How to download Joomla! 1.6 Alpha 2

In our website statistics I noticed that some users are searching for a download link to the latest version of Joomla! 1.6. If you want to give Joomla! 1.6 pre-beta a test drive, there is a really easy way to get your hands on the download, just a click, no SVN clients necessary.

Let me tell you how you can download the latest version of Joomla! 1.6 Alpha.

Before you download Joomla! 1.6 Alpha

Before you continue make sure:

• you are an experience Joomla! user
• you understand that “Alpha” means “unstable and incomplete”, so you will not complain!

And you want to check out Joomla! 1.6 because:

• you are bored and don’t have important work to do
• excited about the new release
• want to prepare and see whats going to be different in this new version
• are just a very curious person (like the rest of us)
• and NOT because you plan on using it on a live site before the final stable release

What is a nightly build of Joomla! 1.6 Alpha?

Because Joomla! 1.6 is in development, there are changes happening all the time. You can do a SVN checkout to get the latest version to the minute, but for us mortals a nightly build will do. A nightly build is a snapshot of Joomla! 1.6 at one moment in time, created nightly. So your nightly build will be a snapshot of the Joomla! 1.6 status of yesterday.

It is possible that a snapshot is really unstable, because the Joomla! team was just doing some major modifications.
In that case:

• do not complain about it on a Joomla! forum
• do not waste your time and keep trying to get it working
• do download the nightly build the next day and try again