Over the weekend the Mandriva developers announced the release of a beta version of their upcoming Mandriva Linux 2010 release. The release is available for both 32- and 64-bit systems and has some cool features including Plymouth, a rewrite of NetProfile and the latest versions of KDE and Gnome.

Plymouth is now the default method of managing boot splashes which means starting up Mandriva has the potential for a whole new range of bootup effects. Plymouth runs very early in the boot process, even before the root filesystem is mounted, to provide graphical boot animations while the boot process happens in the background. Plymouth works only on systems with DRM modesetting drivers and runs until the X starts when graphical display is handed over (see Freedesktop.org for more). Non-DRM systems will simply fall back to text mode.

Mandriva Linux 2010 beta also includes a completely rewritten version of NetProfile. The Mandriva-specific tool is an independent network profile management tool that stores information on various network settings (say between home and work) which can easily be switched between. NetProfile also makes it easy to move between machines.

Other major features include KDE4.3, Gnome 2.27.5 and kernel 2.6.31 rc6.

Full details on the release can be found in the release notes and Mandriva Linux 2010.0 Beta can be downloaded from Mandriva as a 32- or 64-bit DVD image file.

The final release of Mandriva Linux 2010 is expected on 3 November 2009.