Release | Endless OS 3.5.5 / 3.5.6

[wjt]

Endless OS 3.5.5 was released for existing users on Monday 11^th February, 2019. Endless OS 3.5.6 was released (containing one additional security fix) for existing users on Tuesday 12^th February, 2019. Images for new users will be available soon.

Old right-click behaviour on multi-touch touchpads

On laptops with a multi-touch touchpad, Endless OS 3.5.2 changed the right-click behaviour to treat a tap with one finger anywhere on the touchpad as a left (primary) click. On almost all systems, we have now restored the previous behaviour: a tap with one finger in the bottom-right area of the touchpad is now treated as a right-click once again. (On the ASUS E406MA, sold with Hack, the behaviour from Endless OS 3.5.2 is still in place.)

If you prefer the behaviour from before 3.5.2, and you have not adjusted the touchpad settings, upgrading to 3.5.6 will automatically restore that behaviour.

If you prefer the behaviour introduced in Endless OS 3.5.2, you can bring it back by opening a Terminal window and running this command:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad click-method fingers

You can switch back the default behaviour for your current version of Endless OS by opening a Terminal window and running this command:

gsettings reset org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad click-method

Update 2019-02-21: we discovered that this change was broken, causing all Endless OS machines to keep the behaviour introduced in 3.5.2. This will be fixed in Endless OS 3.5.7, due in early March. In the meantime, the instructions for how to restore the old behaviour in the 3.5.2 release notes still apply.

Tool to remove all users (and their files)

We have introduced a new tool that removes all users from the system, and erases all their files. To use it, open a Terminal window and run this command:

eos-factory-reset

Follow the instructions on screen, and restart the computer when prompted to do so. Depending on how many files you have on your system, it may take a little while to restart the computer; you should then see the first boot experience.

Please note that, despite the name of the command, this tool does not fully restore the system to factory settings: among other things, configured Wi-Fi networks, OS updates, and downloaded apps will be preserved. We plan to expand the scope of this tool in future releases of Endless OS.

Updated hardware support

A number of hardware-specific issues have been resolved.

On some ASUS laptops, including E406MA, the battery status is now correctly reported when it reaches 100% charge.

Other Improvements and Changes

• Improved Parental Controls settings page. The Users panel in Settings now fits on smaller screens; LibreOffice is shown once, rather than 7 times; it is now possible to remove age restrictions on users after imposing them; and various other fixes.
• Updated translations. A few new translations have been added, particularly for Indonesian and Slovenian.
• Updated Chromium. We’ve updated to Chromium 72.0.3626.81 to bring the latest features and security fixes to Endless’ built-in web browser.
• Updated systemd. We have updated systemd with a fix for the “system down” security issue.
• Fixed migrating apps to Flathub. On systems first installed with a version of Endless before 3.4.8, upgrading directly to 3.5.4 would prevent a number of pre-installed apps from updating properly. Updating to 3.5.6 should fix this problem. Thanks to @Alina_Khorolskaya for reporting and helping to diagnose this issue!.
• Diagnostics files now include kernel boot logs. On systems with eMMC storage, where the journal is kept in RAM rather than being saved to disk, the diagnostic file generated by eos-diagnostics now includes messages from the very start of the boot process.
• No persistent journal on dual-boot eMMC systems. On new dual-boot installations on systems with eMMC storage, the journal is now kept in RAM rather than being saved to disk, which matches the behaviour on single-boot eMMC systems.
• Updated Flatpak. We have updated Flatpak with a fix for a security issue (CVE-2019-5736). This is the only change between 3.5.5 and 3.5.6.

[wjt]

Due to a security issue in Flatpak that was announced two hours after 3.5.5 was published, I’ve published another release, 3.5.6. The only change between 3.5.5 and 3.5.6 is a fix for this Flatpak security issue.