Neptune ISO Download

Version 8.1 (Juna)


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We are proud to announce the release of Neptune 5.0 "Refresh". 

https://youtu.be/VwJoCdiQ5_g

This version marks a new iteration within the Neptune universe. It switches its base to the current Debian Stable "Stretch" version and also changes slightly the way we will provide Updates for Neptune. We will no longer strive to bring in more recent versions of Plasma, Kernel or other software on our own. With Snaps, Flatpaks and AppImages being more and more popular and mature these days we strongly believe these are the ways to go if you want to try out bleeding edge software. We on the other hand strive to provide the most stable and best Desktop user experience out there. 

We are proud to announce the last development version of Neptune 5. 

This version upgrades the desktop to Plasma 5.12 allows installing on full disk encrypted partitions and makes it possible to create and use a root user by default from the installer. 

Besides that we upgraded many applications just like Chromium, Thunderbird, LibreOffice, aswell as KDE Applications. KDE Frameworks got updated to version 5.42 and we are now offering a refreshed bunch of themes. 

You can get this new version from our downloadsite. 

We are proud to announce the second public Beta version of Neptune 5.0. This version (internally called 4.9) is based upon Debian 9.0 "Stretch".

To support modern hardware this release upgrades the  Kernel to 4.13 coming from the Debian Backports repositories. 

The Desktop coming from Netrunner and DCI (Debian Continuous Integration) is Plasma 5.10. This desktop benefits from all the work and improvements in configuration we did in our Plasma 5 testing ISOs before. This includes the default application menu excalibur. 

Design is inspired by Neptune 4.5 and features the classic look and feel of Neptune. Besides that we also feature a more modern theme that we tested in our Plasma 5 ISOs and is based upon the Breeze Theme. You can switch between the different Themes in the Look and Feel settings. 

 

We changed our default software repository configuration to provide the most stable experience for our users by providing and activating only the Debian Stable (stretch) and Backports (stretch-backports) repositories aswell as our own Neptune repository.

Optionally advanced users can activate the Neptune- and Netrunner-Backports repositories together with the Debian Testing repository to upgrade to newer Plasma 5, KF5 and KDE Applications packages. We will not provide an easy to user graphical user interface to allow this as this is intended for advanced users only and they usually know how to activate those sources and the risks it might bring.

 

You can grab the approx. 2 GiB big ISO Image from our Downloadsite.

Notice: This is a beta version intent for identifying and fixing bugs and not meant for production use. 

Known Bugs:

  • None

 

We are proud to announce the first public Beta version of Neptune 5.0. This version (internally called 4.9) is based upon Debian 9.0 "Stretch".

To support modern hardware this release features the  Kernel 4.9 coming from the Debian repositories. 

The Desktop coming from Netrunner and DCI (Debian Continuous Integration) is Plasma 5.10. This desktop benefits from all the work and improvements in configuration we did in our Plasma 5 testing ISOs before. This includes the default application menu excalibur. 

Design is inspired by Neptune 4.5 and features the classic look and feel of Neptune. Besides that we also feature a more modern theme that we tested in our Plasma 5 ISOs and is based upon the Breeze Theme. You can switch between the different Themes in the Look and Feel settings. 

One of the biggest changes is the introduction of our new default installer called Calamares. This features an easy to use interface for partitioning and preparing everything necessary for installing Neptune. A nice slideshow provides you with basic information during the installation. 

Additionally Neptune 5 provides a few new applications not been there in Neptune 4.5 before. 

Configuring the bootloader Grub is possible with its own configuration utility (Grub Customizer), a  Systemd Configurationmodule in systemsettings allows you to disable or enable services. 

Brand new isl ISO Imagewriter which allows copying disk images to usb sticks or sd cards. 

The new default software center like tool which allows you installing applications is Plasma Discover . It offers a nice overview of installed and available applications, updates aswell as the ability to install plasma widgets. 

 

Encrypting files is now possible with the True- and Veracrypt compatible zulucrypt. This offers a better more advanced user interface compared to the previously shipped Veracrypt. 

Editing partitions, formatting, resizing and more is possible with  KDE's Partitionmanager.

You can grab the approx. 2 GiB big ISO Image from our Downloadsite.

Notice: This is a beta version intent for identifying and fixing bugs and not meant for production use. The configuration of software repositories is not final yet and might bring problems with future updates.
Planned is like on Netrunner to ship a final release based upon the Debian stable repos and Neptune repos with optionally Netrunner Backports repos that users can enable to get the newest Plasma, KF5 und KDE Applications packages. A tool which allows you to easily enable this is still in development and not included yet. 

Known Bugs:

  • Bootsplash not showing after installation. (Solution: Add "splash" as default parameter for Grub in /etc/default/grub and run update-grub)
  • ZRAM Swap is detected as resume device for suspend to disk after running update-initramfs (results in longer boot time and error messages. Solution: Create /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/zram-no-resume.conf and input RESUME=none and update-initramfs -u again)
  • Netrunner-Backports repository is active by default which depends on Debian Testing repo which is disabled by default. 

 

Attention: The default updating app Apper might not be able to perform the update. It might show you updated packages but could fail in installing them. Therefor we recommend for this single update to either use the Muon-Updater or use the terminal and the command sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgade to upgrade your system succesfully.

At the peak of this summer we are proud to announce a new big update for Neptune.

We upgraded the free graphics library Mesa to version 17.1.5 which includes several new improvements in its OpenGL support bringing more performance and support for modern games and applications. 

