Hello everyone!
Today we have great news for you all: We published the first release of iBuntu since October 2020!
Our first version ever, “Catalinux” is still maintained by us and even if the Ubuntu 18.04 LTS on which it is based might have become a bit dusty over the years, this is still our most stable and reliable version.
So for us it was clear that we will make our comeback with a new Catalinux-Version before we get our hands on “Lix Sur” which is by far more complex and difficult to bring to a Version 2.1
So let’s talk a bit about Version 1.4 of Catalinux. What changed?
- First of all: It includes the newest Kernel as well as all Updates for Ubuntu 18.04.6
- The iBuntu Update Tool is now the latest Version which means if you want to migrate in the future from 1.4 to 2.1 or even a more further Version 3 or 4 you have everything already on board now.
- We also removed a view things:
- Stacer, because this monitoring tool is just not necessarry anymore
- Balena Etcher since it’s part of the iBuntu Update Tool already
- LibreOffice – if you still need an offline office program you can download it everytime from the Appstore
- Evolution – we think in the year 2022 you really should chose for yourself which mailclient you prefer – Evolution, Thunderbird, Mailspring or maybe you do your E-Mail-Stuff all over the browser (like we do mostly) – whatever Mailclient you want, just get it from the Appstore.
- VLC we replaced with SMPlayer due to compatibility reasons. VLC always had issues with a too big or too small menu bar. And running it as a snap made great performance issues on old hardware. But with SMPlayer everything runs smooth and perfect so that’s the Player we will go for in the future, at least for Catalinux.
- Screensaver now deactivated by default since most people doesn’t need or want a Screensaver, even if it’s the classical macOS one.
- The Installer we changed to Calamares for compatiblity reasons. That’s maybe the biggest change since our old builder wasn’t able to produce installable ISOs anymore and we had to change the process of building our release versions completely.
- Standard Theme for Catalinuix now is from MacOS: Big Sur. Of course the old Catalina-Desing is still available. We just changed the default appearance since we think most people didn’t even know that even with 1.3 of Catalnux we had the Bis Sur design already included. Now it’s the default so everybody can see – and the difference to Version 2 is now mainly the Ubuntu base we use (20.04 for Lix Sur), the Desktop Environment (Gnome for Catalinux, KDE for Lix Sur) and the amount of software, tools and other design settings. Plain and simple: If you want a reliable stable system with macOS Feeling, go for Catalinux. If you want customization, window effects, lot’s of preinstalled tools and features, than Lix Sur is the one for you.
- For Touch-Gestures the tool “Gestures” was replaced with Fusuma. This will not really make a difference for your user appearance but Users of 1.3 might will have noticed that since Ubuntus update to 18.04.6 the ability for gestures was gone. We brought it back now.
One more important thing: Please read the installation instructions carefully! You will need to perform a “Hard Reboot” after the installation otherwise you will end up with a hung up system when you try to shut down the live-system. It’s all explained in a “HowToInstall.txt” file you will find on the Desktop of the Live-System. We made this file for good reasons, so please read it and follow it’s instructions.
For now we wish you a lot of fun and great experiance with iBuntu 1.4 Catalinux.
Stay tuned for more news since now we will beginn our work at Version 2.1 to bring both of our branches back to life.
So long,
BOfH