We are pleased to announce the release of the next version of our distro, our second Long Term Support (LTS) release as an official flavor of the Ubuntu family.
The LTS version is supported for 3 years while the regular releases are supported for 9 months.
This release is all thanks to our volunteer and dedicated Ubuntu Budgie team together with you, our community supporting us in all sorts of ways since our first release in 2016.
The new release rolls-up various developments, fixes and optimizations that have been released since the 18.04 LTS release in April 2018:
Stylish menu applet as the default
budgie based network manager applet as the default
Window Shuffler - animations, faster, keyboard friendly tiling CTRL+ALT+keypad numbers; The currently focussed window can be now tiled to each corner, side to side or maximized/unmaximized all from the keyboard. Give it a try (enable via Menu - Shuffler control).
Desktop Layouts - choose your default desktop layout with one click
4K resolution friendly budgie desktop and budgie applet support
GNOME Firmware and Drawing are new default applications
Ubuntu Budgie Team Wallpapers for 20.04 - there was a community contest to choose its favourite wallpapers - and the community certainly contributed amazing desktop images. I hope you like them. We will next run a community contest for the 22.04 LTS
All our backport packages have now been rebuilt for 20.04 - look out for nemo-share and nemo-dropbox and also skippy-xd is available through backports.
Firefox is the default browser.
Catfish file and text search is now a default install
The community has requested Files (Nautilus) to be switched to Files (Nemo) - so welcome back split screen and other goodies. Tip - press Alt or right-click the toolbar to show the Menu for preferences etc.
budgie-nemo integration - right click options for changing the background, launch budgie-desktop-settings and catfish file & text search. Nemo folder-color is unfortunately not available in the repositories, so it has been dropped.
QogirBudgie from the fiendishly clever themer vinceliuice - so three of the best themes are now default in budgie-desktop-settings (Arc, Pocillo and QogirBudgie)
As the community has requested, Plank dock has now been switched to the bottom of the screen, is transparent and has the bounce animations by default
Lots and lots of new desktop customisations and applets.
We also inherits hundreds of stability, bug-fixes and optimizations made to the underlying Ubuntu repositories. Many thanks to all the volunteers, Debian & Ubuntu maintainers and Canonical employees who have done such a sterling job packaging the changes that many more developers from all over the world have resolved. The power of FOSS that we are all proud to be part of.
You can read more about 20.04 via our release notes.
Download links and installation guide are provided. As always - do check the md5sum hash value of the downloaded ISO - this really does help you get on with a flying start for your install.
As always, upgrades to the latest version of Ubuntu are entirely free of charge.
We recommend that all users read the the Ubuntu 20.04 release notes, which document caveats and workarounds for known issues affecting all flavours including Ubuntu Budgie. They are available at:
If you have a question, or if you think you may have found a bug but aren't sure, you can try asking in any of the following places:
Ubuntu Budgie v20.04 (Focal Fossa) Release: April 23rd, 2020
Ubuntu Budgie 20.04 is a LTS (Long Term Support) release that will be supported for 3 years until April 2023. Long Term Releases provide assured stability over a longer term than a standard 9 month release. Critical and stability fixes will be released for all the supported Ubuntu Budgie components; these will be undertaken by ourselves, Canonical and the wider Ubuntu community.
This is the 18.04 upgraders release note. This takes the 19.10/19.04 and 18.10 release notes and highlights the key parts that 18.04 upgraders need to be aware of.
If you are upgrading from 19.10 we have a release note more applicable to you!
In these release notes the areas covered are:
New features and enhancements
Issues Resolved
Upgrading from 18.04 Ubuntu Budgie
Known Issues when upgrading
Where to download Ubuntu Budgie
UB Desktop 20.04
NEW FEATURES AND ENHANCEMENTS
20.04 STUFF TO LOOK OUT FOR
Stylish menu applet as the default
budgie based network manager applet as the default
Window Shuffler - animations, faster, keyboard friendly tiling CTRL+ALT+keypad numbers; The currently focussed window can be now tiled to each corner, side to side or maximized/unmaximized all from the keyboard. Give it a try (enable via Menu - Shuffler control).
Desktop Layouts - choose your default desktop layout with one click
4K resolution friendly budgie desktop and budgie applet support
GNOME Firmware and Drawing are new default applications
Ubuntu Budgie Team Wallpapers for 20.04 - there was a community contest to choose its favourite wallpapers - and the community certainly contributed amazing desktop images. I hope you like them. We will next run a community contest for the 22.04 LTS
All our backport packages have now been rebuilt for 20.04 - look out for nemo-share and nemo-dropbox and also skippy-xd is available through backports.
Firefox is the default browser.
Catfish file and text search is now a default install
The community has requested Files (Nautilus) to be switched to Files (Nemo) - so welcome back split screen and other goodies. Tip - press Alt or right-click the toolbar to show the Menu for preferences etc.
budgie-nemo integration - right click options for changing the background, launch budgie-desktop-settings and catfish file & text search. Nemo folder-color is unfortunately not available in the repositories, so it has been dropped.
