[Static] [all editions] 422.161213 update

[S. B.]

Hi everyone, I'm pleased to announce updated releases of the GeckoLinux Static editions. The GeckoLinux Static editions are live installable images based on the enterprise-grade openSUSE Leap distribution, combined with driver and multimedia support from the Packman project. After installation, GeckoLinux Static systems can be easily updated in sync with the current updates that openSUSE Leap and Packman offer.

These GeckoLinux Static 422.161213 spins have been a long time in coming, as many things changed in openSUSE Leap that required additional integration and testing with GeckoLinux. But finally some minor bugs have been solved upstream, and numerous GeckoLinux tweaks have been implemented where necessary.

Changes to all GeckoLinux Static editions: The base system has been updated to openSUSE Leap 42.2, with updated versions of the Linux kernel (4.4.36), systemd (228), GTK3 (3.20), Qt (5.6.1), and glibc (2.22). Also the GeckoLinux language-installer.sh  script for non-English language packs has been updated to be more reliable and easy to use. Also the script created by Mindaugas Baranauskas to ensure that Xorg correctly starts has been significantly improved, and SiS graphics support has also been included. Perhaps the most important change is that the old yast2-live-installer that served us well for past releases is no longer supported by openSUSE and no longer works. Therefore, it has been replaced by the Calamares universal installer framework. (Many thanks to OBS packager Erwin Georget for his fantastic work at getting Calamares initially packaged for openSUSE, and to Kevin Kofler for his tips on configuring it for GeckoLinux.) Calamares is a modern installer with a clean, simple design that offers many nice features such as replacement of an existing partition or automatically shrinking currently existing partitions to install GeckoLinux alongside them. Calamares does result in a larger download size for the GeckoLinux ISOs by about 50MiB, but does not affect the size of the installed system.

Cinnamon Static edition: This edition features the Cinnamon 3.0.7 environment, now as part of the officially supported openSUSE Leap 42.2 repository. Download it here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/geckolinux/files/Static/422.161213/GeckoLinux_Cinnamon.x86_64-422.161213.0.iso/download

XFCE Static edition: This edition maintains the same XFCE version (4.12), but benefits from small improvements to XFCE and the numerous upgrades to the base system. Download it here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/geckolinux/files/Static/422.161213/GeckoLinux_XFCE.x86_64-422.161213.0.iso/download

Gnome Static edition: This edition delivers a major upgrade of the Gnome Shell, now at version 3.20 with many popular Gnome applications, together with all of the common upgrades to the base system. Download it here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/geckolinux/files/Static/422.161213/GeckoLinux_Gnome.x86_64-422.161213.0.iso/download

Plasma Static edition: This edition ships the massively improved Plasma 5.8.2 LTS desktop environment, with the latest versions of popular related KDE applications. Additional work has been done to tweak the default Plasma configuration for this release. Notable improvements include the addition of a "Show desktop" applet on the panel, better file previews in Dolphin, and greatly improved audio device management thanks to plasma-pa and a recently discovered PulseAudio integration fix. Notice for Nvidia graphics owners: All other GeckoLinux Static 422.161213 spins include the experimental Mesa-dri-nouveau driver. However, due to this issue, it has not been included out of the box with the Plasma edition for stability reasons.  Download it here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/geckolinux/files/Static/422.161213/GeckoLinux_Plasma_Stable.x86_64-422.161213.0.iso/download

Mate Static edition: This edition features the major new release of the Mate 1.16 desktop with many popular related Mate applications. Download it here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/geckolinux/files/Static/422.161213/GeckoLinux_Mate.x86_64-422.161213.0.iso/download

Budgie Static edition: This edition is currently on hiatus until the next major release of Budgie is packaged and maintained in a permanent repository for openSUSE.

LXQt Static edition: This edition comes with the new 0.11 release of the LXQt environment and related utilities. It now includes lxqt-sudo for better integration with programs that request root access. Download it here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/geckolinux/files/Static/422.161213/GeckoLinux_LXQt.x86_64-422.161213.0.iso/download

BareBones Static edition: Users with more specific needs can easily install a customized openSUSE Leap 42.2 system using the GeckoLinux Static BareBones edition as a starting point. It comes with LightDM, Openbox, Firefox, a terminal, YaST, and not much else in terms of applications. Download it here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/geckolinux/files/Static/422.161213/GeckoLinux_BareBones.x86_64-422.161213.0.iso/download

As always, you can read about GeckoLinux and download the latest releases at the official website: http://geckolinux.github.io

Have fun!

[S. B.]

Hi again, in addition to the major updates mentioned in the original 422.161213 release announcement, I also just updated the Mate ISO to include a tweak to make the screen lock on suspend and show the correct wallpaper on the lockscreen. Those are the only changes compared to yesterday's version, so it's not necessary to download it again if you already have it.