After many Alpha releases, the VectorLinux developement team proudly announces the first public beta release of the VectorLinux 5.8 SOHO. This beta release, built on the rock solid base of VL 5.8 standard, includes a custom 2.6.20 SMP Kernel, compiled wih bootsplash, squashfs, lzma, and realtime patches. It includes KDE version 3.5.6 with Kmyfirewall, Amarok 1.4.5, Open Office version 2.1. It also features other multimedia apps such as VLC 0.8.6a and Mplayer 1.0RC1, graphics editors such as The Gimp version 2.2.13. VL 5.8 SOHO also sports a new look and feel, from the boot menu to the desktop. Many other great features have been added.