I have published the first beta of Endless OS 3.6.0. Please follow these instructions if you want to join the beta testing program; bear in mind that the chance of encountering serious bugs is higher than in a regular stable release. As always, ensure your data is backed up!
Desktop and base OS updates
Endless OS is based on the GNOME desktop environment, the Debian GNU/Linux distribution and the Linux kernel. In this release, we have updated the base OS packages to the latest versions from Debian “buster” (the forthcoming stable release), most desktop components to the versions from GNOME 3.32, and Linux kernel 5.0.0. This brings new features, performance improvements, hardware support and bug fixes.
Support for Docker-compatible containers
Endless OS 3.6 includes Podman, a command-line tool which is broadly compatible with the Docker command-line interface. For example, you can use this to run existing containers from docker.io and other container registries (try running podman run -p 8080:80 nginx in a Terminal window, then visiting http://localhost:8080/ in a web browser) and to build container images from a Dockerfile with podman build.
App installation disk space improvements
Previously, when you installed a new app, it was downloaded from the internet to your disk, then copied to a different location on the disk. As a result, you temporarily needed twice as much free disk space as the size of the app in order to install it, and the app was saved to disk twice. Endless OS 3.6 includes a new version of the Flatpak app distribution system with a new performance improvement, developed by Endless and Red Hat, which allows apps to be installed and upgraded without this additional copying step.
Other Improvements and Changes
- Endless companion app support removed. The Endless companion app for Android was removed from the Google Play Store some time ago; while it was available, several users reported problems connecting the app to their Endless OS computer. We are currently focusing our efforts on other parts of Endless, so we have removed support for the app from Endless OS to save users’ disk space. We hope to bring this back in a future release, as time permits.
Known Issues
- x86_64 systems only. Due to a known graphics performance issue on Endless Mini, this beta release is only available for x86_64 (Intel/AMD) computers. We expect the final 3.6.0 release to be published for Endless Mini as well.