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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.

We are happy to announce the 4th Maintenancerelease of Neptune 4.5. This comes with a updated LTS Kernel 3.18.48 with dozens of security fixes and support for new hardware. 

 

For best multimedia consumption we now updated to VLC 2.2.4 which gains better supports for newer Codecs like VP9 or FLAC. The Phonon base for playing sounds in KDE Plasma got an update to version 4.9.0 for better reliability together with the updated VLC Backend which builds upon the improvements of VLC 2.2.4.

Our Internetsuite got improved with Chromium 57 and Icedove 45.6 to provide the best in terms of surfing the web or writing emails. Chromium 57 brings better support for HTML5 video and Icedove 45.6 fixes several bugs when it comes to editing emails. 

Mesa Version 13.0.4 fixes several bugs and improves graphics hardware support. 
The Radeon(ATI/AMD) driver got an update to Version 7.8.0 with better support for several amd graphicscards and some bugfixes. 

Fresh and new is the improvement for the flash filesystem f2fs. We now allow mounting those partitions directly on the desktop with udisks. Besides that we also updated the f2fs-tools to version 1.7.0 including several improvements for creating and checking the filesystem. 

We also improved the Btrfs filesystem with btrfs-progs 4.9.1 and plenty of improvements for filesystemchecks and better handling of low memory situations. 

Neptune 4.5.4 now uses our new secure software repository by default. Additionally we include several security fixes in packages like eject. 

LibreOffice got an update to version 4.3.3, libmtp 1.1.12 now supports mounting of the Jolla C smartphone and Encode got a fix for FullHD resolution. 

VirtualBox 5.1.4 Guest Additions are available by default now on our ISO improving the support for newer VirtualBox versions. Besides that it also allows using the newer LTS Kernel 4.9.18 which is included in our repository without any problems. 

Neptune 4.5.4 is available as 2 GiB ISO on our Downloadpage. 

Users of Neptune 4.5 can upgrade with a normal update from within the update manager. 

 

Neptune Plasma 5 April Update

We also updated our Plasma 5 ISO with new Updates and several improvements.

 

KDE Frameworks version 5.32 includes improvements in KArchive, KIO, KPackage and more. KDE Applications 16.12.3 is available and we also improved Dolphin with smooth scrolling aswell as better support for service menus. Ark, Kate and Kdenlive were updated with several fixes and improvements.
Yakuake the slide down terminal got an update to version 3.0.4 with appearance improvements.

 

Within the scope of our improvement campaign we also improved our Plasma 5 Desktop. By default this now includes a new default application menu called Excalibur which strives to take the best from the old Lancelot menu. This includes a two column view with favorites and application categories. You can set and move favorites freely around. Also available is the option to move and set logout, reboot and shutdown buttons freely. 

The new Plasma 5 April ISO of Neptune includes the LTS Kernel 4.9.18 with security fixes and better support for newer hardware. 

Just like on Neptune 4.5.4 we are also now using our new secure softwarepository. 

You can get the new Plasma 5 ISO from our downloadpage. 

Existing Plasma 5 Neptune User can update with a normal update in the update manager. The new Excalibur menu needs manual adding however to the panel. You can use the right click context menus alternative entry to switch from Kickoff to Excalibur.

Neptune is willing to improve its security constantly like we showed in the past by using HTTPS on our website with Letsencrypt certificates. 

This time around we also changed our default repository server to use HTTPS. With the update to version 4.5.4 of the neptune-sourceslist package we changed the default repository to point to the https://download.neptuneos.com/ server. This also means that you need to have the package apt-transport-https installed to make it work. The update should automatically pull and install this package aswell.

The old proindi repository is available for approximately 1 month to ease the change and allow all users to upgrade to the new repository.