by 
Here’s another Christmas present from Nitrux, as Uri Herrera announced today the release of Nitrux 1.8, an up-to-date ISO snapshot of this powerful Debian-based GNU/Linux distribution built around the KDE Plasma desktop.
Coming only three weeks after Nitrux 1.7.1, which was the first release of the Debian-based distribution to ship with Linux kernel 5.15 LTS by default, Nitrux 1.8 is powered by the latest release at the moment of writing, Linux kernel 5.15.11 LTS.
Nitrux 1.8 also features the latest and greatest KDE Plasma software, starting with the KDE Plasma 5.23.4 desktop environment and continuing with the KDE Frameworks 5.89 and KDE Gear 21.12 software suites. However, this release drops the Plasma Wayland session from the default installation.
As you may know already, Nitrux uses Latte Dock as the default dock for its KDE Plasma desktop session. With this release, the Latte Dock’s layout has been changed to also show a pager that lets you easily switch between the four workspaces and a trashcan.
Among other interesting changes, Nitrux 1.8 adds CSD (client-side decorations) support by default for Maui Apps, switches to the XFS file system in the Calamares graphical installer as default file system for new installations, adds 113 AppArmor profiles, and adds two customizable pages for the Plasma System Monitor app to allow you to track I/O rates, disk space, and GPU statistics. It also comes with new wallpapers and updated apps.
But what’s more important is that this is the first Nitrux release to include a tech preview of the recently unveiled Maui Shell, a convergent desktop shell for Linux desktops, tablets, and phones. To test Maui Shell, you will find standalone Wayland and X11 sessions on the login screen (only the X11 session worked for me).
If you want to give Nitrux or the brand-new Maui Shell a try on your personal computer, you can download the Nitrux 1.8 release right now from the official website or by clicking on the direct download link below. Existing Nitrux users need only to ensure they have all the latest updates installed.
Last updated 2 years ago
