openSUSE Leap 16 is expected to be released next year based on the Adaptable Linux Platform

The future of the classic "stable" Linux distribution openSUSE Leap was not entirely clear until now. At times, the Tumbleweed-based openSUSE Slowroll, which is currently only available in an experimental version, was considered the successor to Leap. But today openSUSE has officially announced that Leap 16 will be released in 2025 based on the Adaptable Linux Platform (ALP).

"Leap 16 aims to strike a balance between a state-of-the-art and traditional Linux operating system, resulting from SUSE's development of ALP and initiatives to effectively integrate community packages," reads the blog posting on the openSUSE website. The transition to Leap 16 is said to represent a significant advance in user experience and underlying technology thanks to ALP.

"In addition to Leap 16, Leap Micro 6.0 will be the successor to the Leap Micro 5 series. It is based on SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 6.0, which focuses on containerized and virtualized workloads," according to the openSUSE blog. If the release of Leap 16 is delayed, a release of Leap 15.7 will be pushed in between if necessary.

The openSUSE roadmap currently only speaks of a release of openSUSE Leap 16 in 2025. The last interim version of Leap 15, namely version 15.6, is expected to be released in June of this year. As Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 will also be released in 2025, this could lead to an exciting duel between the enterprise Linux giants.