After ten months of development, the release of the Endless OS 5.1 distribution has been announced, aimed at creating an easy-to-use system where applications can quickly be selected according to personal preference. Applications are distributed as self-contained packages in Flatpak format. The size of the available boot images ranges from 1.1 to 18 GB.
The distribution does not use traditional package managers, but instead offers a minimal atomic update base system that operates in read-only mode and is created using the OSTree tooling (the system image is atomically updated from a Git-like repository). Recently, developers of Fedora have been trying to replicate similar ideas with the Silverblue project aimed at creating an atomic update version of Fedora Workstation, along with creators of Vanilla OS, tau-OS, and Pop!_OS. The installer and update system of Endless OS are used in GNOME OS.
Endless OS is among the distributions promoting innovation within user-oriented Linux systems. The working environment in Endless OS is based on a significantly redesigned fork of GNOME. Meanwhile, the developers of Endless actively participate in upstream projects and contribute their findings. For example, in the release of GTK+ 3.22, about 9.8% of all changes were prepared by Endless developers, and the overseeing company Endless Mobile is part of the advisory board of the GNOME Foundation, alongside FSF, Debian, Google, Linux Foundation, Red Hat, and SUSE.
In the new release:
- Included is the Endless Key application, providing an interface for accessing various educational resources and training videos.
- The Linux kernel has been updated to version 6.5. NVIDIA drivers 530.41.03 have been added. Firmware packages have been updated.
- Endless OS has improved performance on Raspberry Pi boards. Support for hardware-accelerated graphics has been added for Raspberry Pi 4 and 400 boards. Booting from a USB drive connected to the Raspberry Pi board has been enabled.
- The implementation of scrollbars has been improved, which are now visible by default in most applications rather than appearing only when the mouse hovers over the edge of the window.
- The file manager now defaults to displaying files in a grid of icons (the option to revert to list view is available in settings).
- Removed from the supply: the Hack app for teaching children programming and the CD/DVD recording software Brasero. Automatic installation of the Adblock Plus ad blocker has been disabled in the browser.
Source: opennet.ru
