We are pleased to announce the release of the next version of our distro, 21.04.
This is a regular release supported for 9 months. For those looking for a longer term support release we recommend our 20.04 LTS version which is supported for 3 years.
Key highlights:
Release of our first Raspberry Pi image. Thanks to new team member Sam, we are very proud of the work done and the positive feedback received from all beta testers. Release Notes
A huge 21.04 regular release.
brand new budgie-desktop version
Layouts capability of our Window Shuffler
Refinements of our own unique WIndow Tiling capability – we have also received feedback that this works on Mate, GNOME Shell (Xorg), XFCE. So do give ‘Window Shuffler’ a try on your desktop.
Brand new Mojave makeover in Budgie Themes & Layouts
Brand new WhiteSur makeover in Budgie Themes & Layouts
Brand new applets:
budgie-clipboard-applet
budgie-analogue-applet
We also inherit 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.
This is the power of FOSS that we are all proud to be part of.
Download links and installation guide are provided. As always – do check the md256sum hash value of the downloaded ISO – this really does help you get a flying start for your install.
Remember, upgrades to the latest version of Ubuntu are entirely free of charge.
We recommend that all users read the the Ubuntu 21.04 Release Notes, which document caveats and workarounds for known issues affecting all flavours including Ubuntu Budgie.
As part of our commitment to be transparent with the community, the team is pleased to present a short statement of our financial position covering 2020 to 2021.
History
Budgie Remix had launched in April 2016
In Nov 2016 Ubuntu Budgie was granted the status as an official community flavour with Ubuntu/Canonical.
17.04 was our first release official release as a flavour.
18.04 was our first Long Term Schedule release
20.04 is our second Long Term Schedule release
Goals
As we close off our fiscal year for 2021 (Apr 2020 – Mar 31, 2021), the financial position of the project is very healthy. We have met several goals this year and including our stretch goal:
LTS Fiscal Goal – ensure that the costs to support a three-year LTS were in place.
Stretch Goal – ensure we have reserves to meet five years of costs (2020 – 2024).
Operating Costs
Infrastructure costs relating to the website, test build servers, domain registrations
Reserves are in place as a contingency to account for unexpected expenses.
For 2020-2021 we did have a handful of Patreon donors. Please do consider becoming a Patreon since this gives Ubuntu Budgie a regular income.
PayPal
We have had many individuals who donate via Paypal, and we thank you all!
Sponsorship
Digital Ocean
We have had a significant vote of confidence by DigitalOcean paying for all of our 2017-2020 hosting and infrastructure fees and we hope to continue our partnership through the next fiscal year as well. https://www.digitalocean.com
Discourse
Our community support is via a hosted discourse forum which was generously provided through sponsorship as well. https://www.discourse.org/
Status.io
While this is yet to be implemented on our part, Status.io has provided a sponsorship that will help us keep our community up to date with system interruptions in our infrastructure. https://status.io
SerpAPI.com
SerpAPI has invested a substantial contribution in Ubuntu Budgie. We are very grateful for their generosity and their commitment to opensource projects such as our own.
https://serpapi.com/
Future Goals
Through your contributions we have purchased development laptop which has proven invaluable to support development and support across all our supported platforms – 18.04, 19.04, 20.04, 20.10 and developing 21.04. We’ll be looking closely this year towards multimonitor development.
We have also purchased a Raspberry Pi4 with related equipment which as proven invaluable to help develop our first 21.04 Raspberry Pi Ubuntu Budgie image.
Contributions
This year our community has contributed approx £5507 which is up from last year by almost approx £2250
We have a nominal £8742 in the bank, with set-aside costs for 2020 to 2024 + reserves.
Our confidence level for our financial viability is as close to 100% as you can get.
