The Gentoo Release Engineering team has announced the release of Gentoo Linux 2006.1, the second release of the year. It builds on the strength of previous releases with several improvements. Featuring all of Gentoo's well-documented advantages in flexibility, performance and portability, this release is now available on all supported architectures. It is a compelling choice for people desiring a flexible, powerful community-based Linux distribution.

The 2006.1 release features many highlights that improve upon 2006.0. The AMD64, HPPA, x86, 32- and 64-bit PowerPC releases are built with and include GCC 4.1, a great improvement over version 3.4 used for 2006.0. Also included are the GNU C library version 2.4 and Gentoo's baselayout 1.12.1, with improved system startup scripts. Alpha, x86 and AMD64 also feature a new profile layout, with separate sub-profiles for desktop and server systems. This makes customization much easier as the profile defaults can be pre-tuned to the type of system being used.

The Gentoo Linux Installer for the x86 and AMD64 platforms now features a networkless install mode, with a more streamlined configuration interface making a typical installation quicker and easier than ever. It also includes new and improved partitioning code that can make better use of existing partition setups with unusual arrangements and improved error handling to minimize the chances of damaged partition tables.

For the Alpha platform, the InstallCD now features the option to use a serial console for installation with minimal effort, and the stages are once again unified into one set for LinuxThreads and NPTL systems. The compiler used has been upgraded to GCC version 3.4.6, and it includes an updated glibc, to allow the unified stages for LinuxThreads and NPTL.

The SPARC release includes several improvements over 2006.0, including InstallCD support for systems with more than 4GB of memory and an updated toolchain bringing fixes for various compilation problems. Also new is InstallCD and kernel support for the new UltraSPARC T1 processor used in the Sun T1000 and T2000 systems.

Gentoo Linux 2006.1 now brings official support for the dual-core G5 processor on the PPC platform, support for the serial console on Apple Xserve machines and improved support for installation from a FireWire disk. Official stages are built for 64- and 32-bit userlands on generic PPC64, POWER5 and PowerPC 970 (G5) platforms, and GRP packages are available for the latest KDE, Gnome and XFCE releases on all of the above configurations.

Gentoo is also offering experimental stages for SuperH, the embedded processor developed by Hitachi in the early 1990s and most notably found in the SEGA DreamCast and several models of HP PDA. The port presently supports, and was developed on, the LanTANK system, with support for more systems planned in the future.