable elementary OS 0.4 with code name Loki. Elementary OS is an Ubuntu based GNU/Linux distribution that comes with a unique desktop environment called Pantheon which is built over GNOME 3.x. Pantheon desktop provides smooth user experience, and in terms of appearance it resembles OS X.
The elementary OS 04. beta is coming with a lot changes and it includes implementation of 20 design blue prints and fix for more than 800 issues reported in previous release.
Being a development release, elementary OS 0.4 beta is not meant for regular use. Release announcement is giving a fair warning on the same and has listed some known issues.
elementary OS 0.4 is based on recently released Ubuntu 16.04 LTS which implies availability of latest development tools and environment including Gtk 3.18, Vala 0.32, Linux Kernel 4.4 and other updates. Also, elementary OS 0.4 means a lot of changes for application developers. It has removed some existing APIs and added new APIs to provide better integration with the operating system.
The official release announcement of elementary OS 0.4 can be read as:
The elementary OS 04. beta is coming with a lot changes and it includes implementation of 20 design blue prints and fix for more than 800 issues reported in previous release.
Being a development release, elementary OS 0.4 beta is not meant for regular use. Release announcement is giving a fair warning on the same and has listed some known issues.
elementary OS 0.4 is based on recently released Ubuntu 16.04 LTS which implies availability of latest development tools and environment including Gtk 3.18, Vala 0.32, Linux Kernel 4.4 and other updates. Also, elementary OS 0.4 means a lot of changes for application developers. It has removed some existing APIs and added new APIs to provide better integration with the operating system.
The official release announcement of elementary OS 0.4 can be read as:
This release brings tons of fixes and new features for both users and developers. Over 20 blueprints were implemented and over 800 issues closed. Time to break it all down and reveal what the future holds for the next version of elementary OS!
The purpose of releasing a beta is to give developers time to update their apps prior to stable release, give our translation teams time to translate, and give our documentation teams time to update documentation. Beta represents a more-or-less feature-complete release, but it does not represent a stable release.