Almost exactly a year after the previous one v15.4, we already have here openSUSE Leap 15.5. This release also begins the countdown to stop supporting v15.4, which will reach EOL in just six months. Among its novelties there are many that have been arriving during the last twelve months, of which I would highlight the new graphical environment.
More than a new graphical environment, a new version of it, a plasma 5.27 which is the last LTS version to carry the number 5. Leap 15.6 will probably use Plasma 6, but we are anticipating events. Among the novelties of plasma 5.27, the one that undoubtedly stands out the most is the advanced stacking system, a feature that is expected to go further with the passing of versions.
Other new features in openSUSE Leap 15.5
Continuing with the KDE software, it includes the last version of the project's set of apps to complete its cycle, which is to take a linguistic walk to say that it uses KDE Gear 22.12.3. KDE Gear 23.04.1 is now available, but the December 2022 release has already received all maintenance updates.
Among the other available desktops, openSUSE Leap 15.5 offers the ability to use GNOME 41 (the latest version is already v44), Xfce 4.18 and it is also possible to use Sway, but if it is installed from the repositories.
The kernel used by openSUSE Leap 15.5 is Linux 5.14, which is a bit surprising considering that the most up-to-date stable version is 6.3 and the latest LTS are 6.1 and 5.15. The kernel is the same as Leap 15.4, but with about 19000 patches that have fixed bugs and vulnerabilities. In fact, they mention that they have backported from other LTS versions.
Among the rest of the novelties, it has been included Table 22.3.5, Vim 9.0, a stack of new AI developer packages, and support for booting from NVM Express over Fabrics over TCP transport.
Interested users can download this version of openSUSE from the project's download page, which can be accessed from this link. There are images for x86_64, aarch64, ppc64le and s390x architectures.
More information in notes from this release.