Pear OS 4 was recently launched to a small fanfare, with a name change to Comice OS to celebrate the release. The OS X aping Ubuntu spin-off was first released in the middle of last year, and has quickly gained popularity among the Linux community.
Unfortunately, widespread reports of installation problems from users have forced the developers of Pear OS to put Comice OS 4 back into beta testing. There have also been difficulties with booting for some people, especially those running on virtual machines. At the time of writing, the download page has reverted to offering Pear OS 3 instead.
When released, Comice OS 4 will include an updated version of the Pear Appstore, a skin for the packet manager, as well as a heavily modified GNOME Shell and plenty of Office, browsing, and media software out of the box.
Look out for Linux User & Developer 111 for our review of Comice OS 4, on sale 15th March 2012.