ROSA Desktop Fresh R8 Release Notes

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About the release

ROSA Desktop Fresh R8 is a distribution for enthusiasts in the constantly changing Linux world. It is the last release based on rosa2014.1 platform.

R8 is a stable release with 2 years of extended support (security updates will be provided until Fall 2018).

ROSA Desktop Fresh R8 features 4 desktop environments: KDE 4, Plasma 5, GNOME and MATE. We recommend to use KDE 4.

Changes since the previous release (R7)

Changes in DE-independent components

  • The installer will now eject the DVD automatically after the installation of the system has completed. This simplifies OS installation in the virtual machines.
  • Rosa Image Writer was improved to handle the changes in the list of available USB devices correctly.
  • Problems with detection of the file name encodings in zip archives were fixed in 7-zip.
  • The update system was improved to avoid removing packages in case of errors in the repository mirrors. Earlier, the system suggested to remove the installed packages if their dependencies were missing at the mirrors.
  • The default settings of PulseAudio were changed so that Skype no longer mutes the sound in other applications during its notifications.
  • Disabled anti-aliasing of the fonts in GIMP to get rid of the green borders of the symbols.
  • For security reasons, support for SSLv2 protocol was disabled in OpenSSL.
  • Added support for changing screen resolution in SDDM login manager in VirtualBox.
  • Fixed the problems that prevented gawk and grep from correct processing of some national-language symbols, e.g. Syrian ones.
  • traceroute no longer requires root privileges.
  • Fixed the rendering of the rouble sign as well as drawing of some shapes in LibreOffice.
  • Fixed the discrete GPU not turning off in the hybrid graphics systems when user switched to the integrated GPU.
  • The opensource implementation of OpenGL provided by Mesa supports OpenGL 4.1 now.
  • Steam was updated to make it easier to use the libraries from the default repositories of ROSA rather than from the bundle it downloads.
  • Several missing icons were added to the ROSA icon theme.
  • ...And much more.

Updates of major components

  • LTS kernel 4.1.25 is used by default. Kernel 4.4.x (x86_64, i586) and 4.6.x (x86_64, i586) are available in additional repositories.
  • Mesa was updated to 11.2.2
  • PulseAudio was updated to 8.0
  • NetworkManager was updated to 1.2.2
  • Chromium was updated to 51.0
  • Firefox was updated to 46.0.1
  • New Moon was updated to 26.3.3
  • Thunderbird was updated to 38.6
  • LibreOffice was updated to 5.1.4
  • Qt5 was updated to 5.6.1, KF5 was updated to 5.24.0
  • FFmpeg was updated to 2.8.7
  • GStreamer and its plugins was updated to 1.6.3
  • Graphical drivers for NVidia video cards have been updated:
    • nvidia361 — to version 361.42
    • nvidia-current — to version 364.15
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