The release of the Deepin 23.1 distribution has been published, developing its own Deepin Desktop Environment (DDE), along with around 40 user applications, including the DMusic music player, DMovie video player, DTalk messaging system, installer, and Deepin Software Center. The project is based by a group of developers from China but has transformed into an international project that supports the Russian language. The distribution repository includes more than 8000 packages. All developments are distributed under the GPLv3 license. The size of the bootable ISO images ranges from 3.3 to 5 GB (amd64, arm64, and loongarch64).
Desktop components and applications are developed using C/C++ and Go languages. The graphical interface is built using the Qt library. A key feature of the Deepin desktop is a panel that supports multiple operating modes. In classic mode, there is a clearer separation of open windows and suggested applications to launch, along with a system tray area displayed. The efficient mode resembles Unity to some extent, mixing indicators of running programs, favorite applications, and control applets (volume/brightness settings, connected drives, clock, network status, etc.). The application launcher interface provides two modes — viewing favorite applications and navigating through the catalog of installed programs.
Key innovations:
- The ability to use the Linux kernel 6.12 has been added. The base kernel has been updated to version 6.6.84. NVIDIA drivers, as well as the microcode for Intel and AMD CPUs, have been updated. The nvidia-cuda-toolkit package has been added.
- A compact interface layout mode has been implemented in the configurator. Support for smart mirror selection has been added in the settings section 'Control Center > Update Settings', and region-specific parameters have been offered in 'Control Center > Time & Format > Region & Format'.
- In the Deepin Desktop Environment, the ability to move application shortcuts from the program menu (Launcher) to the taskbar (for pinning shortcuts on the panel) has been provided.
- Support for natural language queries processed on the local system has been added to the Global Search system. AI functionalities have been built-in for summarizing content, translating to another language, and clarifying information.
- The App Store application catalog has been adapted for the quick launch of applications in environments based on Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, and Arch subsystems. Support for filtering packages based on format has been added.
- A utility for managing external repositories has been added. Optimization of the build tools has been carried out.
- The default engine in the AI assistant has been switched to use the DeepSeek model. Integration of the AI assistant with Web search has been ensured. The ability to run AI models on the local system has been added. Functions for correcting errors in text have been implemented.
- Support for dav, davs, and nfs protocols has been added to the file manager.
Source: opennet.ru
