Pop!_OS 22.04 Has Officially Been Released

System76 has officially released the latest iteration of Pop!_OS. This time around, the operating system is based on Ubuntu 22.04 and includes plenty of improvements. Although the changes found in 22.04 aren't nearly as dramatic as those in past releases, this new version still offers plenty to get excited about.

The Pop!_OS COSMIC desktop is based on GNOME 42 but has been stripped down to align with the vision System76 has with its desktop. This means the look and feel of the desktop will remain fairly consistent with what you have experienced since COSMIC was first introduced. In fact, although GNOME 42 migrated away from Gedit and GNOME Terminal, Pop!_OS is sticking with those two apps for the time being.

Two of the biggest additions to Pop!_OS 22.04 come in the form of automatic updates (which are configured in Settings > OS Recovery & Update) and Pipewire now shipping as the default audio server.

Other highlights for the new version include a new screenshot tool, a Support option in the Settings app, kernel 5.16, GNOME Settings 41.4, Firefox 98, GNOME Terminal 3.43.9, and Gedit 41.4.

You can either download a copy of Pop!_OS from the official site (https://pop.system76.com/), or you can upgrade your current release using the sudo pop-upgrade release upgrade -f command. Just remember, if you run an upgrade, back up all of your important data before doing so.

Star Labs Unveils a New Small Format Linux PC

Star Labs has been known as a manufacturer of Linux laptops for some time. Recently, however, the company has dipped its toes into the mini PC market and its first release is impressive on paper.

The Byte MK I is a first-gen mini PC equipped with an AMD Ryzen 7 5800 Octo-Core CPU (up to a 4.4GHz clock speed), AMD Radeon graphics, up to 64GB of 3200MHz RAM, and up to 6TB SSD storage.

Besides the power the Byte MK I offers, one of the most impressive features is the number of ports you'll find, which includes two full-sized USB 2.0, two full-sized USB 3.0, two full-sized HDMI, gigabit ethernet RJ45, one USB-C (for power and expansion), a combo audio/mic jack, and a Micro SD slot. Finally, the Byte MK I ships with the Coreboot firmware and the Star Labs Coreboot Configurator utility.

The base price for the Byte MK I is $793.00 and includes 8GB of RAM and 240 GB of SSD storage. The ship date for orders is late June 2022 and you can get a five percent discount for pre-orders (while the device is still in production).

Order your Star Labs Byte MK I now (https://us.starlabs.systems/pages/byte).

MX Linux Verison 21.1 "Wildflower" Now Available

MX Linux is a desktop distribution that shuns systemd and opts to go with the older SysVInit initialization system. As it has in the past, MX Linux offers versions with Xfce, KDE Plasma, and MX-fluxbox. This distribution eschews flash for simplicity and offers 32-bit versions for the Xfce and Fluxbox releases and 64-bit versions for all three desktops.

This new release is based on Debian 11.3, ships with the 5.16 Advanced Hardware Support kernel and has plenty of updated applications, the usual bug fixes, and an improved installer. One pleasant surprise to be found in MX Linux 21.1 is the mx-samba-config tool for the simplified setup of Samba/CIFS shares.

Another interesting addition is that the developers have brought back the disk-manager utility, which automatically detects new partitions at startup, fully manages the configuration of file systems, and allows you to enable/disable write support for NTFS.

If you're already running the 21.0 version of MX Linux, you can upgrade to the .1 version through the regular update channels.

You can download MX Linux with the Xfce Desktop (https://sourceforge.net/projects/mx-linux/files/Final/Xfce/MX-21.1_x64.iso/download), KDE Plasma (https://sourceforge.net/projects/mx-linux/files/Final/KDE/MX-21_KDE_x64.iso/download), or MX-Fluxbox (https://sourceforge.net/projects/mx-linux/files/Final/Fluxbox/MX-21.1_fluxbox_x64.iso/download).

Read the official release notes from the MX Linux blog (https://mxlinux.org/blog/mx-21-1-wildflower-released/).