A new update is now available for Feren OS Next
I’m proud to announce that a new Feren OS Next ISO Update has arrived and is now available for download! Unlike the last ISO Update, this update is not as major, however the changes it brings are worth it for the overall user experience.
Themer — now connected to Look & Feel*
Themer from the previous build has been updated majorly since the last build and has recently now been reworked into a background process that runs inside of the Plasma Desktop that keeps an eye on when the Look & Feel theme has been changed and then applies the Themer theme settings as an extension to what a normal Look & Feel package applies.
As consequence to this, the Themer Temporary GUI has been entirely removed in this build and the shortcut on the desktop to this GUI replaced with a shortcut to the Look & Feel settings page. For current Feren OS Next users, this means that the Themer shortcut on the desktop will now no longer work for existing users due to the reworking of the program into a background process.
Nemo now keeps consistent with the Plasma Single/Double-click setting
Another new background process has been added to keep an eye on if the Plasma setting for single-click or double-click to open files or folders is changed and set Nemo’s setting for that accordingly in order to maintain consistency with the rest of the Feren OS experience. From this ISO onward, whenever you change the single/double-click setting in Settings > Desktop Behaviour or ‘Workspace’ Settings Nemo will then adjust accordingly.
For current Feren OS Next users, install a package called ‘nemo-plasma-integration’ for this change to take effect.
Feren XSettings Integration: Now works with ‘GNOME/GTK Application Style’ Settings
Alongside these changes, feren-xsettings has also seen similar treatment to Themer, now using the same file change detection as is used in Themer to detect changes in the GTK3 configuration file and adjust all applications accordingly on-the-fly.
Due to this change, changing the theme using ‘GNOME/GTK Application Style’ Settings will also now cause applications to change theming accordingly, whereas they did not automatically change beforehand if changed through this method.
‘Welcome to Feren OS Next’ — Now refined and more to-the-point
On top of these changes, Feren OS Next’s latest ISO Update also features an updated WIP Notice Welcome Dialog which largely simplifies the contents of the dialog as well as linking to where you can see and report known Feren OS Next Bugs. You can take note of them, or just close the dialog like beforehand.
Now with April 2019 Snapshot updates
As well as all this, the non-Cinnamon-dependant April 2019 Snapshot updates have all arrived in Feren OS Next’s ISO Update too, including the new background set, and other improvements.
Other Miscellaneous Bug Fixes
This ISO Update features other miscellaneous bug fixes on top of the current changes that are too miscellaneous to be mentioned here, but otherwise contribute to an overall better Feren OS Next experience from the ISO.
Known Issues
Of course, not everything is sunshine and rainbows, for there are still plenty of known issues with the latest Feren OS Next ISO Build.
You can see all of the known issues (as well as report more known issues) here: https://github.com/feren-OS/Bug-Reporting-Center/milestone/1
However, here’s the most important known issues:
- The ‘Please remove your installation medium and press ENTER to continue’ message when shutting down or restarting from the Feren OS Live Session is not visible due to the shutting down splash screen being solid black and therefore not working right now.
- The boot screen’s mood background does not work and instead you just get a black boot screen background in this build.
- *Themer’s current integration is not yet perfected — for example re-applying the same Look & Feel theme as is currently in use, while resetting the setting controlled by the main Look & Feel, does not reset the Themer-controlled settings on top of the normal settings resets.
- The default splash screen and lock screen currently do not play too nicely with DPI Scaling
- If you’re on an SSD then Themer might ask whether you want it to apply the Themer Theme settings to the desktop even despite turning on ‘Apply Desktop Layout from theme’ (it should just go ahead and apply without prompting in that case)
- Timeshift is not yet installed by default
- If your Target HDD/SSD is too small for Feren OS but big enough for Lubuntu 18.10 (especially 18.10 Final Beta) then Feren OS will still let you begin installation nonetheless — I have not yet measured the disk space used by a fresh install of Feren OS in order to make an estimated Disk Space requirement for the installer to make sure is satisfied…
Other things to know
- Vivaldi may not come with its extra codecs for playing video and audio, to fix this install chromium-codecs-ffmpeg and chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra from the Store or another method
- If you’re going from 18.10-based Feren OS to this new ISO (no matter the version of Feren OS before (Next/Stock/Lite/Other OS)) and migrate your whole /home to the new install, you may need to delete the ffmpeg file in HOME/.local/share/vivaldi to make Vivaldi work again.
Download Feren OS Next
So, you’ve read all the known issues and would like to proceed to download and test out Feren OS Next… To download Feren OS Next, please click the link below and enjoy:
Feren OS Next (1.9GB): https://sourceforge.net/projects/feren-os-development-builds/files/Feren%20OS%202018.10%20KDE%20Experimental.iso/download
Please make sure to report any bugs you find via the ‘Send Feedback or Report an Issue’ shortcut on the desktop or in the applications menu and then visiting the ‘Report a bug in Feren OS’ section -> Go to the Feren OS Bug Reporting Center’ -> New Issue -> ‘Feren OS Next Bug Report’ so that Feren OS Next can be as stable a final product as possible when done.
Otherwise, cheers and see you here next update!