As a comparison:
2016-2017, our community contributed £248.90 with no set-aside costs and no reserves
2017-2018, our community contributed £2460 with set-aside costs for 2018 to 2022 + reserves
2018-2019, our community contributed £2919 with set-aside costs for 2019 to 2023 + reserves
2019-2020, our community contributed £3258 with set-aside costs for 2020 to 2024 + reserves
With your help, we look forward to making more donations to developers and organisations who have helped Ubuntu Budgie.
The Team
All Ubuntu Budgie team members including myself are volunteers. At this point we the team do not benefit financially in anyway from your generosity. If we had one or more full-time developers, then the speed of development and improvement would be exponentially higher. For this to become fiscally possible, the project would need to grow to approx 10x the current contribution rate to achieve that.
Canonical Support
Although we are an official flavour of the Ubuntu Family, we do not receive any financial help from Canonical. Canonical supports Ubuntu Budgie through their launchpad build systems and ISO distribution costs.
Thank You
All donors are displayed on our website unless you specifically request not to be presented.
Donations
If you would like to support Ubuntu Budgie, please feel free to donate to the project through either Paypal or Patreon.
Thank you to all who have chosen to join our community.
Ubuntu Budgie v21.04 (Hirsute Hippo) Release: 22nd April, 2021
Ubuntu Budgie 21.04 is a normal release that will be supported for 9 months until Jan 2022. Long Term Releases such as 20.04.2 provide assured stability over a longer term (3 yrs) 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.
Ubuntu Budgie is the sum of many hundreds of developers working together.
For 21.04 your Ubuntu Budgie team have unfortunately done a bad thing … we have rocked our largest release ever…
For 21.04 we now have our very first Raspberry Pi 4 image – this is an area lots of members from the UB community have talked about over the years – and its thanks to new team member Sam Lane that we have made this a reality. Do checkout our release notes specifically for the Raspberry Pi 4
Budgie Desktop has now been uplifted to the very latest v10.5.2. We are pleased as a team to have contributed to this release – the results from the whole budgie developer community really shows in 21.04
We now include another Mac like makeover using the fabulous WhiteSur theme and icons through a click of a button. We have also backported this to 20.04 LTS and 21.04.
Also, we also have show-cased two new optional applets from the budgie developer community. Again we have backported these and made available to 20.04 LTS and 21.04.
Our desktop has been refreshed – we now sport a darker theme as a default with a brand new makeup for our Pocillo icons.
Windows Shuffler now includes a key new capability called Layouts. It’s now easy to define your work environment (a "Layout"), consisting of a set of arranged windows and/or applications. Just one click away.
Taken together, all the smaller changes plus the larger enhancements shapes our distro to be fully flexible and customisable to your workflow; with sane defaults to provide a first rate experience from the get-go.
Applets and mini-apps
Window Shuffler – Window Rules: Add ability to set rules for specific applications on which position / size / monitor new windows should be launched.
Window Shuffler – Layouts: Add the ability to launch and arrange a group of windows and/or applications in a single click.
Applications Menu:
Cosmetic – labels on budgie-desktop-settings are left aligned.
from upstream Terminal apps are no-longer shown in the menu such as xterm
QuickChar installation is now easier on other on Debian based distro’s – should not now need to patch your install locations
A new independent applet called budgie-clipboard-applet is now available – backported to 20.04 and 20.10 – look out for it via Menu – Budgie Extras
Bug fix for the applications menu so that rollover menus settings is remembered on logon.
The number of cities that our weather applet can now search has increased from 22.6k to 185k
Change to budgie-pixel-saver-applet. It now handles blacklisting of apps to stop it trying to add window decorations where a window didn’t have one in the first place. e.g. Firefox, Telegram and Ulauncher. This has been backported to 20.04 & 20.10 as well.
Budgie Desktop
v10.5.2 abridged upstream Solus release note summary here
Budgie 10.5.2 introduces new goodies to make your Budgie experience even better!
Budgie Menu has received various refinements for this release:
Budgie Menu introduces additional checks for an application’s DesktopAppInfo, ensuring that we consistently skip apps and exclude them from calculations when they have Hidden or NoDisplay set, as well as if the NotShowIn contains Budgie.
