Debian-Based Netrunner Linux OS Gets New Stable Release with KDE Plasma 5.12 LTS

The developers of the Debian-based Netrunner GNU/Linux operating system announced over the weekend the release of the first update in 2018 for Netrunner Stable series.

Netrunner currently offers to branches, Stable and Rolling, the latter being based on Arch Linux and allowing users to install once and receive updates forever, which means that's designed more for bleeding-edge users than those who prefer to use a very stable and reliable operating system on their personal computers.

Dubbed "Idolon," Netrunner 18.03 comes as an upgrade to last year's Netrunner 17.10 "Voyager" release and brings up-to-date components, including the latest Linux 4.14 LTS kernel, KDE Plasma 5.12 LTS desktop environment, LibreOffice 6.0.2 office suite, Firefox 58.0.1 "Quantum" web browser, and Thunderbird 52.6.0 email client.

"Netrunner 18.03 ships the latest packages from Debian’s Testing Snapshot repository. From 18.03 onwards, we also decided to include even more packages directly from upstream, so it will be most compatible when enabling the continuously updating testing repo," reads the release announcement.

YaRock added, Plasma Discover now default package manager

Similar to the last Netrunner Rolling snapshot, the Debian-based Netrunner 18.03 release comes with the YaRock music player by default and brings back KDE's Plasma Discover as main graphical package manager. On top of that, Netrunner 18.03 includes the KDE Frameworks 5.42.0 and KDE Applications 17.08.3 software suites.

The Mozilla Firefox Quantum web browser comes with KDE Plasma integration, SUSE’s ImageWriter is now available in the live image, and the Qt packages were updated to the most recent long-term supported 5.9 series. Other than that, Netrunner 18.03 brings more streamlines System Settings with new sidebar layout.

Various desktop tweaks, updated themes, and other artwork improvements have been implemented in Netrunner 18.03 as well, ported from the Netrunner Rolling 2018.01 release. You can download the Netrunner 18.03 or Netrunner Rolling 2018.01 live ISO images right now through our web portal if you want to use them on your PC.