Cassini, named after the NASA mission with the Cassini spacecraft carrying the Huygens probe.
The release of the new version of EndeavorOS 22.12 codenamed "Cassini" and in this new version part of the work has been focused on improving support for ARM and with it in this version is added support for the Pinebook Pro and more.
For those who are unaware of EndeavorOS, you should know that it replaced the Antergos distribution, the development of which was discontinued in May 2019 due to the lack of free time of the remaining maintainers to keep the project at the proper level.
Endeavor OS allows the user to easily install Arch Linux with the necessary desktop in the form in which it is conceived in its regular filling, offered by the developers of the selected desktop, without additional pre-installed programs.
The distribution offers a simple installer to install a basic Arch Linux environment with a default Xfce desktop and the possibility to install from the repository some of the most popular and typical desktop environments.
Main news of EndeavorOS 22.12 Cassini
In this new version of EndeavorOS 22.12 Cassini that is presented, one of the main novelties that stands out is that added support for the laptop Pinebook Pro in the ARM architecture build.
Along with it, too a kernel package linux-eos-arm has been proposed, including the amdgpu kernel module, which may be required on devices like the Phytiuim D2000, plus added bootable images compatible with the Raspberry Pi Imager and dd utilities, as well as an improved script to work on server systems without a monitor. Added vulkan-panfrost and vulkan-mesa-layers packages for Odroid N2+ boards.
Another change that stands out in this new version is that a choice of installed bootloaders is provided (systemd-boot or GRUB), as well as the ability to install a system without a bootloader (use a bootloader already installed by another system).
It is also mentioned that as of this version of EndeavorOS 22.12 Cassini Dracut is used to create initramfs images instead of mkinitcpio. Of the advantages of Dracut, the ability to automatically determine the necessary modules and work without separate configuration stands out.
On the other hand, we can find that an item has been added to the grub and systemd-boot start menus to start Windows if this operating system is installed on the computer in parallel.
Of the other changes that stand out in this new version:
- Updated package versions, including proposed Linux kernel 6.0.12, Firefox 108.0.1, Mesa 22.3.1, Xorg-Server 21.1.5, nvidia-dkms 525.60.11, Grub 2:2.06.r403.g7259d55ff. The Calamares installer has been updated to version 3.3.0-alpha3.
- Added the ability to create a new disk partition for EFI, instead of using one already created on another operating system.
- The GRUB bootloader has submenu support enabled by default.
- Cinnamon uses the Qogir set instead of the Adwaita glyphs.
- GNOME uses Gnome-text-editor and Console instead of gedit and gnome-terminal
- The Qogir icon set and arc GTK theme are used in udgie, and Nemo is used instead of the Nautilus file manager.
- KDE/Plasma: Replaced the discover icon with a Konsole icon.
- Cinnamon: Replaced adwaita icons with Qogir
- budgie: is set to Qogir icons and arc GTK theme and uses Nemo instead of Nautilus (to have uniform theming, Nautilus can't get Budgie theming)
Finally if you are iInterested in learning more about it, you can check the details in the following link.
Download and get EndeavorOS 22.12
For those who are interested in being able to obtain the image of the system, You can go to the official website of the distribution and in its download section you will find the corresponding links. The size of the installation image is 1,9 GB (x86_64), plus there is also a build for ARM that is developed separately).