KaOS Linux’s First ISO Release in 2021 Adds Linux Kernel 5.10 LTS and Qt 6

KaOS 2020.02

The KaOS Linux development team released today their first ISO image for 2021, which brings a plethora of updated components and applications, as well as a brand-new kernel.

KaOS Linux 2021.01 is now available for download, the first ISO release of this KDE focused and desktop oriented rolling GNU/Linux distribution inspired by Arch Linux to ship with the latest and greatest Linux 5.10 LTS kernel series, which, as expected, provides state-of-the-art hardware support.

In addition, KaOS Linux 2021.01 is the first ISO release to ship with the latest Qt 6 open-source and cross-platform application framework, which is already used by some apps, including Poppler, Qtkeychain, Qsynth, Strawberry, and others. Qt 6 is accompanied by the PyQt 6.0 stack, which includes PyQt6-sip, PyQt-Builder, and Sip 6.

“Not that Plasma is ready for Qt 6, but some are, so to get this distribution in good shape for the eventual Qt 6 move, any that can be built with Qt 6 are done so now,” said the developers in the release notes.

Since KaOS is a KDE-based and rolling release distro, it always gets the most recent KDE Plasma desktop environment and related software. Therefore, KaOS Linux 2021.01 ships with KDE Plasma 5.20.5, KDE Applications 20.12.1, and KDE Frameworks 5.78.0 pre-installed.

New applications have been added in the new ISO release as well, such as KDE’s brand new Matrix chat client NeoChat and Barrier, a tool that lets you share the mouse and keyboard of your computer over the local network to control multiple computers.

As for the updated components, we can find the newest Mesa 20.3.3 graphics stack, NetworkManager 1.28.0 network manager, LLVM/Clang 11.0.1 system compiler, Samba 4.13.3 file and printing sharing tool, as well as Git 2.30.0, Python 3.8.7, Boost 1.75.0, Poppler 21.01.0, Protobuf 3.14, ICU 68.2, Hdf5 1.12.0, and libarchive 3.5.1.

The Calamares installer has been updated as well and it now offers initial support for so-called “split” encryption, which lets you install an encrypted KaOS system but with an unencrypted boot partition, as well as a more detailed way to specify user groups in the Users module.

You can download KaOS Linux 2021.01 right now from the official website or using the direct download link below. Existing users don’t need to download the new ISO image, but only to ensure their installations are up to date by running the sudo pacman -Syu command from time to time.

Last updated 3 years ago

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