Mr Jerry, lead at Linux Lite project has announced the immediate availability of Linux Lite 4.2 beta for testing. This is a minor update in Linux Lite 4.x Diamond series. It includes some improved artworks, extra tweaks, and updated packages.

It is a development release, not ready for production

Linux Lite 4.2 beta is a development release meant to showcase the features in the upcoming stable release. It also gives community contributors to involve in the regression testing and to provide their feedback. As a development release, there could be critical issues with this release. A known issue is slow booting in some issues. This issue should be tested on multiple hardware configurations and need to be analyzed.

Also, Linux Lite provides no direct update path from development release to stable release. So, it recommended to not install Linux Lite 4.2 beta on production systems in hope, it will become eventually stable.

What is new in Linux Lite 4.2 beta?

Already told, Linux Lite 4.2 is a minor release. So, there won’t be any long list of features. Some noticeable changes include,

• Minor tweaks and improvements in Lite Welcome
• A set of new wallpapers
• Linux Kernel: 4.15.0-34.37 (Custom Kernels with versions 3.13 - 4.18 can be installed from Lite repositories)
• Firefox: 62.0.2 Quantum
• Thunderbird: 52.9.1
• LibreOffice: 6.0.6.2
• VLC: 3.0.3
• Gimp: 2.10.6
• Base: 18.04.1

For Linux Lite 4.2 beta release announcement and related discussions, see Linux Lite forums.