As you may know, OpenSUSE 13.1 Beta 1 has been released today. OpenSUSE Factory (13.1) has reached the code freeze state and so, the developers don’t bring new features anymore, only squash bugs.
The latest new features that have arrived before it got feature frozen: Kernel 3.11.1, llvm/clang 3.3, Mesa 9.2.0, systemd 207, php5 5.4.19, tcl 8.6, bluez 5, wine 1.7, samba 4.1, KDE SC 4.11.1 / GNOME 3.9.91, apache2 2.4.6, texlive 2013, vim 7.4, Amarok 2.8.
In order to fix the bugs in a short time, the OpenSUSE developers will organize a hackaton.
The openSUSE developers are thinking of making btrfs the default file system on the next OpenSUSE systems. Because the btrfs feedback is important for the developers, they have included a “want to test btrfs?” pop-up in the installation of the OpenSUSE 13.1 Beta 1, which of course will not be included in the final release of OpenSUSE 13.1.
Btrfs has very good support for snapshots and data recovery, allowing the users to recover deleted files. For now, only the basic btrfs features are enabled on OpenSUSE systems, but the testers may benefit from all the features of the file system, after they become stable.
As a reminder, OpenSUSE 13.1 will be an evergreen release, getting a three year support and updates and bugfixes until it gets EOL.