QogirBudgie from the fiendishly clever themer vinceliuice - so three of the best themes are now default in budgie-desktop-settings (Arc, Pocillo and QogirBudgie)
As the community has requested, Plank dock has now been switched to the bottom of the screen, is transparent and has the bounce animations by default
BUDGIE DESKTOP:
Ubuntu Budgie 20.04 LTS ships with budgie-desktop v10.5.1. This is a massive upgrade for 18.04 users and the updates are too extensive to list. So here are the areas you should go/look and discover!
Raven - Sound controls
New Raven section in Budgie Desktop Settings.
Ability to enable window focus change to being on mouse enter / leave via the “Windows” section of Budgie Desktop Settings, as opposed to click-to-focus.
The “Fonts” section of Budgie Desktop Settings introduces hint, Text Scaling and anti-aliasing options
Raven Notification grouping and the ability to turn off notifications. Look out for setting the Notification position as well.
You can now middle click on the Bluetooth applet to toggle Bluetooth airplane mode. You can now middle click on the Sound applet to mute and unmute global audio.
Icon Task List has received a lot of love; Grouping, launching instances via middle lick, favourites.
Under the Desktop section of Budgie Desktop Settings, you'll find a new option called “Number of virtual desktops”, where you can go from just having one workspace up to eight!
Ubuntu Budgie Experience
The following areas have been added or changed to enhance our budgie-desktop implementation:
System Tray applet now dropped as a default - it is buggy and the network manager applet is now/intended as a default
At the same time - added the ability to not run network-manager applet - this ensures the buggy system tray icon no longer appears
CTRL+ALT+left/right swaps workspaces without a workspace indicator in the middle of the screen. This has been done to speed up switching workspaces & most importantly removes the possibility of crashes due to conflicts with the workspace animations
Event alerts sounds are disabled by default now - if you want alert sounds choose the alert noise you want and sound level in Settings - Sound
HiDPI (4K) support for Budgie applets (both in built-in and third-party) and their popup functionality
Fix for keyboard shortcuts mysteriously going missing
Fix for multimonitors to stop windows overlapping the top-bar when maximised
Switch from qt5-style-plugins to qt5ct for QT app styling - apps such as vlc. You should see a QT5 Config app now in the menu to help you configure styling of QT apps. Also to note - some QT5 apps such as VLC also have styling options built in as well.
Moka based icons revised to capture GNOME 3.32/3.34 and 3.36 changes
Support large global menu in budgie-desktop panel
Better lock screen styling - buttons are now flat and match the lock screen dialog
Pixel Saver & Pocillo: Close button is now styled to match CSD windows
Stylish menu applet as the default
budgie based network manager applet as the default
Window Shuffler - animations, faster, keyboard friendly tiling CTRL+ALT+keypad numbers; The currently focussed window can be now tiled to each corner, side to side or maximized/unmaximized all from the keyboard. Give it a try (enable via Menu - Shuffler control).
4K resolution friendly budgie desktop and budgie applet support
GNOME Firmware and Drawing are new default applications
All our backport packages have now been rebuilt for 20.04 - look out for nemo-share and nemo-dropbox and also skippy-xd is available through backports.
We have dropped TLP from the default install. The power savings in the latest kernels are significant for newer computers. TLP is still available to be installed if the kernel power savings do not impact you due to using an older CPU.
The caffeine appindicator has been dropped - this has been replaced with the native caffeine budgie-applet that comes with budgie-desktop v10.5
We've added a new game 2048 as part of the default install - a great way to while away a few hours
Catfish file and text search is now a default install
The community has requested Files (Nautilus) to be switched to Files (Nemo) - so welcome back split screen and other goodies. Tip - press Alt or right-click the toolbar to show the Menu for preferences etc.
budgie-nemo integration - right click options for changing the background, launch budgie-desktop-settings and catfish file & text search. Nemo folder-color is unfortunately not available in the repositories, so it has been dropped.
QogirBudgie from the fiendishly clever themer vinceliuice - so three of the best themes are now default in budgie-desktop-settings (Arc, Pocillo and QogirBudgie)
Advanced Network Configuration, LibreOffice Math, Software Sources and Additional Drivers are now available from the menu
As the community has requested, Plank dock has now been switched to the bottom of the screen, is transparent and has the bounce animations by default
UB logo is proudly displayed in the About screen and is the default menu icon
ability to increase the spacer applet sizing without impacting the overall size of the panel.
ability to launch applications from the menu requiring elevated privileges
Note also GNOME Upstream have now removed the split of Application Menus from the Window menu. So for Budgie this means there is no separate “Application” icon in the decoration to show the appmenu. Appmenus are now combined in the Window menu.
