Qubes OS 4.1-rc2 has been released!
We’re pleased to announce the second release candidate for Qubes 4.1!
Qubes 4.1-rc2 contains fixes for bugs that were discovered in the first release candidate (4.1-rc1). For existing Qubes 4.1-rc1 users, a regular update is sufficient to upgrade to 4.1-rc2.
In case you haven’t heard, Qubes 4.1 includes several major new features, each of which is explained in depth in its own article:
- Qubes Architecture Next Steps: The GUI Domain
- Qubes Architecture Next Steps: The New Qrexec Policy System
- New Gentoo templates and maintenance infrastructure
- Reproducible builds for Debian: a big step forward
There are also numerous other improvements and bug fixes listed in the release notes and in the issue tracker.
Finally, Qubes 4.1 features the following updated default components:
- Xen 4.14
- Fedora 32 in dom0
- Fedora 34 template
- Debian 11 template
- Whonix 16 Gateway and Workstation templates
- Linux kernel 5.10
How to test Qubes 4.1-rc2
If you’re willing to test this release candidate, you can help to improve the stable release by reporting any bugs you encounter. Experienced users are strongly encouraged to join the testing team!
How to migrate to 4.1-rc2:
- If you’re already on 4.1-rc1, simply perform a normal update.
- If you’re not on 4.1-rc1, you have two options:
- Back up your current installation, download 4.1-rc2, perform a fresh install, then restore from your backup.
- Perform an in-place upgrade.
Release candidate planning
As with any release candidate, it’s possible that user testing will reveal important bugs that we’ll want to fix before the stable release. We plan to release the next release candidate in approximately five weeks. As explained in our general release schedule, this cycle will continue until no major bugs are discovered, at which point the latest release candidate will be declared the stable 4.1 release.