Feren OS 2023.07 Alpha 2 is now available for testing

Today, I would like to announce the release of Feren OS 2023.07 Alpha 2, the second alpha release of Feren OS 2023.07. This Alpha introduces a whole slew of changes from the current stable release of Feren OS, as well as introducing a ton of fixes and useful quality of life changes from the previous Alpha build of Feren OS 2023.07.

Just like the Alpha before, this alpha represents thoroughly incomplete software — a lot is missing, and a lot could change out of nowhere — do not use this as a daily driver, but please do test it as a candidate for a daily driver that is not relied on.

Changes from Feren OS 2023.07 Alpha 1

“Set as Wallpaper” is now easier than ever

Forget dragging image files to your Desktop, or opening them in Configure Desktop & Wallpaper, to set them as your wallpaper — in Alpha 2, you can now simply right-click the image you want to set as your wallpaper, and select “Set as Wallpaper”.

More system components were added

This Alpha of Feren OS 2023.07 also introduces a whole slew of additional system components that were not present in Alpha 1, including support for drives encrypted through BitLocker, support for all the archive formats supported in 2023.04, drivers for nomodeset boot, and more.

GRUB and systemd, now more vanilla and faster respectively

Alpha 2 debuts a revised GRUB configuration, now sporting an unchanged GRUB defaults file, as the customisations made to GRUB have been moved to .d config files, as well as pre-enabling os-prober to allow GRUB to continue providing boot options for other installed Operating Systems.

Additionally, Alpha 2 debuts new defaults for systemd, giving it a 32 second timer by default, unless programs override it for their tasks, which will now cut 58 seconds of waiting, each, off of most shutdown and startup tasks.

APT is now better able to clean up unused packages

APT has also seen a configuration change in Alpha 2, as it will now autoremove packages only installed, because X package Suggests it, once X package has been removed, making APT slightly better at cleaning up the remnants of a program that was installed.

Users are now added to more groups than before

Alpha 2 also introduces new configuration changes for adduser, the backend for user adding in Feren OS. As of this alpha, adding a user will now also add them to a ton of additional groups, giving them more of the privileges that are expected to be available in other Operating Systems, such as mounting drives.

Files now displays all the folders on your sidebar, again

The automated setup process in 2023.04 that gives you all your default home folder folders, such as Documents and Pictures, in the correct language has been entirely rewritten in Alpha 2, providing with it the readdition of all the folders in Files’s sidebar.

Files is back to its complete-sidebar self

Changing languages will now migrate folders if applicable

Serving as an additional bugfix from the same change as the change mentioned above, the new iteration of the automated setup process will now summon the XDG User Directories Migration Dialog when the language selected is changed.

If the user opts to migrate their home folders to their newly selected language the home folder locations in KDE Plasma, and KDE applications, will also now be migrated automatically too to prevent bugs and general confusion.

Feren OS’s default theme now has a name

Feren OS’s default theme is now called Inspire throughout all of Feren OS, starting with Alpha 2, including colour schemes, Plasma styles, and application style, matching with the already renamed beforehand window decorations.

While there is not yet a transition for old users to these new names, for all of Feren OS’s default theme parts, there will be an automated transition implemented later on in Feren OS 2023.07's development, before its stable release.

Other changes

• For the first time in Feren OS history, Konsole is now 100% unmodified as the modifications made prior, to work around issues Konsole had, are now redundant
• Feren OS now sports its own base-files, for the first time in Feren OS history
• /etc/feren-os-base, a file generated during ISO creation and major updates, is now part of base-files instead of being autogenerated
• GNOME Keyring now runs in the background, which could now allow the once scrapped Online Accounts integration idea to be revisited at a later date
• Wallpaper of the Day is now in its own package, instead of plasma-wallpapers-addons
• nemo-ark and nemo-plasma-integration have been merged into the new package nemo-plasma
• Nemo with nemo-plasma can now be swapped out for Dolphin File Manager
• KDE Plasma 5.27.5 is now installed, alongside KDE Frameworks 5.106.0
• Solstice has been updated to Beta 1.1, bringing with it a ton of fixes for Firefox-powered Website Applications
• The Optional Feren OS Firefox Configuration has been updated to use the newest release of Firefox-CSSTheme-GTKless
• New default wallpaper for Alpha 2

What is missing

A program to generate Solstice shortcuts with

This will ultimately arrive in the form of Store, but… see the Store section below for why this is not the case yet.