Budgie Menu will no longer show empty categories, a common occurrence when installing applications via WINE.
Budgie Menu will now alphabetically sort category names, which is useful when you have custom user desktop directories for applications. They are no longer forced to be below default system-wide desktop directories such as Internet / Networking, Office, Sound & Video, etc.
Applications which utilize pkexec in their desktop info will now spawn an asynchronous process, with pkexec being the command and passing the rest of the command line content as arguments.
The Icon Tasklist applet has seen new features and behaviour refinements in Budgie 10.5.2.
There are now two new options available, disabled by default, to launch a new instance of an application via the respective button for the application: middle click and double click. This expands on our existing option to create a new instance of an application by clicking the + button in the popover of each Icon Button.
The behavior of the Icon Tasklist has been refined in Budgie 10.5.2. We have consolidated duplicate logic in other less used classes into our dedicated application state tracking class, which is used by the Icon Tasklist and IconPopover to provide a list of running applications, their AppInfo, any group they belong to, and more. This consolidation has meant more consistent “skip pager” checks, as well as more consistent rejection of various types of windows, such as docks, apps with splashscreens and utilities e.g. controls for an emulator.
Thanks to this more consistent window type rejection, we are able to more closely discern between what is budgie-panel versus what is budgie-desktop-settings, which is part of the panel but is otherwise a NORMAL type application. This enabled us to resolve an issue where the pin and new instance buttons were being unintentionally shown, as well as an issue where you could not close Budgie Desktop Settings via the IconPopover controls (right click popover for each Icon Button in the tasklist).
After close discussions with members of the community on our forums on the expected behaviour of the Icon Tasklist, time was spent refining the behaviour of Icon Tasklist and individual Icon Buttons to be more consistent. Here are some examples:
a. When the “Show All Windows on Click” option is enabled, we will now more consistently show or minimize all windows on click if one of them is currently active.
b. If only one instance of an application is open and it is on another workspace (in this case the “Restrict to Workspace” option is not enabled), we switch to that workspace and unminimize the window (since the chances are you probably want to see the application in the first place).
We are always listening to feedback on how to improve the behaviour of Icon Tasklist while ensuring it remains simple and approachable to use. If you have an idea on how to improve it further, feel free to file an issue on Budgie’s issue tracker.
The Sound applet has seen a redesign and now features a dedicated button for mute toggling, as well as leveraging iconography for the System Settings button rather than text.
Dating back to the days of Budgie 7 in 2014, Budgie had been using an na-tray implementation also seen in desktop environments such as Cinnamon for the creation and management of system tray icons. Thanks to the incredible work by Solus contributor Campbell Jones, the System Tray has been completely rewritten from scratch, supporting tray icons leveraging the XEmbed Protocol. This new implementation resolves numerous issues such as:
Background icons not refreshing, resulting in instances where it may appear that multiple icons are overlapping.
Tray icons not consistently hiding when a panel hides (during “Intelligent” mode).
Tray icons blinking when panel transparency is set to “Dynamic”
Tray icons getting hidden when switching icon themes.
Additionally, a configuration option has been added for the System Tray that enables the setting of spacing between individual icons, making it perfect for those that want both their applets and tray icons to be equidistant!
Budgie Desktop View has been updated to provide a clearer differentiation between removing a Panel and removing an applet from a Panel. A dedicated button for removing a panel has been added below the Panel’s applet list, with a description that makes its purpose clearer. This button will not appear when you only have one panel in your Budgie setup. Building on this, we have removed the option to disable the panel removal confirmation dialog. From user reports, the consensus was that this option was too easy to enable, would result in accidental permanent removal of panels more frequently than desired, and lacked a clear user-friendly method to re-enable the prompt.
For those which use Budgie in another language than English, the menu items presented when adding a new Autostart application or command via the Autostart section are now translatable. For any language which has the terms translated, those will be used instead.
