A corrective release of TileOS 1.2 'T-Rex', built on a Debian package base and featuring a desktop that uses tiling window managers, is now available. TileOS aims to provide a ready-to-use interface that requires no additional configuration, catering to both experienced Linux users and newcomers who want to try a tiling window manager environment without spending a lot of time on setup. This is similar to the Ubuntu Sway Remix distribution (developed by the same author).
Unlike Ubuntu Sway Remix, TileOS is much more open to various modifications and customizations and is free from any potential copyright issues (Ubuntu Sway Remix uses registered trademarks of Canonical, but an official response regarding the inclusion of the distribution in the official Ubuntu family is still pending). Builds for the amd64 architecture are prepared for download (support for arm64, particularly for Raspberry Pi boards, is planned for the future). The source code of TileOS components is available on GitLab.
TileOS focuses primarily on window managers that use the Wayland protocol. Official editions with Sway and River desktops are available, while editions with SwayFX (a fork of Sway enhanced with various desktop effects) and Qtile are under development. The distribution uses a Debian Stable package base; however, various enhancements, newer versions of some software, and graphics drivers are pulled from the testing branch. Additionally, several optimizations for disk subsystem and memory performance have been included, as well as some improvements from Ubuntu, such as mounting disks in the file manager without prompting for a password.
In the new release:
- The package base is synchronized with Debian 12.7;
- The Linux kernel has been updated to version 6.6.57 (LTS);
- Mesa package has been updated to version 24.4.2;
- Multimedia server PipeWire has been updated to version 1.2.5;
- Wireplumber sound session manager has been updated to release 0.5.6;
- A new experimental edition has been introduced, featuring the mosaic window manager Qtile, written and customizable in Python. Qtile supports both X11 and Wayland, but the TileOS Qtile Edition currently only comes with a Wayland session (an X11-based session will be added later as a fallback option).
Source: opennet.ru
