Endless OS 3.8.7 was released for existing users today, Oct 5th, 2020.
Downloadable images for new users will be available in the next few days.
Updated hardware support
The “switch display mode” hotkey has been fixed on certain Asus laptop models.
Self-service password reset
If you enter the wrong password when logging in, you can click “Show password hint” to show the hint you entered when setting your password. If you still cannot remember your password, you can click “Forgot password?”; this will direct you to the pwreset.endlessos.org website with a verification code to enter. To use this service, an endless.me account is required. Once you have an account, enter the verification code in the “User-provided code” field and click “Generate Unlock Code”. This will provide an Unlock Code to enter on your Endless computer. If the unlock code is accepted, you will be able to set a new password and login.
This feature allows users to address a very common issue on their own. At times, more than half of our customer support requests have been from people who have forgotten their passwords. While this feature would appear to decrease the security of your computer, it only provides a more convenient way to do something that has always been possible. The verification code is only shown on the login screen, which requires physical access to the computer. If an attacker has physical access to the computer, then they can already remove the hard drive or reboot the computer into a special mode that provides access to the hard drive. In either case, if the hard drive can be accessed directly, then user passwords can be reset or bypassed. Furthermore, the password reset website requires an account specifically to identify users that abuse this feature. For these reasons, we believe that the assistance provided to our users outweighs the increased convenience of an existing attack.
If you would like to disable this feature, open a Terminal window and run:
pkexec --user Debian-gdm dbus-run-session gsettings set org.gnome.shell password-reset-allowed disable
Other Improvements and Changes
- The App Center was updated to bring back support for flatpak apps bundle installation, which are single-file flatpaks with a “.flatpak” file extension. Note that this only works while online at the moment; support for offline installation will be included in future releases.
- The Wi-Fi password dialog was updated to fix some small interface design issues.
- New translations for a small number of UI elements have been added.