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The MX Linux devs inform 9to5Linux today about the general availability for public testing of the beta release of the upcoming MX Linux 21 KDE Plasma edition distribution.
Last week, I told you about the Xfce and Fluxbox beta releases of the forthcoming MX Linux 21 “Wildflower” distribution, which will be based on the recently released Debian GNU/Linux 11 “Bullseye” operating system series and the long-term supported Linux 5.10 LTS kernel series.
And now, the KDE Plasma edition is ready for testing too, based on the AHS (Advanced Hardware Support) images of MX Linux 21 KDE and available only for 64-bit computers. The KDE Plasma edition ships with the Plasma 5.20 desktop environment series, more precisely the 5.20.5 point release.
Unfortunately, that’s the Plasma version available on the Debian GNU/Linux 11 “Bullseye” repositories, so there’s no telling if it will be upgraded to a newer version until the final release of MX Linux 21 hits the streets.
However, there are some improvements compared to last year’s release of MX Linux KDE Plasma edition, such as the addition of docking icon entries on the Plasma panel, Plasma Discover in place of Muon as default package manager and update management system, and Ksnip as default tool for screenshots instead of Spectacle.
Of course, there are also general performance improvements, especially on live media, and all the goodies that the MX Linux 21 release promises, including new UEFI live system boot menus, a new installer partition selection area with some LVM support, and the enablement of the user password (sudo) for admin tasks by default.
Those of you who want to help with the testing can download the MX Linux 21 KDE Plasma beta edition right now from the official announcement page, where you’ll also find information about what the devs want you to test and the known issues. Please remember NOT to install it on a production machine though.
Thanks Swamp Rabbit for the tip!
Last updated 3 years ago
