# Julia v1.6.0-beta1 is now available

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-v1-6-0-beta1-is-now-available/53065>\
**Category:** Announcements\
**Tags:** release\
**Created:** [January 8, 2021, 9:50pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-v1-6-0-beta1-is-now-available/53065 "2021-01-08T21:50:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ararslan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/ararslan/32/3825_2.png) [@ararslan](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ararslan)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2021, 9:50pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-v1-6-0-beta1-is-now-available/53065/1 "2021-01-08T21:50:27Z")

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The Julia developers are pleased to announce that Julia v1.6.0 is now in beta, and binaries for the first beta version, 1.6.0-beta1, are available now. You can get them at [Download Julia](https://julialang.org/downloads) in the “upcoming release” section for macOS, FreeBSD (x86-64), Windows (32-, 64-bit), glibc Linux (i686, x86-64, AArch64, and—for the first time in years—PowerPC), and [musl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musl) Linux (x86-64). Check out the [NEWS file](https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/blob/v1.6.0-beta1/NEWS.md) to see what will be new in 1.6.0.

As a beta version, this should **not** be considered production-ready. Rather, it’s intended to give users, especially package developers, a chance to try our their code with 1.6.0 prior to a full release. Note that 1.6 on Travis, [AppVeyor](https://github.com/JuliaCI/Appveyor.jl), [Cirrus](https://github.com/ararslan/CirrusCI.jl), and [GitHub Actions](https://github.com/julia-actions/setup-julia) now refers to 1.6.0-beta1.

Let us know in the [issue tracker](https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues) if you run into any issues. Please note that any bugs you may encounter should be posted there rather than being discussed in this thread to ensure visibility to the developers.

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**Author:** ![StefanKarpinski](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/stefankarpinski/32/24_2.png) [@StefanKarpinski](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/StefanKarpinski)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2021, 9:51pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-v1-6-0-beta1-is-now-available/53065/2 "2021-01-08T21:51:25Z")

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**Author:** ![vlandau](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/vlandau/32/8986_2.png) [@vlandau](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/vlandau)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2021, 10:27pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-v1-6-0-beta1-is-now-available/53065/3 "2021-01-08T22:27:50Z")

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Very excited about this! Unfortunately in GitHub Actions I’m getting [an error](https://github.com/Circuitscape/Omniscape.jl/runs/1671403831):

```julia
Run julia-actions/setup-julia@v1
Error: Could not find a Julia version that matches 1.6

```

I think something similar happened on Travis a while ago, and I believe it just took a little while before it became available (I waited an hour or something, re-ran CI, and it worked).

Wasn’t sure if this should be posted as a Julia issue since it is not an error/bug in the language itself.

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**Author:** ![cce](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/cce/32/460_2.png) [@cce](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/cce)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2021, 10:43pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-v1-6-0-beta1-is-now-available/53065/4 "2021-01-08T22:43:35Z")

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Is 1.6 going to be the next LTS?

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**Author:** ![Oscar\_Smith](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/oscar_smith/32/25343_2.png) [@Oscar\_Smith](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Oscar_Smith)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2021, 10:52pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-v1-6-0-beta1-is-now-available/53065/5 "2021-01-08T22:52:11Z")

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Not officially confirmed, but probably. Supporting 1.0 for package devs is onerous enough at this point that most aren’t. Furthermore, 1.6 is an incredibly good release. It’s full of quality of life improvements, and is noticeably faster than previous releases for time to first plot.

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**Author:** ![giordano](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/giordano/32/2166_2.png) [@giordano](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/giordano)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2021, 10:58pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-v1-6-0-beta1-is-now-available/53065/6 "2021-01-08T22:58:09Z")

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Whether a version is LTS or not is decided by the core developers _after_ the version has been released, to see whether things are working as expected.

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**Author:** ![dilumaluthge](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/dilumaluthge/32/29283_2.png) [@dilumaluthge](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/dilumaluthge)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2021, 10:58pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-v1-6-0-beta1-is-now-available/53065/7 "2021-01-08T22:58:44Z")

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> [@vlandau](#):
>
> Very excited about this! Unfortunately in GitHub Actions I’m getting [an error](https://github.com/Circuitscape/Omniscape.jl/runs/1671403831):
> 
> ```julia
> Run julia-actions/setup-julia@v1
> Error: Could not find a Julia version that matches 1.6
> 
> ```
> 
> I think something similar happened on Travis a while ago, and I believe it just took a little while before it became available (I waited an hour or something, re-ran CI, and it worked).
> 
> Wasn’t sure if this should be posted as a Julia issue since it is not an error/bug in the language itself.

