The distro is now powered by Linux 4.15.7 and systemd 237

Mar 6, 2018 20:46 GMT  ·  By

The developers of the KaOS Linux operating system announced today that availability of March 2018's ISO snapshot with up-to-date components and latest GNU/Linux technologies.

KaOS 2018.03 is now available for download and it's the first to ship with the recently released KDE Plasma 5.12 LTS desktop environment by default. In fact, the new release includes KDE Plasma 5.12.2 LTS, along with the KDE Applications 17.12.2 and KDE Frameworks 5.43.0 software suites built on Qt 5.10.1.

Another exciting aspect of the KaOS 2018.03 release is that it ships with the Falkon web browser by default instead of Qupzilla, which was used in previous releases of the GNU/Linux distribution and it's no longer developed. In fact, Falkon is a continuation of Qupzilla, so you'll have to manually migrate your profiles to Falkon.

Updated toolchain, now using the Calamares 3.2 installer

On top of that, KaOS 2018.03  brings an updated toolchain containing the GCC (GNU Compiler Collection) 7.3.0, Glibc (GNU C Library) 2.26, and GNU Binutils 2.30 packages. The snapshot is powered by the Linux 4.15.7 kernel and Mesa 17.3.6 graphics stack, and includes other updated core components like the systemd 237 init system, Meson 0.45.0 build system, DBus 1.12.6, MPFR 4.0.1, Rust 1.24.1, Libva 2.1.0, and Xorgproto 2018.4.

"This new toolchain required a rather large rebuild of many packages. Since this also includes new systemd, filesystem & mkinitcpio, it is fair to say the whole base of your system will be replaced," said the devs. "Upstream has combined all the tiny, fully mature proto packages into one, Xorgproto package, which for KaOS users means replacing some twenty-five proto packages with Xorgproto."

Last but not least, KaOS 2018.03 is the first release to use the upcoming Calamares 3.2 graphical installer, which introduces numerous attractive features, including a module for the KDE Plasma desktop environment to allow the selection of the Plasma Look-and-Feel from the installer, experimental LVM, improved detection of keyboard layouts, and much more.

KaOS 2018.03 with KDE Plasma 5.12 LTS
KaOS 2018.03 with KDE Plasma 5.12 LTS
Calamares 3.2 installer with experimental LVM support
Calamares 3.2 installer with experimental LVM support

KaOS 2018.03 (3 Images)

Falkon as default web browser in KaOS 2018.03
KaOS 2018.03 with KDE Plasma 5.12 LTSCalamares 3.2 installer with experimental LVM support
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