haha the last thread that said this was a joke… and I fell for it xD
but it’s finaly here! 
http://www.blender.org/download/get-25-alpha/
2.5 is so much difrant that all the other blender versions… it took me a while to find every thing in 2.5 but I did!
I have only one beef with it, it’s choppy on my system, but I think I can work with it. Okay two beefs, some of my materials need redoing when I port 2.49 to 2.5 but hey, that’s a small price to pay for such and improvement 
i’m a bit lost as to where everything is in 2.5… lol they also removed the Spacebar toolbox - now it’s a search bar, which is also practical, but how do you cue up the original toolbar?!? argh!!! lol
I don’t know! that bugs me cuz I always hit space bar to add an object but that’s not it anymore :o
MeshWeaver: the Add-menu is now Shift+A. The other options of the toolbar can be accessed by their direct hotkeys (eg. R for rotate).
The add menu was always Shift-A.
Martin
Maybe this may one good reason just to revert back to the “old” version as a protest. I’m waiting until the weekend before downloading my copy, hopefully by then there will be more information via this forum and others on things to expect and hence I will be somewhat warned when I run it.
Cheers developers!
:o
Didn’t know that (even after many years of using Blender), I always used to use spacebar on < 2.5
For a long time, Shift-A was the only way to add stuff in the sequencer. It’s not just the add menu in the 3D window.
Martin
There’s no download for PPC Mac OSX 10.4.11 
Is there likely to be one?
yeah, i used Spacebar all the time as well… i might have triggered Shift-A by accident sometimes, but it never stuck in my head…
well, the new search bar is useful, so i guess i’ll have to get used to it… sigh 
just kidding. the search thing was a good idea. it’s cool that it was implemented in two places… they both might have different functions
Its taking me quite a while to acclimatise to the new layout.
Lol @ Endi spamming up the graphicall comments.
WHY CAN’T YOU MAKE SOMETHING SIMPLE OR HAVE WIZARRRRDS!
10/10 for long term commitment to a bad joke :).
I miss “drag immediately” to work. Can’t understand why to click twice as many as needed… and why is it in the preferences if it doesn’t affect anything? Ok, I know, it’s a testbuild. I do shut up. Go on devs! I want to change to 2.5 as soon as possible
Not sure if anyone needs it, but I mirrored it just in cased there were server problems. Obviously, use the official link first if you can get onto it. If the main servers get overloaded, use this one
http://www.openworldfilm.com/blenderbuilds/blender-2.5-alpha0-win32.zip
Hey thanks for asking the whereabouts of the spacebar menu - it’s what I’ve always used as well. I think 2.5+ goal is to fix stuff like this ambiguity. There are a lot of tutorials out there with things like “Hit spacebar >> add >> mesh >> cube” which in hindsight really should have been “Shift+a >> mesh >> cube”
thnx theeth, didn’t know about shift-a either.
is it just me, or does 2.50 seem less responsive than 2.4x?
Responsive!? Blender 2.50s fully threaded UI means that you see changes in realtime.
Though if you are experiencing lag, you may want to try changing the opengl preferences in the Preferences Window away from Triple Buffer. I get slowdowns on that on my ATI here on Linux, but when I revert to the 2.4x method it is fine.
I had an old 2.49 scene that opened 100% seamlessly in 2.5. The scene had about 20,000 faces, various lights, AO, SSS, and a lot of hair particles as grass. Took 5:13 in 2.49 to render, and 1:52 in 2.5. The renders are identical pixel for pixel accept the hair strands seems to be ever so slightly thicker in the 2.5 version. I knew the render engine was supposed to get a speed improvement but cut my render time in half?
What do you mean by responsive? 2.5 seems just as responsive to me. I do have a hefty system though.
the triple buffer thing was it
thank you.
(integrated geforce 6150 LE)