Core & TKLDev v18.0 Release Candidates are LIVE!!

I'm happy to announce the pre-release of the next major version of TurnKey GNU/Linux. The first v18.0 Release Candidates of Core and TKLDev are ready for download, inspection and open for feedback..

Core and TKLDev

As per always, we are pre-releasing our base OS appliance, Core v18.0rc1 and asking the community to give it a spin and let us know what you think. As has become convention, we are also pre-releasing our "build tool in a box", TKLDev v18.0rc1. For the uninitiated, TKLDev is literally the mother of all appliances! It what we use internally to develop, build and run preliminary tests on new appliances.

If you have a particular appliance you are interested in, then building it to ISO and taking it for a test drive would be an awesome experience and a huge help to us and the rest of the community. If you need more specifics on that, please ask and I may even spend some time writing up a blog post on what's required and where things might hiccup (during development). Otherwise, please feel free to browse the TKLDev docs and/or ask questions (here in the comments, or open a new thread on the forums).

Download the RCs and help us test them

Core (64bit / amd64 build):  342MB ISO  ( changelog ,  hash file ,  manifest )

TKLDev (64bit / amd64 build):  373MB ISO ( changelog ,  hash file ,  manifest )

Quick overview of significant changes

You can view further details of specific changes/bugfixes via the relevant changelogs (links above) and I'll do a full outline of the changes when we do the final stable release of v18.0. But in the meantime, here's a quick overview of major changes:

• Rebase on Debian 12/Bookworm.
• Improvements and bugfixes for Fab, Autoversion, and Bootstrap in TKLDev.
• TKLDev now includes TurnKey developer tools tkldev-changelog, fab-rewind & fab-investigate scripts in TKLDev by default.
• For those working on future TKLDev transitions, it now requires RELEASE to be set (rather than CODENAME). For general building, it will continue to fallback to the current system (i.e. debian/bookworm for v18.x).
• Core updates and improvements for Confconsole, Inithooks, and TKLBAM (mostly code improvements and updates).
• Improved IPv6 support for base components.
• New Webmin version, which includes a full, interactive terminal client. As such, Webshell (aka shellinabox) has been removed (either use Webmin or SSH instead).
• Security hardening improvements through new TurnKey Bookworm keys being implemented in Core.
• Enhancing security in Core by automating (and requiring) default pinning for packages from Debian backports.

This release continues our work to bring the TurnKey base more into line with vanilla Debian, whilst still providing ready to use appliances, our special toolset and secret sauce (well not really secret, because you can view the open-source code anytime on GitHub). The idea behind this is that by default our appliances should "just work" but are much more approachable by non-seasoned TurnKey veterans with some Debian/Ubuntu experience.

Expected timeframe for v18.0 stable release appliances

As per always, there is still plenty to be done including quite a few feature requests that I'd love to see included in v18.0. We won't be holding up the release of v18.0 stable appliances any longer than we have to. We will be focused on so at least some of that will almost certainly be delayed until later in the lifetime of v18.x. Some things, still require some work, so whether or not they'll make it in remains to be seen. Regardless, we'll try to get as much in as we can whilst still pushing v18.0 out the door ASAP. We release "when ready" so I can't give any firm commitment on which appliances will be released when. We will however seek to prioritize our base appliances (Core, LAMP, LAPP, NodeJS, etc.) and I hope to have a batch of shiny new releases ready for publishing (as the first batch) in the upcoming months.

Please help test and give us your feedback

As with previous "point-oh" releases, this is a major OS transition. As such, we need plenty of testing! We've already done a fair bit of testing in house, but the more the merrier! So hopefully you get a chance to give the RCs a test drive. We welcome all feedback, especially constructive critique. Please post below, open a new thread in the forums (requires a free website user account) or bugs can be reported directly to the Issue tracker (free GitHub user account required).

If you have any spare cycles and hope to help out, we'd especially love to hear from you. Please reach out if you aren't sure where to start or need some guidance. Look forward to hearing from you! :)