The openSUSE 12.1 release from earlier this week promises many improvements to the distribution — the first release since Novell was acquired by Attachmate back in April.

Here is a list of some of the notable updates and additions:

  • GNOME Shell 3.2 and the Oyranos color management system
  • First major distribution to ship with Google’s new open development language Go
  • Moves to the Tumbleweed repository
  • Like Fedora 16, offers improvements in cloud and virtualization tools: latest versions of OpenStack, OpenNebula, and Eucalyptus plus support for OwnCloud, an open source web services platform

ZDNet’s Paula Rooney noted the significance of the new version:

Its first move – separating its Novell and Linux brands – sent a strong message that Attachmate was serious about giving the Linux brand a big push of its own, separate and distinct from Novell’s extensive portolio of management products and service contracts.

Checkout download options for openSuse 12.1 here.