Desktop Layouts
For 20.04 LTS we now support a one click method to set up your desktop with a look and feel that you are most comfortable with.
Layouts
Accessed through the Menu - Themes & Layouts, the following layouts can be used:
Traditional Budgie
Classic Ubuntu Budgie
Ubuntu Budgie
Cupertino
The One
redmond
Choosing a layout replaces your current setup with a predefined panel and applet layout. Combine that with the theme makeover option, you now have a extremely fast method to configure Ubuntu Budgie the way you want to.
BUDGIE APPLETS & BUDGIE MINI-APPS
WeatherShow
Weather forecast every three hours and over five days. This Desktop based weather applet is installed by default and can be added to your panel.
Weathershow Applet
Budgie Applications Menu
We are pleased to ship by default our take on a simple but elegant menu for our desktop. Heavily based upon the good work of the ElementaryOS crew, this menu displays your installed applications via a Grid View as well as the traditional category view budgie users know and love.
Appscreen
We have enhanced the menu to optionally show the budgie powerstrip - so for those users who dont want to use the default power applet in the panel. The menu has many extra features - e.g. right click action options for those applications live steam that offer them.
Appmenu3
… a couple of hidden extras - type 2+2 - its a built in calculator or type ubuntubudgie.org into the search.
Again optionally - if you install zeitgeist the menu will start to learn what you frequently search for - and the search results be more tailored to your frequent requests - i.e. find things first time.
Network Manager Applet
Budgie Desktop has shipped with a legacy network manager icon in the panel. It has never integrated very well - and together with the buggy system tray weird icon effects were visible on logon.
Nm1
Enter the native Network Manager budgie applet. This integrates fully with our budgie desktop. We have tidied up and built upon the good work of the Daniel Pinto (original creator) and the ElementaryOS team from which the budgie-applet was derived from.
Budgie Window Shuffler
Focal's Window Shuffler is a completely rewritten and re- designed version of Budgie's tiling add-on. Apart from the drastically improved responsiveness, features now include:
Setting margins and padding of the window grid
Shuff1
Shortcuts for snapping windows to the nearest tile
Shortcuts for resizing windows in all directions
Scroll over the GUI grid to set its shade
Targeted position preview when using the GUI grid
Shuff2
Animated window movement when using shortcuts to move windows
Swapping windows in case a window is moved to an existing window's position
Shortcuts for Quarter / half tiling
The new Shuffler Control window
Shuff3
Wallstreet
One request that continually was made was to have the ability to rotate through a folder full of photos and display on your desktop. We know there are many heavy-weight tools out there - but what our community wanted is a simple - very lightweight solution built into the desktop.
Wallstreet
Enter - WallStreet - a new lightweight wallpaper rotator every x minutes. Just enable it through the menu - wallstreet control
Visual-Space
New applet budgie-visualspace-applet - a stylish compact workspace switcher as a default on the panel.
Visualspace
So this desktop focused productivity tool is used if you have lots of windows spread over your desktop and/or between workspaces - you can quickly focus that window without having to alt-tab through everything.
Dropby
Dropby applet makes a reappearance as a default panel applet
Dropby
When any USB device is connected then you have easy access to it - with the ability to copy its contents, open to see what is on it and to eject the device safely directly from a popup and panel applet.
Other notable applets and mini apps
Kangaroo - Quick and easy browsing, across (possibly) many folder layers, without having to-do a single mouse click.
App launcher - Display your favorite applications in a menu and on the panel.
Recently Used (vala based) - Show recently used items in a menu.
Quick Notes & Hot Corners: These existing applets have been rewritten from Python based to Vala based. This has been done to greatly enhance the speed of the applets and make them memory efficient; in addition they have picked up a few enhancements so browse around in the applet setting to discover whats new
New Pomodoro like applet Take-A-Break
QUICKCHAR MINI APP - Quickly find and choose the equivalent locale character for an ascii character. Press Super+Alt+C to call the window. Type a character, and all its derivates will appear. Click one (or tab to the targeted character and press Return) and the character will be pasted into the document. Press again to toggle visibility, or Escape to hide
FUZZYCLOCK APPLET - Shows the time in a Fuzzy Way. Supports 24-hour format Supports Dates Supports Horizontal Panels
Fuzzy
This is a new applet contributed by community member Adam Dyess - Thanks Adam!
WORKSPACE STOPWATCH APPLET - Workspace Timer Applet is an applet to keep track of usage per workspace, e.g. to find out how much minutes/hours were actually spent on a job. Workspaces can be freely named, custom names and all data are rmembered, also after logout/restart, until the RESET button is pressed. The log file is updated on workspace switch/clicking the icon for popup or else every 30 seconds. Time during suspend is automatically retracted from a workspace time.
BUDGIE-BRIGHTNESS-CONTROLLER APPLET - Brightness Controller is a Budgie Desktop applet allowing you to control the desktop/laptop brightness via your hardware brightness controller or via Xorg as a fallback.
