Solus 4.3, the latest version of the new Solus 4 “Fortitude” series, has been released with version 0.9.0 of the dav1d AV1 decoder, Budgie 10.5.3, and GNOME 40 stack support. It comes with desktop environment updates, software stacks, and hardware enablement. Firefox 89.0.2, LibreOffice 7.1.4.2, Thunderbird 78.11.0. are the default applications of Solus 4.3.
New hardware support
In addition to hardware supports, there is kernel configuration and Mesa upgrade to 21.1.3. Solus 4.3 also comes with bluez 5.60 for improving Bluetooth support. Solus 4.3 with Linux kernel 5.13.1 provides support for a broader range of hardware, like:
- AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT, 6800, 6800 XT and 6900 XT cards.
- ASoC machine driver for the Elkhart Lake platform and those with the DA7219 + MAX98373/MAX98360A I2S audio codecs.
- Dell X86 Platform-specific drivers, such as vendor-specific laptop extension drivers, via X86_PLATFORM_DRIVERS_DELL.
- Hardware monitoring for the NZXT Kraken X42/X52/X62/X72 all-in-one CPU liquid coolers via SENSORS_NZXT_KRAKEN2.
- Microsoft network devices via NET_VENDOR_MICROSOFT
- Intel ASoC for Elkhart Lake, Jasper Lake, Tiger Lake
- Sony PS5 controller via HID_PLAYSTATION
- Supplemental Microsoft Surface support such as CHARGER_SURFACE, SURFACE_ACPI_NOTIFY (Surface ACPI Notify (SAN) driver), SURFACE_DTX and SURFACE_HOTPLUG
- SemiTek keyboards via HID_SEMITEK.
ffmpeg 4.4 enables Solus 4.3. to provide support for AV1 VAAPI decoders, AV1 monochrome encoding support, VDPAU accelerated HEVC 10/12bit, and VP9 10/12bit decoding. Version 0.9.0 of the dav1d AV1 decoder and Pulseaudio 14.2 are the other multimedia upgrades.
Solus development team announced:
“Budgie 10.5.3 introduces fixes to Budgie panel applets, Raven, and various window state tracking. Drop use of Queue and Cancellable in Raven’s NotificationView. Instead of using a Queue, just update a reference to a NotificationWindow since we only really cared about the head of the Queue, to begin with,”
Budgie 10.5.3 features GNOME 40 stack support
Its flagship desktop environment, Budgie 10.5.3, features GNOME 40 stack support alongside all the fixes and quality-of-life improvements. Budgie 10.5.3 launches fix to Budgie panel applets, Raven, and various window state tracking. Here are the details about bug fixes that come with Budgie 10.5.3:
- Drop use of Queue and Cancellable in Raven’s NotificationView.
- Fix application icons not scaling in Raven’s Notification Group headers.
- Fix issue with VirtualBox icon not being displayed in IconTaskList applet.
- Fix regression in Budgie Desktop Settings icon handling.
- MPRIS metadata, playback status, and CanGoPrevious / CanGoNext fetching are now performed immediately rather than an unnecessary idle operation.
- Notifications now use a high-priority timeout.
- Notification iconography now uses a consistent IconSize.DIALOG instead of IconSize.INVALID and only scales if the icon provided is not already the desired height.
- Prevent Budgie Desktop Settings from being pinned via drag-and-drop, fixing an issue where Budgie
- Desktop Settings was inadvertently pinnable and unable to be unpinned.
- Sound Indicator applet and Raven
- System Tray applet
Improvements in Budgie 10.5.3
- Filter out audacious notifications, so they do not clutter up Raven.
- Hide “Default,” which is typically Adwaita / GTK’s internal theme. We continue to encourage the use of theming that officially supports Budgie, such as Materia and Plata.
- Mutter and WM preference schema settings are now only applied for the Budgie session.
- Spacing is now configurable in the Status applet.
- The application fullscreen state tracking has been slightly rewritten to use the window XIDs, only call our track window state function on specific flags in the changed or current state and reducing instances where some unset flags would not result in the application being removed as a fullscreen application.
- There is now an option in Budgie and exposed via Budgie Desktop Settings’ “Windows” section to automatically pause notifications when a window is fullscreen and unpause when there no longer is a fullscreen window.
- To improve the default user experience of Budgie on some downstream operating systems such as Arch Linux, Budgie now ships with a default wallpaper, eliminating the need for downstream to apply supplemental changes or ship a wallpaper package.
- When xdotool is available on the operating system, the Lock Keys applet can be clicked toggle CapsLock and NumLock!
There are Solus Budgie, Solus Gnome, Solus 4.3 MATE Edition and Solus 4.3 Plasma Edition. Solus 4.3 Plasma Edition includes the latest Plasma Desktop 5.22.2, KDE Frameworks 5.83, Applications 21.04.2, and the backported patches for QT 5.15.2.
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