EndeavourOS 2021.04 release is here. And the team brings a handful of new features and updates. Take a look.
EndeavourOS is an Arch-based beginner-friendly Linux distribution. For all the new Arch users out there, if you are thinking to get your first dive on Arch Linux, probably EndeavourOS is the best choice at the moment. It comes with a super easy GUI-based Arch installer with a wide range of desktop environments available to install out-of-the-box. And, I must say a super friendly community to help you instantly via EndeavourOS telegram channel.
That said, EndeavourOS 2021.04 release is the second installment of this year. And I was quite surprised that it came within two months of the first release of the year. The team and the community worked hard to bring this impressive release.
Let’s take a look at what’s new.
EndeavourOS 2021.04 New Features
The EndeavourOS team brings two tiling window managers BSPWM and Sway as a community edition. That means you can now enjoy the superfast tiling window managers alongside Xfce and other desktops.
I am impressed that the EndeavourOS team brings the Sway window manager which is for especially Wayland display servers. And the important part is, the tiling window managers can run on top of your existing Xfce or other desktop editions.
The Deeping DE is dropped in this release. As per the team, the improvements and performance of Deeping DE are not up to the mark, and no point dragging it further. This aligns with my test earlier with Deepin desktop in Arch Linux. When I installed Deepin desktop in vanilla Arch Linux, the experience was not that great either.
The Welcome app includes new features such as easy viewing of package differences via pacdiff before merging, download more wallpapers from the community repository.
A quick recap of the major application version of this release:
- Calamares 3.2.39.3-2
- Firefox 87.0-2
- Linux kernel 5.11.14-arch-1-1
- Mesa 21.0.2-1
- nvidia-dkms 465.24.02-1
A revamped EndeavourOS wiki is introduced over at https://discovery.endeavouros.com. This gives you a categorical view of topics, guides, fixes for your EndeavourOS journey. Take a look.
The team also provide an update on the EndeavourOS ARM build which is under development and testing at the moment. The result looks promising and hopefully, the ARM fans would enjoy the EndeavourOS in their ARM devices soon.
And a bunch of bug fixes arrives in this release across the welcome app, auto-login feature, etc.
Check out the blog post here for more details on the changes.
How to Download and Update
If you are running EndeavourOS already, you need to open the ‘Update in Terminal’ app from the menu. No further action is required. You would get all the latest packages and updates.
If you are planning for a fresh installation, then download the .iso file for EndeavourOS 2021.04 from the below link and start installation. You may think of using any USB mounter tool such as Etcher or try in a virtual machine.
| Name | Location | ISO | Torrent | Sha512sum | GPG sig file |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alpix | Germany | Download | Download | Download | Download |
| Birdrepo | Canada | Download | Download | Download | Download |
| Easylee | The Netherlands | Download | Download | Download | Download |
| Ghead | India | Download | Download | Download | Download |
| Github | World wide | Download | Download | Download | Download |
| Linux Pizza | Sweden | Download | Download | Download | Download |
| Tuna | China | Download | Download | Download | Download |
| Umeå University | Sweden | Download | Download | Download | Download |
Closing Notes
The EndeavourOS is becoming more and more appealing to the mass users with their unique take on the Arch-based distro. The installing experience, out-of-the-box configurations, menu-based arch commands give an advantage over other Arch-based distros. And the ever-helpful community of EndeavourOS where you get instant help when you are stuck and that’s what makes the difference.
Cheers.