Brightnesscontroller
BUDGIE STATUS-NOTIFIER - display status notifications
Showtime - Adds automatic multi-monitor support for Showtime
Display Window Mover applet correctly on primary monitor when multiple monitors are available
Rework Dropby to display in an independent window rather than a popup - this resolves panel freeze issues.
Weathershow applet - Display temperature correctly on vertical panels
Tweaked budgie-pixel-saver-applet to correctly handle displaying Titles/Titles & Buttons/Buttons
All these productivity applets and mini-apps are now available from Budgie Welcome - select Menu - Budgie Applets
WINDOW PREVIEWS
Window previews (Alt Tab replacement) has been rewritten in vala - faster with per workspace/all workspaces and shift backwards controls. Additionally, Alt Above-Tab shows windows of the currently active application only.
Previews
Remember, budgie-applets showcases many more indie developer applets
In total Ubuntu Budgie users have direct install access to 35 budgie applets and budgie mini-apps through budgie-welcome
If you want to showcase your applet in UB contact us and let us know about your project. Daily builds for budgie-extras is available - so to get the latest (warts and all) ppa:ubuntubudgie-dev/budgie-extras-daily
Budgie Welcome
Budgie Themes & Layouts
We have shipped for a few releases now the ability via one-click to completely update the look of your desktop - cursors, icons, themes etc. From 20.04, this makeover ability can now be individually applied i.e. just the theme, or icon etc. giving you an easy way to mix and match between different makeovers.
Makeover
Latest version of vimix theme available through Menu - Budgie Themes & Layouts is shipped in 20.04 together with QogirBudgie (available by default on the installation)
Default Applications
Drawing
Drawing
We are pleased to ship by default the stylish new Drawing application. This application is a basic image editor, similar to Microsoft Paint, but aiming at the GNOME based desktops such as GNOME Shell and Budgie Desktop. PNG, JPEG and BMP format files are supported.
GNOME Firmware
Ubuntu Budgie now ships with GNOME Firmware - it is really a power user tool to resolve those specific vendor device issues that can be resolved by firmware. We don't expect you to generally use this to update stuff - only update if you are having issues that cannot be resolved by updating the linux kernel. Also to note - not all manufacturers release firmware that can be installed via linux - you may still have to resort to MS Windows based upgrades.
Celluloid
Celluloid
Celluloid has now replaced gnome-mpv
Samba
Samba has been removed as a default install
Android Phone integration
Ubuntu Budgie now provides seamless desktop-to/from-android phone transfer capabilities - we now ship with go-mtpfs by default. Simply plug-in your android phone and it will appear automatically in nemo allowing you to copy files/photos etc between your phone and the desktop.
ACCESSIBILITY
We have taken a closer look at making our distro more easy to use for those of us who need just a little extra help. This is where we need your help. What tricks & techniques are you aware of that helps improve the accessibility of the desktop?
We have incorporated a super useful screen magnifier - just enable via the Settings - Accessibility options
Bind both Super + Alt + = and Super + Alt + + as zoom-in keys
Also we have included the on-screen keyboard (onboard) ### NVIDIA
Our distro now includes the NVIDIA proprietary driver sets on its ISO. This allows NVIDIA users to install & configure drivers out of the box without needing an internet connection. Just click the wifi installer option to install the correct NVIDIA driver for your computer - obviously assuming that your hardware needs it.
Likewise, we have added support for Optimus graphics switching direct from the budgie panel. If you have Optimus graphics look for the intel/nvidia icon to switch between your intel & nvidia GPUs.
Nvidia Menu
KEY FEATURES AVAILABLE TO UB FROM UBUNTU
Linux kernel v5.4
GNOME 3.36 applications
Latest version of LibreOffice 6.4
Latest ZFS support with automatic APT rollback support
A shed-load of fixes throughout the Ubuntu stack - congrats on all Canonical, Ubuntu devs, Debian devs and all devs in the free software community for all of their hard-work which everyone should be pleased about 🙂
What does all that mean - most cutting edge yet stable software that brings great benefits for brand new hardware compatibility - including support for the very latest games.
UB MAINTAINED PACKAGES
Apart from the above (!) UB maintains many Debian packages. New versions available in 20.04 include:
Slick Greeter
Login Window Preferences
DesktopFolder
ISSUES RESOLVED:
GNOME Software Updates tab has been hidden - it doesn't really work and the recommended update process is via Menu - Software & Updates
Fixed budgie-desktop bug to allow custom layouts that include left & right panels.
Papercut - uninstalling default applets now no longer uninstalls the Ubuntu Budgie desktop environment.
Budgie Desktop now includes a patch developed by myself hopefully to reduce the number of crash reports you see on first logon.