For the time being, you can manually generate .desktop files to use Solstice with, and by doing so, you will be able to use Solstice’s Beta 1 release. Alternatively, you can always compile Feren Storium’s work in progress builds yourself to use that to generate some shortcuts, while you wait for the first beta of Feren OS 2023.07 to release.

Store

Feren Storium is nowhere near being finished yet, hence no work has started yet on the all-new Feren OS Store. Therefore, there is no pre-installed graphical way to install, update, and remove packages on the system yet.

Plans are that Feren Storium will be present in Beta 1, with the new Feren OS Store replacing Feren Storium entirely in a later Beta.

The all-new Feren OS Store’s development will be started once Feren Storium’s modules are finalised, being a fork of the work on Storium to give it its intended Feren OS-specific interface.

Updates, Browsers, Sources, and Drivers Management

See Store section above.

Management of Snap and Flatpak

See Store section above. Snap and Flatpak are not currently pre-installed, and there are no plans yet to do so, but they will be seamless to install through Store.

Automatic Updates

Automatic Updates are planned to return as an option in the all-new Store. Because of this, there is currently no automatic updates implementation in this alpha.

System Maintenance

The future of System Maintenance is also currently under consideration (keep it, split it into multiple system tools, or consider in 2023.10?), meaning it currently is not in this alpha release to save wasting effort getting it pre-installed again.

Tour

Tour is going to undergo a major revamp and be completely rewritten in this release, once the Store is complete. It is going to be a lot simpler, instead driving users to tasks to begin their time in Feren OS by doing.

Feren OS theme for GTK3 applications

GTK3 applications use Adwaita in this alpha by default. This is purely for experimentation (to survey how much Feren OS relies on GTK+) and is not planned to be a permanent change — the Feren OS theme for GTK3 applications will return by Release Candidate 1.

Bootscreen

Like with the Feren OS on 20.04 Alpha builds, the bootscreen… broke (again)… so it is not here in this Alpha. Instead, enjoy scrolling text when turning on, restarting, or shutting down your Feren OS device, while using this alpha.

Once fixed, the bootscreen will be provided as an update to existing Alpha users.

Installable themes, icon sets, and backgrounds from prior releases

You currently cannot install these, via the usual means, as they have not yet been brought over to this release’s repositories. Bringing them over is a low-priority task on the todo list before the final release, so expect them to arrive between 2023.07 release candidate releases.

Feren OS’s alternative themes

Feren OS’s alternative themes are not installed, and will fail to install if you attempt to install them, as they are in a semi-broken state right now, and fixing them is a low-priority task. Expect (most of) them to come back in Release Candidate 1, though.

Fixes for other bugs

There are a bunch of other bugs already documented and pending fixes in this alpha build, which you can find here:

Issues · feren-OS/Testing-Builds-Bug-Reporting

Conclusion

That’s it for the changes in the second alpha of Feren OS 2023.07. The plan is to release a series of Alphas, then Betas and Release Candidates, of Feren OS 2023.07 as it reaches specific points in its development, all the way to the release of Feren OS 2023.07.

You can check out what’s still pending for Feren OS 2023.07 before it can be considered stable over here: https://github.com/orgs/feren-OS/projects/11

Otherwise, you can download Feren OS 2023.07 Alpha 2 at https://ferenos.weebly.com/test-feren-os-202307.html. Make sure to report any bugs you find in these releases, and until the next Alpha release, enjoy!