S. B.
Hi everyone, I'm pleased to announce updated releases of the GeckoLinux Rolling editions. The GeckoLinux Rolling editions are live installable DVD / USB images based on the well tested and highly stable openSUSE Tumbleweed rolling distribution, combined with driver and multimedia support from the Packman project. After installation, GeckoLinux Rolling systems can be easily updated in sync with the current updates that openSUSE Tumbleweed and Packman offer.
Changes to all GeckoLinux Rolling editions: The base system has been updated to the 20161216 release of openSUSE Tumbleweed, with an updated Linux kernel at version 4.8.13. Also the script created by Mindaugas Baranauskas to ensure that Xorg correctly starts has been significantly improved, and SiS graphics support has been included too. 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 Therefore, it has been replaced by the Calamares universal installer framework.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.
Plasma Rolling edition: This edition ships the massively improved Plasma 5.8.4 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, new thumbnailers for many more supported types of 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 Rolling 999.161218 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. This release also includes the new Calamares installer. Download it here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/geckolinux/files/Rolling/999.161218/GeckoLinux_ROLLING_Plasma.x86_64-999.161218.0.iso/download
Cinnamon Rolling edition: This edition features the major new release of the Cinnamon desktop environment at version 3.2, together with all the updates to the Tumbleweed base system and the new Calamares installer. Download it here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/geckolinux/files/Rolling/999.161218/GeckoLinux_ROLLING_Cinnamon.x86_64-999.161218.0.iso/download
Gnome Rolling edition: In addition to the updated Tumbleweed base system, this edition now includes a Gnome on Wayland session, which may be used by default depending on your graphics card. If you still need or prefer Xorg, that option continues to be available as well. The GDM login manager, on the other hand, is still configured to not run under Wayland so as to avoid live session incompatibilities. This release also includes the new Calamares installer. Download it here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/geckolinux/files/Rolling/999.161218/GeckoLinux_ROLLING_Gnome.x86_64-999.161218.0.iso/download
Mate Rolling edition: In addition to the updated Tumbleweed base system, this release includes tweaks to make the Mate lockscreen activate upon suspending to RAM, and to make it use the GeckoLinux default wallpaper. This release also includes the new Calamares installer. Download it here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/geckolinux/files/Rolling/999.161218/GeckoLinux_ROLLING_Mate.x86_64-999.161218.0.iso/download
XFCE Rolling edition: This update mainly benefits from the updated Tumbleweed base system, together with the new Calamares installer. Download it here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/geckolinux/files/Rolling/999.161218/GeckoLinux_ROLLING_XFCE.x86_64-999.161218.0.iso/download
Budgie Rolling 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 Rolling edition: This update mainly benefits from the updated Tumbleweed base system, together with the new Calamares installer. Download it here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/geckolinux/files/Rolling/999.161218/GeckoLinux_ROLLING_LXQt.x86_64-999.161218.0.iso/download
BareBones Rolling edition: Advanced users with more specific needs can easily install a customized openSUSE Tumbleweed system using the GeckoLinux Rolling BareBones edition as a starting point. It comes with LightDM, Openbox, Firefox, a terminal, YaST, and not much else in terms of applications. This release now includes support for UEFI systems. It also includes the new Calamares installer. In the case of the BareBones edition, to run the Calamares installer, 1) Open the graphical terminal, 2) su root 3) calamares
Download the GeckoLinux BareBones Rolling edition here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/geckolinux/files/Rolling/999.161218/GeckoLinux_ROLLING_BareBones.x86_64-999.161218.0.iso/download
As always, you can read about GeckoLinux and download the latest releases at the official website: http://geckolinux.github.io
Have fun!