KNOWN ISSUES:
When installed on default VirtualBox settings or QEMU, on first logon the session will crash when budgie-welcome is first open. The session also crashes when other applications such as Settings is open. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg-server/+bug/1745345
For virtualbox ensure the VMSVGA graphics driver is used in the virtual machine settings
For QEMU use the VMVGA graphics driver.
Alternatively for both uninstall the gstreamer1.0-vaapi package
If you find that after the upgrade clicking the menu button crashes the panel, then CTRL+ALT+T to open a terminal then run:
Please read the Ubuntu Release notes which covers issues common to all Ubuntu Flavors.
UPGRADING
HOW TO UPGRADE FROM 18.10/19.04/19.10 TO 20.04
IMPORTANT: remember to double-check you have the following vital package before you upgrade:
sudo apt install ubuntu-budgie-desktop
After the release of 20.04, you will be offered to upgrade when you run Software & Updates. Alternatively, from a command line run:
update-manager
IMPORTANT We do not recommend running do-release-upgrade from a Tilix terminal since this will hang during the upgrade. If you want to use do-release-upgrade switch to a TTY and login before running the command.
Some of the packages that were installed as part of the Ubuntu Budgie backports PPA (ppa:ubuntubudgie/backports) will be uninstalled as part of the upgrade. Use budgie-welcome to reinstall anything that is removed.
HOW TO UPGRADE FROM 18.04.4
18.04 LTS users using the 64bit edition will be offered the upgrade to 20.04 in July/August 2020 when the first point release (20.04.1) is made available. The first few months (April to July) are used to iron out those particularly troublesome issues not found at the initial release. So be patient and you will be rewarded with an upgrade window notification when to move to 20.04.
The Caffeine application indicator will be removed as part of the upgrade process. You can replace this with the native budgie caffeine applet in budgie-desktop-settings - panel - add applets
To get the 20.04 panel layout use the Menu - Budgie themes & Layouts application.
18.04 LTS users using the 32bit edition cannot upgrade to 20.04 - 32bit support was dropped after 18.04.
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Ubuntu Budgie v20.04 (Focal Fossa) Release: April 23rd, 2020
Ubuntu Budgie 20.04 is a LTS (Long Term Support) release that will be supported for 3 years until April 2023. Long Term Releases provide assured stability over a longer term than a standard 9 month release. Critical and stability fixes will be released for all the supported Ubuntu Budgie components; these will be undertaken by ourselves, Canonical and the wider Ubuntu community.
This is the 19.10 upgraders release note.
If you are upgrading from 18.04.4 then we have a release note more applicable to you!
In these release notes the areas covered are:
New features and enhancements
Issues Resolved
Upgrading from 18.04 / 19.10 Ubuntu Budgie
Known Issues when upgrading
Where to download Ubuntu Budgie
UB Desktop 20.04
NEW FEATURES AND ENHANCEMENTS
20.04 STUFF TO LOOK OUT FOR
Stylish menu applet as the default
budgie based network manager applet as the default
Desktop Layouts - choose your default desktop layout with one click
Wallstreet - budgie friendly and lightweight desktop wallpaper rotator
4K resolution friendly budgie desktop and budgie applet support
GNOME Firmware and Drawing are new default applications
Ubuntu Budgie Community Wallpapers for 20.04 - there was a community contest to choose its favourite wallpapers - and the community certainly contributed amazing desktop images. I hope you like them. We will next run a community contest for the 22.04 LTS
All our backport packages have now been rebuilt for 20.04 - look out for nemo-share and nemo-dropbox and also skippy-xd is available through backports.
Budgie Welcome - Translation team has been bustling - many more languages now available
Latest versions of our default themes Pocillo & QogirBudgie
BUDGIE DESKTOP:
Once again Ubuntu Budgie continues to take the lead to ensure budgie desktop remains compatible with the latest GNOME stack. This time around the development has been fairly smooth and it should be straightforward for all distros uplifting to GNOME 3.36.
Ubuntu Budgie 20.04 LTS ships with budgie-desktop v10.5.1.
“Bug fixes are the cornerstone of Budgie 10.5 series releases, ensuring existing Budgie user experiences are smoother than ever.
Budgie 10.5.1 has many bug fixes:
Classic Budgie Menu: Menu items are now sorted using locale linguist rules.
IconTasklist: Fixed instances of window tracking in multi-window scenarios
IconTasklist: Fixed the ability to move non-favourited running applications / windows in IconTasklist across grouping and non-grouping modes.
Raven: Notification body alignment is now properly justified.
Raven: Application controls in the Sound applet will now handle Gvc ChannelMap changes. This is useful since some applications do not provide accurate GvcStream volume immediately when creating their stream, such as Firefox when starting a video. Applications like Firefox more accurately reflect muted states over Gvc.
Polkit: Correctly handle user dismissing authentication dialogs
Window Manager: Enforced is an instant auto raise of windows when the focus-mode is set to mouse over / mouse focus and 250ms on click, resulting in speedy window raising.