With the update of the graphics drivers this is also improves overall desktop system performance. 

The default browser of Neptune Chromium got updated to version 60 which includes a renewed user interface aswell as better performance for surfing the web. The settings in Chromium are completely revamped and use the material design now. 

Last but not least Neptune 4.5.x finally upgraded from the default compiler collection GCC 4.7 to version 4.9. 
This brings especially for the future Support a better compatibility and ability to compile new modern software releases like new versions of Chromium for example. 

 

All these changes are a bit bigger and touch depper parts of the system which also leads to a slightly different way of upgrading your system. 

Attention: The default updating app Apper might not be able to perform the update. It might show you updated packages but could fail in installing them. Therefor we recommend for this single update to either use the Muon-Updater or use the terminal and the command sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgade to upgrade your system succesfully.

We are proud to announce the June Update for our Plasma 5 ISO. 

This version features minor improvements all over the place. Among others our login manager sddm now uses the default avatar image and with a fix in the systemsettings user manager you are able to set your own avatar image. 

The init system systemd got an update to version 230 which fixes problems with non terminating services and features slightly better startup times. The non-free firmware package got an update to support more wifi and graphicscards. The updated free drivers for Intel and Nvidia feature better support for newer hardware. Mesa the 3D rendering system is now available in its bugfix release 13.0.6

The commandline downloader WGet is available in version 1.16 and together with ca-certificates now capable to connect to most https servers. Flashrom a tool to flash BIOS/ROM/flash chips is available in version 0.9.9 in our repository.

Cups the printing system got an update to version 1.7.5 with better support for printers and Pulseaudio 10 promises better audiosupport especially for bluetooth devices.

IRC chat app Konversation is available in version 1.7.2 or as an alternative you can get Weechat in version 1.2.

To improve audio und vIdeo capabilities we upgraded from LibAV 11.3 to FFMPEG 3.1.5. Amongst others this brings in support for H.265(HEVC) via the x265 encoder. THe MLT Framework prominently used by the video editor Kdenlive got a  fix for asynchron audio and video tracks for certain 4k videofiles. 

Samba security hole CVE-2017-7494 got fixed.

The base for our desktop is now Plasma 5.8.7 which features several improvements. We also brought back one interesting feature that allows you to use drag and drop to drop images on the desktop either as file, picture frame widget or to set this image as wallpaper. 

KDE Applications got an update to version 17.04.1. 

You can get the appr. 2 GiB ISO Image from our Downloadpage.

Hint: This is the last Plasma 5 release based on Neptune 4.5 and the last monthly updated ISO for this summer. Neptune 4.5.x aswell as the Plasma 5 ISOs based upon it are supported until may 2018. They will continue to work after that but will not get any updates or security fixes from us. A first testversion of Neptune 5 is planned for later this year.

For this summer heat we present a cool wave of new updates for all Neptune users. 

Among others Systemd got an update to version 230 with lots of improvements here and there aswell as new features. We also provide the brand new Linux LTS Kernel 4.9.30 in our repos.

The graphical framework Mesa is now available in its newest bugfix release 13.0.6 and includes improvements for all common graphics hardware with updated free software drivers. 

Besides that we provide updated packaged like ifupdown, elfutils & samba (CVE-2017-7494 Patch). 

The Enlightenment desktop is now available in the newest 0.21.8 bugfix release.

Plasma 5.8.7 is now available as update for Neptune Plasma 5 users. 

This version features many bugfixes but also some new features like improved group window management.

If you want to know more visit the release announcement by kde.

We are proud to announce the may update for our Neptune Plasma 5 ISO. 

This version comes again with numerous detail improvements. We updated the Excalibur applicationmenu and improved it to support scrolling through your favorites and showing more than 3 sysactions. 

KDE Frameworks 5.33 is the base for this new release which includes several fixes and improvements.

KDE Applications 17.04 is the collection of applications we now provide. This includes updates for the filemanager Dolphin, terminalemulator Konsole, archivapplication Ark, texteditor Kate and videoediting Kdenlive. 

Besides that we now also include applications like Okular (PDF-Viewer) and Gwenview (Imageviewer) from KDE Applications 17.04. 

The default login manager got changed from KDM to the newest version of SDDM including a Neptune like theming. The mailclient Icedove got replaced by Thunderbird 45.8.

Libc6 got an update to improve compatibility with newer software like VLC, mpv, X11, Mesa, E21 and more.

You can find Neptune Plasma 5 ISO May on our Downloadpage

The brand new version of KDE Applications with plenty new features and bugfixes. 

Biggest change of this release in all packages is the inclusion of translations for the specific applications. This makes the old kde-l10n packages obsolete just like kde-l10n-de for the german localization. 

Dolphin features smooth scrolling in this new release. The freespace indicator now clearly shows on mouse hover that it hides some goodies that you want to try out by clicking it. 

Ark got plenty of improvements in the details just like better support password encrypted RAR archives, better p7zip support including apk files, aswell as better support for sorting. This new version also includes a new feature which allows you to search for files inside the archive. 

Kate the texteditor brings better search functionality and allows now searching in different tabs. This version also marks the end of running the texteditor as root user and encourages using alternatives just like sudoedit if you want to use kate to edit files which are only accessible as root. 

Kdenlive again features plenty of fixes and new features which help to improve the overall workflow when editing video files under linux. If you want to  know more about the changes in details and KDE Applications 17.04 in general visit the official Changelog site by KDE.