I published the first beta release of Endless OS 3.6.3 this afternoon. 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, please ensure your data is backed up!
Restrict Access to Web Browsers
It is now possible to restrict users’ access to web browsers via parental controls. This will prevent the user from running the built-in web browser, or any of the browsers available through the app centre (including Chrome and Firefox).
Parental Controls for Administrators
It is now possible to apply parental controls to administrator users, as well as standard users. This allows you to (for example) hide violent games from the app center, or prevent yourself from running certain installed apps (similar to “digital wellbeing” features on other platforms). If your administrator user has a password set, the password is required to change these settings.
Updated hardware support
A number of hardware-specific issues have been resolved.
- On certain AMD systems, the screen now correctly switches on after sleeping and waking the system.
- Systems with RTL8723BS Wi-Fi can now switch between Wi-Fi networks without needing to restart the computer.
Other Improvements and Changes
- The built-in Chromium web browser has been updated to version 76, for new features and important security fixes.
- The Linux kernel has been updated to 5.0.0-23.24 to fix bugs and security issues.
- The desktop no longer freezes when you try to run certain games, including SuperTuxKart and Minetest.
- “Get Spotify”, “Get Skype”, and other launchers that just open the App Center are no longer shown in Settings → Applications.
- The Croatian keyboard layout has been fixed to type the § symbol when you press AltGr + M.
- The service which displays software licenses now only responds to requests from the local system. The deprecated “xapian bridge” service has been removed.
- Between 3.6.0 and 3.6.2, certain types of disk corruption would prevent the computer from booting; instead, they would show the message “Entering emergency mode. Exit the shell to continue.” In this release, the boot process will continue, although you may not be able to create new files until the problem is fixed. Please follow these instructions to recover if you are stuck at this error.