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<title>[ANNOUNCE] SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16.1 RC2 is out!</title>
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<div role="article" aria-roledescription="email" aria-label="[ANNOUNCE] SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16.1 RC2 is out!" lang="en" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly">
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<p style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;">Having trouble viewing this email? Please check the plain text version of this email.</p>
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<h1 style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly; color: #30BA78; text-transform: capitalize">
<center>SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16.1 - the RC2 Milestone has been achieved!</center>
</h1>
<p style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;">SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 16.1 Release Candidate 2 (RC2) is now available. This is an intermediate milestone on the road to General Availability.</p>
<h2 style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly; color: #30BA78; text-transform: capitalize">
<center>What's changed since RC1</center>
</h2>
<p style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;">Between RC1 and RC2, the following has moved forward:</p>
<ul>
<li>1,862 updated binary packages, built from 243 changed source packages</li>
<li>721 security fixes, made up of 185 kernel CVEs and 536 userspace patches</li>
<li>822 feature and bug fixes, closing 24 tracked feature requests and 798 issue tickets</li>
<li>Supported architectures remain x86-64, aarch64, ppc64le, and s390x</li>
</ul>
<p style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;">As always with an RC toolchain shift, we'd ask ISVs, container maintainers, and hardware partners to re-test their workloads against this build when they get a chance.</p>
<h2 style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly; color: #30BA78; text-transform: capitalize;">
<center>A few things worth knowing about</center>
</h2>
<p style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;"><strong>Kernel</strong>: updated with upstream fixes, bringing the CVE fixes, some hardware enablement work, such as, the enablement for Fujitsu MONAKA platform, architectural groundwork for future SGI UV systems, and a few ARM64 improvements (e.g. Memory Tagging Extension support for hugetlb, batched TLB flush optimizations, and TLBI errata mitigations for Microsoft Azure Cobalt 100 ARM CPUs).</p>
<p style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;"><strong>Toolchain</strong>: the default C/C++ runtime across all four architectures is now GCC 16.1.1. Core base runtime libraries (libgcc_s1, libstdc++6, libgomp1, libatomic1) have moved over, and GCC 15 side-by-side runtimes (like libstdc++6-gcc15) stay installed so existing compiled binaries keep running. Worth flagging: every container base image and third-party binary built against SLES 16.1 inherits this ABI shift, which is part of why we're asking for early re-testing.</p>
<p style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;"><strong>Security roll-up</strong>: 536 non-kernel CVEs addressed this round, including curl 8.21.0 (24 CVEs around connection-reuse vulnerability classes and host credential protection), OpenSSL 3.5.0 (the "HollowByte" memory allocation DoS issue, bsc#1271712), and glibc 2.40 (critical resolv buffer overread fixes for CVE-2026-6238 and CVE-2026-5435, plus new POWER10-optimized string comparison routines).</p>
<p style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;"><strong>Developer runtimes refreshed</strong>: Go 1.26 (with point updates across legacy streams; FIPS-capable -openssl variants aligned directly with upstream point releases), Rust 1.96.0 with matching cargo tooling, Python 3.14.6, Node.js 24.18.0, Ruby 3.4.10 (with ruby-common 4.0.0), and PHP 8.5.8.</p>
<p style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;"><strong>Installer</strong>: the Agama installer (version 23) brings improved CPU/memory detection on s390x, expanded VLAN/IP configuration, asynchronous storage D-Bus initialization, and updated CLI shell completions.</p>
<p style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;"><strong>SAP migration</strong>: re-added migrate-sles-to-sles4sap tool supports in-place migration from SLES 16.1 to SLES for SAP Applications 16.1.</p>
<p style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;"><strong>High Availability</strong>: LVS load balancer support is re-introduced via ldirectord and ipvsadm.</p>
<p style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;"><strong>SELinux</strong>: the policy module store relocates from /var/lib/selinux to /etc/selinux, with the migration executed safely during package transaction phases to prevent system stranding on unexpected interruptions.</p>
<h2 style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly; color: #30BA78; text-transform: capitalize;">
<center>Try it out!</center>
</h2>
<p style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;">RC2 is available for testing across public cloud providers, download portals, and container registries. We encourage our user base and partner ecosystem to deploy this candidate, validate workloads, and report any findings through official support channels before we lock things down for GA.</p>