Budgie 10.5.1 introduces a few new goodies to make your Budgie experience even better!
Budgie 10.5.1 introduces hinting and anti-aliasing settings in the Fonts section of Budgie Desktop Settings, allowing you even more flexibility with how document, interface, monospace, and window title fonts render:
For font hinting, you can choose between a range of options ranging from no font hinting to full font hinting.
For antialiasing, you can choose between subpixel antialiasing, standard grayscale, and no antialiasing.
Icon Tasklist Hover:
If you have a single window open for a given IconButton in the Icon Tasklist, the tooltip when you hover over is shown.
Workspaces:
Budgie 10.5.1 introduces the ability to have persistent workspaces created at the launch of Budgie, with a configurable amount of default workspaces.
Under the Desktop section of Budgie Desktop Settings, you'll find a new option called “Number of virtual desktops”, where you can go from just having one workspace up to eight! A perfect opportunity to hide away all those Electron apps you're ashamed to be running!
If you want more workspaces dynamically, you can also use the Workspace Applet to add more as you need them.”
Ubuntu Budgie Experience
The following areas have been added or changed to enhance our budgie-desktop implementation:
System Tray applet now dropped as a default - it is buggy and the network manager applet is now/intended as a default
At the same time - added the ability to not run network-manager applet - this ensures the buggy system tray icon no longer appears
CTRL+ALT+left/right swaps workspaces without a workspace indicator in the middle of the screen. This has been done to speed up switching workspaces & most importantly removes the possibility of crashes due to conflicts with the workspace animations
Event alerts sounds are disabled by default now - if you want alert sounds choose the alert noise you want and sound level in Settings - Sound
HiDPI (4K) support for Budgie applets (both in built-in and third-party) and their popup functionality
Fix for keyboard shortcuts mysteriously going missing
Fix for multimonitors to stop windows overlapping the top-bar when maximised
Switch from qt5-style-plugins to qt5ct for QT app styling - apps such as vlc. You should see a QT5 Config app now in the menu to help you configure styling of QT apps. Also to note - some QT5 apps such as VLC also have styling options built in as well.
Moka based icons revised to capture GNOME 3.32/3.34 and 3.36 changes
Support large global menu in budgie-desktop panel
Better lock screen styling - buttons are now flat and match the lock screen dialog
Pixel Saver & Pocillo: Close button is now styled to match CSD windows
Note also GNOME Upstream have now removed the split of Application Menus from the Window menu. So for Budgie this means there is no separate “Application” icon in the decoration to show the appmenu. Appmenus are now combined in the Window menu.
Desktop Layouts
For 20.04 LTS we now support a one click method to set up your desktop with a look and feel that you are most comfortable with.
Layouts
Accessed through the Menu - Themes & Layouts, the following layouts can be used:
Traditional Budgie
Classic Ubuntu Budgie
Ubuntu Budgie
Cupertino
The One
redmond
Choosing a layout replaces your current setup with a predefined panel and applet layout. Combine that with the theme makeover option, you now have a extremely fast method to configure Ubuntu Budgie the way you want to.
BUDGIE APPLETS & BUDGIE MINI-APPS
Debuting for 20.04 are:
Budgie Applications Menu
We are pleased to ship by default our take on a simple but elegant menu for our desktop. Heavily based upon the good work of the ElementaryOS crew, this menu displays your installed applications via a Grid View as well as the traditional category view budgie users know and love.
Desktop with Application Menu
… with powerstrip
Menu with Powerstrip
We have enhanced the menu to optionally show the budgie powerstrip - so for those users who dont want to use the default power applet in the panel.
The menu has many extra features - e.g. right click action options for those applications live steam that offer them.
Menu with application options
… a couple of hidden extras - type 2+2 - its a built in calculator
or type ubuntubudgie.org into the search.
Again optionally - if you install zeitgeist the menu will start to learn what you frequently search for - and the search results be more tailored to your frequent requests - i.e. find things first time.
Network Manager Applet
Budgie Desktop has shipped with a legacy network manager icon in the panel. It has never integrated very well - and together with the buggy system tray weird icon effects were visible on logon.
Network Manager Applet
Enter the native Network Manager budgie applet. This integrates fully with our budgie desktop. We have tidied up and built upon the good work of the Daniel Pinto (original creator) and the ElementaryOS team from which the budgie-applet was derived from.
Budgie Window Shuffler
Focal's Window Shuffler is a completely rewritten and re- designed version of Budgie's tiling add-on. Apart from the drastically improved responsiveness, features now include:
Setting margins and padding of the window grid
Shuffler Preview
Shortcuts for snapping windows to the nearest tile
Shortcuts for resizing windows in all directions
Scroll over the GUI grid to set its shade
Targeted position preview when using the GUI grid
Shuffler: Preview
Animated window movement when using shortcuts to move windows
Swapping windows in case a window is moved to an existing window's position
Shortcuts for Quarter / half tiling
The new Shuffler Control window
Shuffler Controls
Wallstreet
One request that continually was made was to have the ability to rotate through a folder full of photos and display on your desktop. We know there are many heavy-weight tools out there - but what our community wanted is a simple - very lightweight solution built into the desktop.
