The 6.1.1 release includes several notable improvements: Xvkbd is now available in the system tray as of July 24, 2024, and both Xvkbd 4.1 and Limine 7.12.0 have been compiled in OpenEmbedded (OE) on July 23, 2024. Additionally, Chinese language PETs were added on the same date. Enhancements to the Limine Installer on July 21, 2024, now allow it to better locate EasyOS installations, and ext4 support has been reintroduced in the Limine bootloader as of the same day.
Linux Mint 22 "Wilma" is a long-term support release with updates and new features, supported until 2029. Notable improvements include a reduced shutdown timeout, enhanced VirtualBox settings, and thinner Ubuntu fonts. The default sound server is now Pipewire, with an option to revert to PulseAudio if needed. Known issues include potential Xorg crashes in virtual machines and a regression with NTFS volumes in Kernel 6.8. Additional changes involve the removal of ZFS support and the introduction of modernized default touchpad drivers. The Snap Store remains disabled by default, with guidance provided for re-enablement.
Uploaded release 22.04.4.10 of Starbuntu contains the new Linux kernel 6.8.0-38. Its bug, namely that the LAN doesn't work with it, has been corrected with a workaround. Additionally, some minor bugs have been fixed in Starbuntu's own software.
The Alpine Linux team has announced the release of Alpine Linux 3.20.2, a maintenance update in the 3.20 series. This release features various bug fixes and security updates, including a low-severity security fix for OpenSSL (CVE-2024-5535). Detailed changes are available in the git log.
No big changes other than the large number of kde/plasma/qt/system updates. I looked into a failure I'm seeing with the network time daemon (ntpd) when starting the live and installed systems, and realized that my own system did the same thing. Apparently, though, it's set to always restart, which it does, successfully, always. So, I'm not sure if it's something that can or should be fixed - it may just be the order in which the services are started, but I'll check into it further. At least it does no harm (if you've noticed it too and wondered).
Switch to the KDE Plasma 6 desktop by default. Spins featuring LXQt (2.0.0 Qt 6) and GNOME (46.3). Also provided is a ROME Plasma 6 Wayland ISO, however we believe Wayland still not to be mature enough to replace X11 by default for most users. Please note the Wayland ISO in VirtualBox almost always will boot to a black screen and will not work. It works fine on most hardware and in QEMU with KVM. In addition to the normal wine Windows emulator, proton and proton-experimental - variants of wine that are typically used to run Windows games inside Steam - are now available as OpenMandriva packages. For the first time, this makes Proton available outside of Steam, without the need to install any non-free code.
KaOS has released its July 2024 ISO, featuring the latest Plasma 6.1.3, KDE Gear 24.05.2, and Frameworks 6.4.0, all built on Qt 6.7.2. Notable updates include enhanced remote desktop capabilities, a revamped Edit Mode with smooth animations, and session restoration on Wayland. The release adds support for the experimental bcachefs filesystem and updates key system components like LLVM/Clang 18.1.8, Linux kernel 6.9.9, and OpenSSL 3.3.0. The new ISO replaces GTK2 with an internal YTK for Ardour and introduces Marknote, a note management app. The installer now supports all popular filesystems in automated partitioning, and SDDM 0.20.0 can run in Wayland mode. The release also features improved logging with Kjournald and enhanced system stability and error detection with the default XFS filesystem.
Clonezilla live version 3.1.3-16 brings significant enhancements and bug fixes. The underlying GNU/Linux OS has been upgraded based on the Debian Sid repository as of July 15, 2024, and now includes the Linux kernel 6.9.9-1 and Partclone 0.3.32. Notable changes include the addition of the "-f" option for fatresize in batch mode and replacing dmraid with mdadm for cleaning superblocks of fakeraid. Bug fixes address an NTFS saving issue linked to the Partclone update and provide a workaround for issues involving LUKS, CIFS, and image encryption combinations.
The ‘Update System’ App has been completely remade into a Python GUI application. No more monolithic bash script. The ‘Update System’ App has been better integrated with Nobara Package manager (yumex-ng) and now provides a service which runs as a system tray app for receiving update notifications. The system tray app is fully configurable within Nobara Package Manager’s settings and includes options to hide the icon completely or change it’s update check interval timer. Nobara Package Manager can now fully search, install, and remove Flatpaks in a user-friendly way on the GUI, obsoleting the need for kde-discover or gnome-software. The PackageKit plugin for KDE discover has been removed so that it does not manage system packages. KDE Discover does not come with the Nobara Official release, however it is still provided on the KDE release. If users intend to used KDE Discover we want them to use it for Flatpaks only. The same goes for gnome software. It is still provided although it is not needed, and our intention is for users to use it for Flatpaks only. Again, we want system packages to be solely managed by Nobara’s Update System app and the Nobara Package Manager. We have spent a lot of time and effort building quirk fixes and checks into our package manager that others normally would not be able to help with. Snaps should be better supported now. Issues have been fixed which prevented lxd and various other apps from operating in the past. We have now introduced Nobara Driver Manager thanks to the help from Cosmo and our friends over at PikaOS. It is limited in what it currently provides but we plan to grow it in the future for hardware that needs third-party driver support.
In addition to the new Linux kernel 6.5.0-44, it introduces the man pages of all Starbuntu-specific applicaations in English language.