<p style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;">For more information about the SLES 16.1 Beta program, please visit https://www.suse.com/betaprogram/sles16-beta .</p>
<p style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;">As this is not a final release, please report bugs via <a href="https://bugzilla.suse.com/enter_bug.cgi?product=SUSE%20Linux%20Enterprise%20Server%2016.1" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;">bugzilla</a>.</p>
<p style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;">We will release the release candidates publicly and finally we plan to release the gold version in November 2026.</p>
<h2 style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly; color: #30BA78; text-transform: capitalize;">
<center>Known Issues</center>
</h2>
<ul>
<li>BZ <a href="https://bugzilla.suse.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1272636" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;">#1272636</a> - Kernel panic during mdadm hot swapping raid0/1</li>
</ul>
<h2 style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly; color: #30BA78; text-transform: capitalize;">
<center>Download</center>
</h2>
<p style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;">The following beta products are available for download:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.suse.com/download/sles/" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;">SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16.1</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.suse.com/download/sle-sap/" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;">SUSE Linux Enterprise for SAP applications 16.1</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.suse.com/download/sle-ha/" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;">SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 16.1</a></li>
</ul>
<h2 style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly; color: #30BA78; text-transform: capitalize;">
<center>SLE Beta Subscription and Registration Code</center>
</h2>
<p style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;">Please note that your regular SLE key will <strong>not</strong> activate the beta environment. A <strong>special Beta Registration Code</strong> is required to access the SUSE Linux Enterprise 16 beta online channels and repositories within the <strong>SUSE Customer Center</strong>. Without this code, you will not be able to access the beta content.</p>
<p style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;">To obtain a <strong>Beta Registration Code</strong> and unlock your <strong>Beta Subscription</strong>, please submit a request to <a href="mailto:beta-programs@suse.com" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;">beta-programs@suse.com</a>. When requesting, specify the desired products (SLES 16.1, SLES for SAP 16.1, SLE HA 16.1, or all) and the relevant architectures.</p>
<h2 style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly; color: #30BA78; text-transform: capitalize;">
<center>Documentation</center>
</h2>
<p style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;">Draft release notes are currently available:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16.1</strong>: <a href="https://susedoc.github.io/release-notes/sles-16.1/html/release-notes/" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;">susedoc.github.io/release-notes/sles-16.1/html/release-notes/</a></li>
<li><strong>SUSE Linux Enterprise for SAP Applications 16.1</strong>: <a href="https://susedoc.github.io/release-notes/slesap-16.1/html/release-notes/index.html" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;">susedoc.github.io/release-notes/slesap-16.1/html/release-notes/</a></li>
<li><strong>SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 16.1</strong>: <a href="https://susedoc.github.io/release-notes/sleha-16.1/html/release-notes/index.html" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;">susedoc.github.io/release-notes/sleha-16.1/html/release-notes/</a></li>
</ul>
<p style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;">Draft product documentation can be found at <a href="https://susedoc.github.io/#sles16" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;">susedoc.github.io/#sles16</a></p>
<p style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;">The beta allows for both online and offline installation using the <strong>Agama installer</strong>. More details are available at <a href="https://agama-project.github.io/" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;">agama-project.github.io</a></p>
<p style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;">Please be aware that documentation for the beta is still under development, and not all content is finalized or available yet.</p>
<h2 style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly; color: #30BA78; text-transform: capitalize;">
<center>Questions?</center>
</h2>
<p style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;">For additional details, please consult the dedicated <a href="https://www.suse.com/betaprogram/sles16-beta" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;">Beta webpage</a>.</p>
<p style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;">If you want to contact us for any inquiry, we are at your disposal via email at <a href="mailto:beta-programs@suse.com" style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;">beta-programs@suse.com</a>.</p>
<p style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; mso-line-height-rule: exactly;">The SUSE Linux Enterprise Team.</p>
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