Can you post it as an issue here: [Issues · julia-actions/setup-julia · GitHub](https://github.com/julia-actions/setup-julia/issues)

cc: @SaschaMann

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![vlandau](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/vlandau/32/8986_2.png) [@vlandau](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/vlandau)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2021, 11:04pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-v1-6-0-beta1-is-now-available/53065/8 "2021-01-08T23:04:39Z")

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Yes will do that shortly. Thanks!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ctkelley](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/ctkelley/32/10684_2.png) [@ctkelley](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ctkelley)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2021, 11:45pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-v1-6-0-beta1-is-now-available/53065/9 "2021-01-08T23:45:44Z")

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> [@vlandau](#):
>
> Very excited about this! Unfortunately in GitHub Actions I’m getting [an erro](https://github.com/Circuitscape/Omniscape.jl/runs/1671403831)

Same here.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dilumaluthge](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/dilumaluthge/32/29283_2.png) [@dilumaluthge](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/dilumaluthge)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2021, 11:47pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-v1-6-0-beta1-is-now-available/53065/10 "2021-01-08T23:47:28Z")

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[https://github.com/julia-actions/setup-julia/issues/66](https://github.com/julia-actions/setup-julia/issues/66)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![SaschaMann](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/saschamann/32/2852_2.png) [@SaschaMann](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/SaschaMann)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 1:55am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-v1-6-0-beta1-is-now-available/53065/11 "2021-01-09T01:55:44Z")

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Crossposting from GH: Actions are explicitely versioned, unlike the default scripts for e.g. Travis, and there are [security reasons](https://docs.github.com/en/free-pro-team@latest/actions/learn-github-actions/security-hardening-for-github-actions#using-third-party-actions) why one would want to pin the version of the action to a specific commit. To avoid having to update the action/action version everytime a new Julia version comes out, `setup-julia` downloads the list of available versions from [https://julialang-s3.julialang.org/bin/versions.json](https://julialang-s3.julialang.org/bin/versions.json). This file is currently rebuilt only about every 24 hours, so it takes some time after the release is first tagged on GitHub for the version to be available via `1.6`. Since the official announcement of a new Julia version often also takes some time after the tag on GH has been created, this isn’t always noticable.

There are some changes to the deployment of that json file to speed it up but they haven’t been implemented yet. One issue is that the script that generates that file currently takes ~30 min to run, so we can’t set it to run every hour as a quick workaround.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dilumaluthge](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/dilumaluthge/32/29283_2.png) [@dilumaluthge](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/dilumaluthge)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 2:08am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-v1-6-0-beta1-is-now-available/53065/12 "2021-01-09T02:08:07Z")

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Passing along a message from @SaschaMann

> I just realised it may not actually work as 1.6. I believe the syntax for pre-releases is ^1.6.0-0

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**Author:** ![vedasulo](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/vedasulo/32/20324_2.png) [@vedasulo](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/vedasulo)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 4:13am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-v1-6-0-beta1-is-now-available/53065/13 "2021-01-09T04:13:24Z")

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I am on ubuntu Gnu/linux. Installing through snap install on **1.0.4** version. Please make them available with latest version, Thank you 🙂

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**Author:** ![jling](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/jling/32/212909_2.png) [@jling](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/jling)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 6:33am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-v1-6-0-beta1-is-now-available/53065/14 "2021-01-09T06:33:11Z")

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tell Ubuntu maintainers that, in general, for normal usage, binary from the website is a better choice

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**Author:** ![vedasulo](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/vedasulo/32/20324_2.png) [@vedasulo](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/vedasulo)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 10:26am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-v1-6-0-beta1-is-now-available/53065/15 "2021-01-09T10:26:23Z")

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Thanks. In ubuntu it is fine but in distros like Debian It is unethical to install binaries directly. It would be great if julia would be available to `apt` too with latest version.

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**Author:** ![simeonschaub](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/simeonschaub/32/216566_2.png) [@simeonschaub](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/simeonschaub)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 11:03am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-v1-6-0-beta1-is-now-available/53065/16 "2021-01-09T11:03:18Z")

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> [@vedasulo](#):
>
> but in distros like Debian It is unethical to install binaries directly.