Wallstreet Controls
Enter - WallStreet - a new lightweight wallpaper rotator every x minutes. Just enable it through the menu - wallstreet control
Visual-Space
New applet budgie-visualspace-applet - a stylish compact workspace switcher as a default on the panel.
Visualspace
So this desktop focused productivity tool is used if you have lots of windows spread over your desktop and/or between workspaces - you can quickly focus that window without having to alt-tab through everything.
Dropby
Dropby applet makes a reappearance as a default panel applet
Dropby
When any USB device is connected then you have easy access to it - with the ability to copy its contents, open to see what is on it and to eject the device safely directly from a popup and panel applet.
Applet Updates
Application Indicator applet - don't show missing image icons for google hangouts extension i.e. Chrome/Chromium have now removed appindicator support
Weathershow applet - Display temperature correctly on vertical panels
Tweaked budgie-pixel-saver-applet to correctly handle displaying Titles/Titles & Buttons/Buttons
All these productivity applets and mini-apps are now available from Budgie Welcome - select Menu - Budgie Applets
Remember, budgie-applets showcases many more indie developer applets
In total Ubuntu Budgie users have direct install access to 35 budgie applets and budgie mini-apps through budgie-welcome
If you want to showcase your applet in UB contact us and let us know about your project.
Daily builds for budgie-extras is available - so to get the latest (warts and all) ppa:ubuntubudgie-dev/budgie-extras-daily
Budgie Welcome
Budgie Themes & Layouts
We have shipped for a few releases now the ability via one-click to completely update the look of your desktop - cursors, icons, themes etc. From 20.04, this makeover ability can now be individually applied i.e. just the theme, or icon etc. giving you an easy way to mix and match between different makeovers.
Makeover
Latest version of vimix theme available through Menu - Budgie Themes & Layouts is shipped in 20.04 together with QogirBudgie (available by default on the installation)
Default Applications
Drawing
Drawing
We are pleased to ship by default the stylish new Drawing application. This application is a basic image editor, similar to Microsoft Paint, but aiming at the GNOME based desktops such as GNOME Shell and Budgie Desktop.
PNG, JPEG and BMP format files are supported.
GNOME Firmware
Ubuntu Budgie now ships with GNOME Firmware - it is really a power user tool to resolve those specific vendor device issues that can be resolved by firmware. We don't expect you to generally use this to update stuff - only update if you are having issues that cannot be resolved by updating the linux kernel. Also to note - not all manufacturers release firmware that can be installed via linux - you may still have to resort to MS Windows based upgrades.
Celluloid
Celluloid
Celluloid has now replaced gnome-mpv
Samba
Samba has been removed as a default install
Android Phone integration
Ubuntu Budgie now provides seamless desktop-to/from-android phone transfer capabilities - we now ship with go-mtpfs by default. Simply plug-in your android phone and it will appear automatically in nemo allowing you to copy files/photos etc between your phone and the desktop.
KEY FEATURES AVAILABLE TO UB FROM UBUNTU
Linux kernel v5.4
GNOME 3.36 applications
Latest version of LibreOffice 6.4
Latest ZFS support with automatic APT rollback support
A shed-load of fixes throughout the Ubuntu stack - congrats on all Canonical, Ubuntu devs, Debian devs and all devs in the free software community for all of their hard-work which everyone should be pleased about 🙂
What does all that mean - most cutting edge yet stable software that brings great benefits for brand new hardware compatibility - including support for the very latest games.
UB MAINTAINED PACKAGES
Apart from the above (!) UB maintains many Debian packages. New versions available in 20.04 include:
Slick Greeter
Login Window Preferences
DesktopFolder
ISSUES RESOLVED:
Resolve the slow startup of QT based apps in 19.10.
Reduction of the number of error reports seen on logout and login
GNOME Software Updates tab has been hidden - it doesn’t really work and the recommended update process is via Menu - Software & Updates
Fixed budgie-desktop bug to allow custom layouts that include left & right panels.
Papercut - uninstalling default applets now no longer uninstalls the Ubuntu Budgie desktop environment.
F12 no longer launches Tilix - this was interfering with a common browser keyboard shortcut
Budgie Desktop now includes a patch developed by myself hopefully to reduce the number of crash reports you see on first logon.
KNOWN ISSUES:
When installed on default VirtualBox settings or QEMU, on first logon the session will crash when budgie-welcome is first open. The session also crashes when other applications such as Settings is open. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg-server/+bug/1745345
For virtualbox ensure the VMSVGA graphics driver is used in the virtual machine settings
For QEMU use the VMVGA graphics driver.
