The release of KaOS 2024.05 has been published, a distribution with a continuous update model aimed at providing a desktop based on the latest versions of KDE and applications using Qt. Among the unique features for this distribution is the placement of a vertical panel on the right side of the screen. The distribution evolves with a nod to Arch Linux but supports its own independent repository with over 1500 packages and offers a range of custom graphic utilities. The default file system used is XFS. Builds are available for x86_64 systems (3.4 GB).
Features of KaOS:
- On systems with UEFI, Systemd-boot is used for booting.
- An interface called IsoWriter is provided for writing ISO files to USB drives, supporting verification of the written images.
- LibreOffice is the default office suite, built with kf5 and Qt5 VCL plugins, allowing the use of native KDE and Qt dialogs, buttons, window frames, and widgets.
- The Croeso login welcome screen offers essential settings that may need to be changed after installation, and it also allows users to install applications and view information about the distribution and system.
- XFS is the default file system, with integrity checking (CRC) enabled and a separate btree index for free inodes (finobt).
- There is an option available to verify downloaded ISO files using digital signatures.
- On the login screen, powered by the SDDM 0.20.0 display manager, there is an option to start in Wayland mode, which will eventually allow for the discontinuation of X11 components. When using Wayland, the kwin_wayland composite manager is utilized instead of the default Weston.
- In the installer (Calamares), in automatic partitioning mode, there is an option to select the file system (XFS, EXT4, BTRFS, and ZFS) without switching to manual partitioning mode.
In the new version:
- Desktop components have been updated to Qt 6.7.1, KDE Plasma 6.0.5, KDE Frameworks 6.2.0, and KDE Gear 24.05 applications.
- Support for the Bcachefs file system has been added, with utilities available in the repository via the bcachefs-tools package. The KDE Partition Manager can be used for partitioning with Bcachefs.
- In the Phonon sound library, which is used for managing audio devices in KDE, a new backend phonon-mpv is now enabled by default, supporting Qt 6 (the old VLC-based backend has not yet been ported to Qt6).
- KMS (Kernel Mode Setting) drivers for some graphics cards have been removed from the base installation, freeing up 700 MB of space in the ISO image.
- The GTK2 library has been removed from the repositories. The last significant application tied to GTK2 was the audio editor Ardour, which switched to using its internal fork of GTK starting from version 8.4.0.
- Package versions have been updated, including the Linux kernel 6.8, Python 3.11, Glib2 2.80, Systemd 253.19, OpenFS 2.2.4, KMod 32, OpenSSL 3.3, FFMpeg 6.1, OpenJDK 17, and Mesa 24.0.7.
- A graphical interface for viewing logs has been implemented using Kjournald.
- Gcompris, Calligra, KWave, and Kaffeine applications have been updated to Qt6 and KDE Frameworks 6.
- Included is the note-taking application Marknote, which integrates with KDE Plasma 6.
- In the Calamares installer, the timezone and localization settings page has been updated.
Source: opennet.ru
