Feren OS 2022.03 — the newest delayed release

Let’s just get to the point. After a ton of delays, due to a ton of factors, Feren OS 2022.03 is finally here now there’s an actual reason to make a new release.

As always, these releases are a regular occurence that usually occur every 4 months and provide the latest updates to Feren OS at the time of the ISO’s release right from the get-go. Just, don’t expect much, though, from this release as the usual things are still in the works.

Updating to Feren OS 2022.03

As always, it’s simple to update to Feren OS 2022.03. Just go into the Update Manager, hit Refresh, and install any updates that might be there. Once you’ve done that, congrats, you’re now on Feren OS 2022.03!

However, due to the keyring that verifies the Feren OS repositories expiring before July 2021 Snapshot, some users might be unable to update. If this occurs, simply follow the instructions at https://medium.com/feren-os/the-repository-keyring-expired-heres-how-to-renew-it-bd50dd874aac to fix this issue and continue updates once again.

Changes since 2021.10

New wallpapers

Just like every single other version/snapshot ever made for Feren OS, there are a new set of wallpapers to choose from.
With this version comes new wallpapers from Unsplash, as is the norm, so you have new and fresh wallpapers to try and enjoy on your Feren OS device.

KDE Plasma 5.24

After having missed out on KDE Plasma 5.23 due to very poor timing, Feren OS now sports KDE Plasma 5.24 as the version of Plasma in Feren OS. For all the changes in this KDE Plasma on Feren OS update, check out this post: https://medium.com/feren-os/plasma-5-24-is-now-available-in-feren-os-b4c5026e8a40

Theme Colouriser is no more — Accent Colours are now integrated into KDE Plasma itself

Sadly, this does, as promised, mean the end of Theme Colouriser outside of Feren OS Classic. Theme Colouriser, for those who don’t know, was a program introduced in Feren OS in 2017 that allowed you to take a compatible theme and patch your favourite accent colour onto it.

However, with the dawn of Plasma 5.23, and now Plasma 5.24, Theme Colouriser no longer has a reason to exist as Feren OS’s theme is fully designed nowadays to make use of KDE Plasma’s Colour Schemes, of whom now supports its own accent colouring.

Therefore, Theme Colouriser is entirely gone now from Feren OS (not Feren OS Classic). Any accent colourations made with Theme Colouriser, for existing Feren OS users, have been backed up and saved to a text file on your Home folder so that you can apply them again with the new Custom Accent Colour option whenever you’d like to.

If you are currently using an accent coloured Feren OS colour scheme and update to 2022.03, you’ll keep your accent coloured colour scheme, BUT you won’t be able to apply those colour schemes anymore — instead, set the Feren OS Default/Dark colour scheme and use accent colours.

Other changes

• Feren OS’s desktop layout now sports an Overview button
• Feren OS’s Tablet Mode desktop layout has a completely redone panel layout based on mockups
• Applications Menu and Feren OS Clock have been rebased to their latest upstream Plasma 5.24 base versions
• Feren OS’s window decorations style has slightly redone titlebar buttons
• KWrite is now the text editor, replacing Kate
• Theme Colouriser is no longer installed by default in the ISO, now it is deprecated

What happened to 2022.01?

Simply put — it was delayed until March as there were 0 changes made to justify a new release until now.

Due to a lot of factors, such as lack of motivation from November to around mid-January due to IRL reflection and other IRL reasons, Plasma 5.23 nearly making it to Feren OS but then being scrapped for 5.24 since 5.24 was released when 5.23 was about to be pushed to Feren OS, and temporarily putting less focus on Feren OS during this time as Feren OS can evidently maintain itself fine during these short periods, the delays ultimately happened, resulting in 2022.01 becoming 2022.03 ultimately.

That being said, not everything was so stagnant behind the scenes: A bunch of behind the scenes work has been taking place during all this time to make Feren OS maintenance easier over time, such as new scripting for package obtaining on 3rd-party repositories, as well as general future-preparation tasks, such as the work on https://feren-os.github.io/wip/start-page-redesign to save me having to do it all in the long-term future when this Start Page redesign takes place.

Conclusion

Other than that, you can download it from the usual place of the Feren OS website. Enjoy Feren OS’s latest release!