This is really two separate announcements rolled into one:

1. TurnKey 13 - codenamed "satisfaction guaranteed or your money back!"

   The new release celebrates 5 years since TurnKey's launch. It's based on the latest version of Debian (7.2) and includes 1400 ready-to-use images: 330GB worth of 100% open source, guru integrated, Linux system goodness in 7 build types that are optimized and pre-tested for nearly any deployment scenario: bare metal, virtual machines and hypervisors of all kinds, "headless" private and public cloud deployments, etc.

   New apps in this release include OpenVPN, Observium and Tendenci.

   We hope this new release reinforces the explosion in active 24x7 production deployments (37,521 servers worldwide) we've seen since the previous 12.1 release, which added 64-bit support and the ability to rebuild any system from scratch using TKLDev, our new self-contained build appliance (AKA "the mothership").

   To visualize active deployments world wide, I ran the archive.turnkeylinux.org access logs through GeoIPCity and overlaid the GPS coordinates on this Google map (view full screen):
   
    

2. TKLBAM 1.4 - codenamed "give me liberty or give me death!"

   Frees TKLBAM from its shackles so it can now backup files, databases and package management state without requiring TurnKey Linux, a TurnKey Hub account or even a network connection. Having those will improve the usage experience, but the new release does its best with what you give it.

   I've created a convenience script to help you install it in a few seconds on any Debian or Ubuntu derived system:

   URL=https://raw.github.com/turnkeylinux/tklbam/master/contrib/ez-apt-install.sh
   wget -O - -q $URL | PACKAGE=tklbam /bin/bash
   

   There's nothing preventing TKLBAM from working on non Debian/Ubuntu Linux systems as well, you just need to to install from source and disable APT integration with the --skip-packages option.

   Other highlights: support for PostgreSQL, MySQL views & triggers, and a major usability rehaul designed to make it easier to understand and control how everything works. Magic can be scary in a backup tool.

   Here's a TurnKey Hub screenshot I took testing TKLBAM on various versions of Ubuntu:
   
   

TurnKey 12.1 is out and it's the first 64-bit maintenance release to be built with tkldev - TurnKey's shiny new open appliance build system in a box.

With 64-bit support out the door, we've also pushed out a round of updates to the Hub so that users can finally deploy TurnKey on all instance sizes.

Ladies and gentlemen, the 12.0 release is finally out after nearly 6 months of development and just in time to celebrate TurnKey's 4th anniversary. I'm proud to announce we've more than doubled the size of the TurnKey Linux library, from 45 appliances to over 100!

I'm pleased to announce a spanking brand new release candidate for TurnKey Core 12.0 - the common base for all appliances, based on the rock solid Debian Squeeze (6.0.4). The rumors were true! Hurrah! Hurrah!

This is an RC release, so take it for a spin and let us know what you think. If you come across any issues, please report them. If you have ideas on how to make it better, let us know!