IPFire 2.29 Core Update 204 is now available for download. It is a housekeeping release that brings a healthy dose of updates across the entire operating system and fixes a regression in our recent migration to Knot Resolver. Behind the scenes, we have been busy with some exciting things, and you will see the first of them in upcoming releases. In the last release, we migrated from Unbound to Knot Resolver for networks protected by IPFire. We have received very positive feedback that DNS resolution is noticeably faster and that some long-standing issues have been resolved. However, the migration introduced a regression: clients connected via IPsec, WireGuard or OpenVPN were unable to resolve names, because Knot Resolver replied from the wrong source IP address. This release fixes the issue. Doing so required substantial changes to the I/O layer of Knot Resolver, which we have contributed upstream.
ZEPHIX 9 - our most polished release yet. ZEPHIX 9 brings a refreshed desktop shell, an updated kernel, faster startup, and improved hardware support across AMD and Intel platforms. What's new in 9? Linux kernel 6.12.107 - broader hardware support, improved performance and power management, updated AMD/Intel drivers, and built-in real-time capabilities; package loaded - a rich selection of 4,372 pre-installed software applications, tools, libraries and utilities ready to use from the moment ZEPHIX boots; faster boot - start-up trimmed to around 24 seconds on virtualised environments, faster boot on real hardware; installation possible - ZEPHIX can be installed to disk when needed, while remaining primarily designed as a fast, portable live system.
It had been a long time since I last tested Openbox. I initially created this version for testing purposes. However, once it turned into such a great system, I thought it would be a good idea to adapt it for general use and share it. Having another window manager as an alternative to JWM offers users a second choice. Getting Openbox to its current state certainly required a lot of effort. After all, Openbox doesn't come with built-in components to function as a standalone system on its own; it is built using various tools and custom configurations. Yet, with the right setup, it can become a fantastic system. That is precisely the beauty of window managers - they allow users to customize the experience to their own liking. This version was born out of that very appreciation. What was done for the Openbox 1.0 release? After experimenting with various panels, I decided that Tint2 was the best fit for Openbox.
A rebuilt Welcome app, smoother gaming with a new Gaming settings page, a hug-style dock and per-monitor wallpapers, with updates and shutdowns that keep your work and your changes safe. The Welcome app has been rebuilt - pick your language, window layout, hot corner and wallpaper, then style the bar, dock and window decorations while a live preview of your desktop updates as you go. Welcome's apps page now fits on one screen, sorted into Play, Create and Work, with anything you already have installed marked. Games run even better out of the box - GameMode (a performance booster) and MangoHud (an on-screen performance display) come installed, and the desktop stays responsive while a game loads from a hard drive. New Gaming page in settings - one switch keeps games smooth while something heavy runs in the background, and two more can help some games stutter less or load faster.
This release presents the new version 153.0.8010.36-1 of the web browser Google-Chrome-Stable. In addition, among other things, due to the problems with the ftp site opener curlftpfs after the distro upgrade, Starbuntu has exchanged this program by gio and, moreover, also cleared up some disrupted tasks when restoring the work session after it was interrupted.