Why would that be unethical? Even if you want to be strict about only running free software, Julia is MIT-licensed, regardless of how you install it.

The fact of the matter is that Julia carries around quite a few patches for third-party libraries, which makes it really hard to package as part of any Linux distributions. That’s not to say it’s impossible to have a recent Julia version in the Debian repositories, if someone put in the work, but it is not currently a priority. I never encountered any problems with just using the prebuilt binaries on Linux, you can even build Julia yourself quite easily.

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**Author:** ![Tamas\_Papp](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/tamas_papp/32/25949_2.png) [@Tamas\_Papp](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Tamas_Papp)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 12:15pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-v1-6-0-beta1-is-now-available/53065/17 "2021-01-09T12:15:55Z")

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> [@vedasulo](#):
>
> in distros like Debian It is unethical to install binaries directly

You must be misunderstanding something. Debian [advises against](https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian) `make install`, like most Linux distros (incl Ubuntu & derivatives) that use a package manager.

But since the Julia binary is perfectly happy wherever you extract or compile it, this is not a practical concern for Julia users.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ImreSamu](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/imresamu/32/20677_2.png) [@ImreSamu](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ImreSamu)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 1:16pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-v1-6-0-beta1-is-now-available/53065/18 "2021-01-09T13:16:10Z")

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the `julia:1.6.0-beta1` docker image is ready !!! :julia:🐋

you can test with

```julia-auto
docker pull julia:1.6.0-beta1
docker run -it --rm julia:1.6.0-beta1 

```

Available OS/ARCH

```julia-auto
linux/amd64 144.84 MB <-- Debian Buster based edition !!! 
linux/386 143.42 MB
windows/amd64 5.51 GB
windows/amd64 2.36 GB
linux/ppc64le 134.56 MB

```

#### Example

```julia
❯ docker run -it --rm julia:1.6.0-beta1  
               _
   _ _ _(_)_ | Documentation: https://docs.julialang.org
  (_) | (_) (_) |
   _ _ _| |_ __ _ | Type "?" for help, "]?" for Pkg help.
  | | | | | | |/ _` | |
  | | |_| | | | (_| | | Version 1.6.0-beta1 (2021-01-08)
 _/ |\ __'_|_|_|\__'_| | Official https://julialang.org/ release
|__/ |

julia> versioninfo()
Julia Version 1.6.0-beta1
Commit b84990e1ac (2021-01-08 12:42 UTC)
Platform Info:
  OS: Linux (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)
  CPU: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU @ 2.20GHz
  WORD_SIZE: 64
  LIBM: libopenlibm
  LLVM: libLLVM-11.0.0 (ORCJIT, broadwell)
Environment:
  JULIA_PATH = /usr/local/julia
  JULIA_GPG = 3673DF529D9049477F76B37566E3C7DC03D6E495
  JULIA_VERSION = 1.6.0-beta1

```

- [View Available Tags (Julia Docker Images)](https://hub.docker.com/_/julia?tab=tags&page=1&ordering=last_updated)
- docker-library/julia source code:
  - repo: [GitHub - docker-library/julia: Docker Official Image packaging for julia](https://github.com/docker-library/julia)
  - [`julia/1.6-rc/buster/Dockerfile`](https://github.com/docker-library/julia/blob/master/1.6-rc/buster/Dockerfile) ( If you want to build yourself )
  - [Currently no Alpine(MUSL) based image .. expected in next Beta](https://github.com/docker-library/julia/pull/51)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ctkelley](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/ctkelley/32/10684_2.png) [@ctkelley](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ctkelley)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 5:46pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-v1-6-0-beta1-is-now-available/53065/19 "2021-01-09T17:46:43Z")

</div>

Tried

```julia
version:
          - '1.5'
          - '^1.6.0.0'
          - 'nightly'

```

and still got the error

```julia
Error: Could not find a Julia version that matches ^1.6.0.0

```

1.5 and nightly did fine.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dilumaluthge](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/dilumaluthge/32/29283_2.png) [@dilumaluthge](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/dilumaluthge)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 11:44pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-v1-6-0-beta1-is-now-available/53065/20 "2021-01-09T23:44:28Z")

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@SaschaMann Do you know what the syntax is for getting the 1.6 beta on GHA?

[Next page](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/julia-v1-6-0-beta1-is-now-available/53065.md?page=2)