14 DAY TRIAL // The developers of the Debian-based SparkyLinux operating system announced today the availability of the SparkyLinux 5.5 Rolling release with latest updates from Debian Testing a.k.a. Debian GNU/Linux 10 "Buster".
Synced with the Debian Testing software repositories as of July 26, 2018, the SparkyLinux 5.5 Rolling release continues to update the rolling distribution based on the upcoming Debian GNU/Linux 10 "Buster" operating system series with the Linux 4.17.8 kernel and a new TimeShift backup utility.
"There are new testing iso images of SparkyLinux 5.5-dev20180726 available to download. Sparky 5 follows rolling release model and is based on Debian testing “Buster”. ISO images of Sparky 5.5-dev20180725 provide new features to be tested which will be available in the next Sparky release," reads today's announcement.
Here's what's new in SparkyLinux 5.5 Rolling
Highlights of the SparkyLinux 5.5 Rolling release include a new in-house built utility called DEBiTool, which replaces the GDebi tool for installing locally stored .deb packages, and an improved Advanced Installer with support for both the Btrfs and XFS filesystems, as well as better support for configuring live packages.
The developers noted the fact that installing SparkyLinux Rolling on a Btrfs file system will create the @ and @home subvolumes. If you choose to create a separate Home partition during installation, the Advanced Installer will also create the @home subvolume. Btrfs installs also let you create snapshots of your installations, which you can manage with the new TimeShift app.
Also included in the SparkyLinux 5.5 Rolling live media is the Linux 4.16.12 kernel just in case you're running into issues with the default kernel or somehow your hardware isn't supported well enough to install and run SparkyLinux. Moreover, you can also install the newer Linux 4.17.10 kernel from the Sparky Unstable repo.
SparkyLinux 5.5 Rolling is now available to download as MinimalCLI and MinimalGUI editions with support for both 64-bit and 32-bit architectures. However, existing SparkyLinux 5 users don't need to download anything, but simply update their installations by running the command below in a terminal emulator.
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade