Compiled by Larry Cafiero
Marcus Nestor on 9 to 5 Linux reported on Tuesday that System76 released a new Cosmic desktop environment with new improvements.
“Coming three weeks after Cosmic 1.5, the Cosmic 1.6 release adds support for the wl-dmabuf-v6 Wayland protocol for passing direct memory buffers (dma-buf) between clients and compositors, and adds support for the EI (Emulated Input) Wayland protocol to simulate hardware input devices, such as keyboards and mice,” the article says.
Also, the Cosmic Files file manager “received a context menu for text fields and selectable text widgets, Cosmic Greeter can now detect the presence of logind at runtime and supports JPEG-XL and AVIF images, Cosmic Settings now offers app-specific settings, and the cosmic-settings-daemon can now handle playback-specific sound settings,” according to the article.
“On top of that, Cosmic 1.6 fixes various issues, including infinite dialogs in COSMIC Files with network mount failures, Cosmic Launcher flickering and closing when using the Ctrl modifier, a panic on -1 max brightness value in the cosmic-settings-daemon, and fixes COSMIC Settings to no longer unload the active page during search,” the article says.
Garuda Linux Temeraire Released
Bobby Borisov of Linuxiac reported on Wednesday that Garuda Linux has released a new version of its distro, code-named Temeraire, with a new CachyOS-based kernel, Plasma Login Manager, revamped Hyprland setup, and major tooling changes.
In the first major update to Garuda in over a year and powered by Linux kernel 7.2, the Arch Linux-based distribution introduces several changes including better NVIDIA support for Sway and more unified administration tools.
But wait, there’s more.
“This release also brings a small change to Garuda’s identity,” the article explains. “Previously, versions were named after eagles and other birds of prey. With Temeraire, the project will now use well-known dragon names. For those who are most curious, the name for this release comes from the dragon in Naomi Novik’s Temeraire novels.”
According to the article, the KDE Plasma editions have also been updated. “Both Plasma versions now use Plasma Login Manager instead of SDDM, even in live environments,” the article states. “Existing systems were already updated in earlier releases. Additionally, Garuda has refreshed its themes and removed the Better Blur plugin because it sometimes hurt performance.”
In addition, the Hyprland edition has seen even bigger changes. “Its configuration is now fully rewritten in Lua. G-Hyprland settings are available as Lua-based presets, along with several ready-made profiles for customizing the desktop. Existing users should already have the new setup after running garuda-update,” the article says.
And that’s all for today. Don’t forget: Distro of the Week appears Wednesday – and it’s always a good one on hand – and Bits and Bobs will return with news over the weekend on Monday.