ArcoLinux Beta 20.4

20.4.10

Arcolinuxb isos

All ArcoLinuxB isos will boot into the desktop of choice except for qtile and deepin

We started experimenting with Plasma to fix an issue. The solution was to boot immediately into its own desktop.

As a result all ArcoLinuxB isos are now booting in their own desktop.

Xfce is no longer used as the transfer mechanism.

i3wm will have an error message in the panel on a  live usb – after installation the panel will work

Start with any iso and install any desktop

We have been working on our ArcoLinux Tweak Tool.

The desktop installer has been improved so you can install our 15 desktops on your system. Deepin has conflicting packages and has to be treated manually only if there are conflicts in packages. It all depends on the choices of the desktops.

20.4.9

Building of all isos

All isos have been built with Xfce as the pass-through mechanism to deliver the OS.

20.4.1-8

Arcolinux iso – changes in the package list

We have removed the following packages from the ArcoLinux iso

  • glances
  • powertop
  • vnstat
  • breeze and its dependencies
  • breeze-icons
  • xfce4-screensaver
  • glxinfo
  • python-qt

You can install those packages again from Calamares.

ArcoLinuxB – changes in the package list

We have removed the following package from all ArcoLinuxB isos:

  • arcolinux-arc-themes-nico-git
  • sublime-text-dev
  • meld
  • the_platinum_searcher-bin

We have added the following package on the ArcoLinuxB Plasma iso:

  • cryfs – needed for vault

We have removed the following package on the ArcoLinuxB Xfce iso:

  • xfburn
  • xfce4-screensaver

Switch from breeze to bibata cursor

We had changed our package from xcursor-breeze to breeze. With breeze came a lot of dependencies in our 15 desktops. To make things worse there were several large updates in the month of March.

Hence we have decided to forego the package breeze (not on Plasma) and we will have bibata ice cursor as the default cursor now.

During Calamares you can decide whether you want to install xcursor-breeze or breeze as package. We believe  in freedom of choice.

xcursor-breeze and breeze will always conflict

The reason for the conflict lies in pacman and how Arch Linux makes the packages.

Communication software

Because of the corona crisis we focused first on communication applications.

How can we keep in touch with colleagues, friends and family?

We came up with this shortlist of applications to choose from :

We have also included here software to remotely control a computer in order to facilitate communication.

Calamares 3.2.20

Calamares is our graphical installer. We use now the version 3.2.20. You can read more about this version on the github of Calamares.

Getting to know all the linux software

In Calamares we can now select a great variety of software applications.
It is now time to brush up your knowledge of all these applications.

All the packages, you can install now via Calamares, are now coming from the ArcoLinux repos, if they were only available from AUR in the past.

Calamares on ArcoLinux – Choose your applications in Calamares

Choose your applications in an orderly fashion.

Every screen will organize the packages logically.

  • hardware related
  • communication software
  • development software
  • office software
  • multimedia software
  • internet software
  • theming software
  • games software
  • utilities software
  • multiple categories
  • software for ArcoLinux developers and betatesters

Xfce4-screensaver out

ArcoLinux has worked without xfce-screensaver for years. After adding this package to our package list we experienced screens turning black without any reason at the most ackward moments. When moving the mouse the screen would wake up again. It was just annoying. Removing this package was the sensible thing to do.

hiding electron on xfce

On Xfce you can hide applications that are not suitable for this desktop. The flagship has Openbox and i3 onboard. We hide applications that do not concern Xfce. Electron is an application that has many versions (so many icons in our menus). It is a back-end to other applications. We do not need to see it in our menus.

Arcolinux-kvantum

We have added octopi, octopi-notifier, imagewriter, keepassxc applications to look nice with the kvantum theme manager.

Gnome and Budgie keyboard fix

Gnome and Budgie work with dconf as a central database to save all its settings. We only see the keyboard, you selected in Calamares, in the settings.

ArcoLinux -welcome-app 

Arch Linux creates their packages on the basis of pkgbuilds. Some of these packages will conflict with others because they provide the same files and folders under a different package name. We have created an extra icon to remind us of the possible conflicts.

 

Arcolinux-teamviewer

Teamviewer is a great way to remotely take over the computer. You can assist anyone and take over control of the computer if they too have teamviewer installed on Windows, Mac or Linux.

We created our own package as the setup is quite technical and we do not want any frustrations for our users.

arcolinux-teamviewer works out of the box

Arcolinux-tweak-tool

We have further improved our ArcoLinux Tweak Tool.

Autostart has improved in usability.

Desktop installer will install a more complete list of packages needed for a great experience in every desktop.

Since this tool is started up as ‘root’ we had to create all kinds of workarounds to perform actions as ‘user’.

Sardi and Surfn icons

With all the extra software we now host on our own ArcoLinux repos we needed to create the missing icons.