14 DAY TRIAL // The development team behind the Neptune Linux operating system have released a new major version that's based upon the latest Debian GNU/Linux release.
Dubbed "Spike," the Neptune 6.0 release is based on the Debian GNU/Linux 10 "Buster" operating system and powered by the Linux 4.19.37 kernel, which is patched with all the necessary hardware support for latest devices. It also ships with the KDE Plasma 5.14.5 desktop environment, which brings various improvements and new features over previous releases.
"Plasma Discover is able to upgrade hardware firmware now and features a more modern and polished look and feel," said the devs in the release announcement. "New improved desktop effects and handling of compositing in the window manager KWin result in a better more fluid user experience. The lockscreen is now invoked when changing users."
UEFI Secure Boot might not work as expected
Among the apps included in Neptune 6.0, we can mention the Chromium 76 web browser, LibreOffice 6.1.5.2 office suite, Mozilla Thunderbird 60.8 email and news client, GIMP 2.10 image editor and viewer, VLC 3.0.7 video player, Audacity 2.2.2 audio editor, Kdenlive 18.08.2 video editor, Ardour 5.12 digital audio workstation, and the latest Amarok music player.
Neptune 6.0 is available for download right now from our free Linux software portal. Neptune 5.x users will be able to upgrade their installations using Upgrade Script, but not before you've backed up your system files. Neptune 6.0 is only supported on 64-bit hardware, but UEFI Secure Boot might not work as expected, warn the developers.
Additionally, it looks like you may need to manually install the mariadb-server-core-10.3 package for Amarok's database to work correctly. Also, when migrating Amarok's database from an older version not based on KDE Frameworks 5, you need to copy ~/.kde/share/apps/amarok to ~/.local/share/amarok.