Rejoice fellow Drupalites! After just two betas we present you the first Drupal 5 release candidate (RC1).

Download it from: http://drupal.org/files/projects/drupal-5.0-rc1.tar.gz.

You can read about the new features in the beta 1 announcement. In contrast to the beta's, most debugging has been done and, should no more fatal bugs emerge, this version is release worthy. A list of all the bugfixes since beta 2 can be found on the release page.

While we do not recommend to run release candidate 1 on production sites, we are going to break the rule ourselves on Drupal.org, in order to test Drupal 5 on a large site. We plan to upgrade Drupal.org to Drupal 5 RC1 somewhere during the next couple of weeks.

You may be glad to know that some of the most used contributed modules, such as CCK and Views have already been upgraded to work with Drupal 5. Others, such as Image and Image assist are actively being worked on. For a complete list, visit the Modules page and select 5.x from the dropdown menu. For all the other modules: keep your eye on the modules' issue queues or on the post Contrib modules version 5.x status to get an idea on the upgrade time-frame. If you are a module maintainer; Now is the time to start working on the update to Drupal 5.

We still need your help turning this release candidate into a true release! Read on to find out how....

Everyone

No matter who you are, start by either installing or upgrading to the new version of Drupal (see INSTALL.txt or UPGRADE.txt for more details). You can use the development module to quickly generate a bunch of test data, or you can upgrade an existing Drupal 4.7 installation. As with everything not formally released, we do not recommend running the release candidate on a live site. If you do, make sure you backup your entire site and database before.

Module and theme developers

Please start the work on updating your modules and themes, to ensure users a smooth upgrade in the not to distant future, Please file any API bug you might encounter.

Drupal interface translators

It's time to blow the dust off your dictionaries! With all the user interface strings frozen, you can start the translation, without fear you need to redo the work later. You can download the translation templates from Drupal.org CVS.

Testers

Are you are gifted with the "Poison Finger"? Does seemingly normal code collapse into a flying mess of errors as soon as you get hold of the mouse? If so, why not have a run at breaking Drupal? When you discover a bug, check the issue queue to see if it is already known. If it is not, submit a bug report. The more polish we can apply before the final release, the better.

When will Drupal 5 get released?

If no more critical issues emerge and Drupal.org has been running without problems on RC1, we will provide a real release. If problems emerge however, we may release any number of release candidates in between. As we feel it is extremely important to find out how RC1 holds up on such a large site as Drupal.org, any delays in its upgrade may lead to a delay in the release cycle.

Drupal version: Drupal 5.x