Alternatively for both uninstall the gstreamer1.0-vaapi package
If you find that after the upgrade clicking the menu button crashes the panel, then CTRL+ALT+T to open a terminal then run:
Please read the Ubuntu Release notes which covers issues common to all Ubuntu Flavors.
UPGRADING
HOW TO UPGRADE FROM 18.10/19.04/19.10 TO 20.04
IMPORTANT: remember to double-check you have the following vital package before you upgrade:
sudo apt install ubuntu-budgie-desktop
After the release of 20.04, you will be offered to upgrade when you run Software & Updates. Alternatively, from a command line run:
update-manager
IMPORTANT We do not recommend running do-release-upgrade from a Tilix terminal since this will hang during the upgrade. If you want to use do-release-upgrade switch to a TTY and login before running the command.
Some of the packages that were installed as part of the Ubuntu Budgie backports PPA (ppa:ubuntubudgie/backports) will be uninstalled as part of the upgrade. Use budgie-welcome to reinstall anything that is removed.
HOW TO UPGRADE FROM 18.04.4
18.04 LTS users using the 64bit edition will be offered the upgrade to 20.04 in July/August 2020 when the first point release (20.04.1) is made available. The first few months (April to July) are used to iron out those particularly troublesome issues not found at the initial release. So be patient and you will be rewarded with an upgrade window notification when to move to 20.04.
The Caffeine application indicator will be removed as part of the upgrade process. You can replace this with the native budgie caffeine applet in budgie-desktop-settings - panel - add applets
To get the 20.04 panel layout use the Menu - Budgie themes & Layouts application.
18.04 LTS users using the 32bit edition cannot upgrade to 20.04 - 32bit support was dropped after 18.04.
We just wanted to thank our infrastructure sponsors who help us keep the lights on.
DIGITAL OCEAN
On a mission to simplify cloud computing so developers and their teams can spend more time building software that changes the world.
DISCOURSE
Discourse is the 100% open source discussion platform built for the next decade of the Internet. Use it as a mailing list, discussion forum, long-form chat room, and more!
STATUS.IO
Status.io was built to help companies enhance transparency and keep their customers in the loop during downtime. The Status.io platform enables organizations to maintain a customized public system status page, external to their infrastructure, that always displays the current health of their app, website or service.
UpCloud
Cloud hosting for developers - Platinum client hardware partner for the Ubuntu Budgie team
We are pleased to announce the release of the next version of our distro, our fourth LTS point release as an official flavor of the Ubuntu family.
The LTS version is supported for 3 years while the regular releases are supported for 9 months.
The new release rolls-up various fixes and optimizations that have been released since the 18.04.3 release in August:
The kernel and graphics found in 19.10 have been backported to 18.04. This is part of the Hardware-Enablement-Stack release and 18.04 users who install the HWE (see later) are automatically upgraded to the next kernel and graphics stack approx 3-4 months after an interim release. So 18.04.3 users will see the new packages appearing now.
Budgie Welcome updates include lots more translation updates.
For the more adventurous we have the 10.5 budgie desktop in our backports repository. Just enable via budgie-welcome - recommendations. For those that are using 10.5 we have backported stability fixes such as:
keyboard shortcuts not working on logon
reduction on the occasional crash reports when logging in.
We also inherits hundreds of stability, bug-fixes and optimizations made to the underlying Ubuntu repositories. Many thanks to all the volunteers, Debian & Ubuntu maintainers and Canonical employees who have done such a sterling job packaging the changes that many more developers from all over the world have resolved. The power of FOSS that we are all proud to be part of.
You can read more about 18.04 via our release notes.
Download links and installation guide are provided. As always - do check the md5sum hash value of the downloaded ISO - this really does help you get on with a flying start for your install.
As always, upgrades to the latest version of Ubuntu are entirely free of charge.
We recommend that all users read the the Ubuntu 18.04 release notes, which document caveats and workarounds for known issues affecting all flavours including Ubuntu Budgie. They are available at:
The Ubuntu LTS enablement (also called HWE or Hardware Enablement) stacks provide newer kernel and X support for existing Ubuntu LTS releases. These enablement stacks can be installed manually but are also available when installing with Ubuntu LTS point release media such as 18.04.4
We would stress - if everything is working as you expect, there is no need to change to the HWE. If you need newer graphics for applications and games, or if you are moving your installation to newer hardware then you may wish to consider uplifting your installation to the HWE.
To install the HWE (only applies to everyone who installed at 18.04 and 18.04.1):
32 bit support is something we have committed to support for the duration of the LTS period. The vast majority of computers today will run the 64bit ISO just fine - so please use that first.
32bit HWE intel graphics may cause issues with either booting or after installation.
If you have a question, or if you think you may have found a bug but aren't sure, you can try asking in any of the following places:
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