Budgie 10.5.2 is the first release of Budgie to feature a new budgie specific desktop icons implementation. Whilst not the default in Ubuntu Budgie, it is available to be installed called budgie-desktop-view.
This budgie specific implementation has been to introduce via a new, separate project that could be iterated on independently from Budgie Desktop itself. This project needed to be rigorously focused and developed with an understanding of the scope and intent of the project, not trying to be a file manager but rather a method of quickly accessing the content and applications you consider most important.
Budgie has always been about striking a balance in customization and that extends to the support we provide downstreams like Ubuntu Budgie as well. That is why we worked hard on introducing a new vendor-oriented mechanism to enable downstreams to choose a desktop icons implementation that fits them and their users best. Alongside our own “native” Budgie Desktop View implementation, we are providing official support in the Budgie Desktop Settings application for the configuration of DesktopFolder and Nemo.
Raven
Thanks to Solus contributor Evan Maddock, Budgie 10.5.2 introduces a new option to choose which side of the screen Raven should be. Prior to Budgie 10.5.2, Raven would always appear on the left side when the main panel and trigger were on the left, and appear on the right when the main panel was anywhere else.
Users will be able to choose between this behaviour, called “Automatic”, as well as left and right sides!
Translations
Thanks to our incredible community members that have stepped up to translate Budgie, Budgie is now more accessible than ever. Budgie 10.5.2 introduces support for three new languages: Afrikaans, Albanian, and Hindi. Budgie now has 40 languages which have 90% or more coverage and we have seen dedicated translators step up for a wide range of languages, many of which are now completely translated.
We are still working hard to get Budgie translated 100% into many languages. If you are interested in helping translate Budgie into your language, feel free to reach out!
Here are some other aspects of Budgie that received refinements:
Animation disabling: Background transitions and workspace switching are no longer always enabled but now honor the option to disable animations in Budgie Desktop Settings
Budgie’s Application Switcher
a. Typically referred to as the Alt+Tab switcher, this switcher now supports the Ctrl modifier, adding support for more custom keyboard layouts and mappings.
b. We now support an option to show all windows from all workspaces in the switcher, enabling you to switch between applications and workspaces simultaneously.
c. Budgie Run Dialog can now check keywords, improving search and aligning its behaviour closer to that of Budgie Menu.
Caffeine Applet: When Caffeine Mode is enabled, the timer will now update the spin button value based on how many minutes are remaining.
Forward-specific keyboard layout switching can now be done with Alt+Shift.
Transparency is now supported in background images, falling back to the fixed color or gradient behind it.
We now provide an option via GSettings to configure the desired screenshot commands, so downstreams can use alternatives to gnome-screenshot.
In addition to all the quality of life improvements and features we have added, Budgie 10.5.2 introduces many bug fixes including for some issues dating back years to the early days of Budgie 10.
Fix Workspace Applet allowing more than max supported workspace count. We will now return a -1 on our WM AppendNewWorkspace if we are rejecting more additions of workspaces, which informs our WorkspaceApplet to not show the + button (even if set to always show) and reject drag actions onto new workspaces.
Added missing LEFT and RIGHT panel layouts in the manager, which prevented downstreams and users from using panel.ini files with left or right panels.
During panel initialization, we will now appropriately set dock-mode if needed, which fixes an issue where the class would only be applied if the dock mode setting actually changed.
Fix a crash when removing an applet with missing information.
The Tasklist applet will no longer cause the rest of the panel contents to be thrown into the aether when you have many windows open. You will be able to scroll up / down to get all the windows and we will be working on dedicated buttons in the tasklist applet in Budgie 10.5.3. This resolves two bugs, one from 2014 and another from 2017.
Regions which do not have any panel widgets / applets will no longer be shown, allowing applets to take up more space and eliminates weird spacing related issues.
When changing away from dock mode on a panel, we will now correctly remove the dock-mode CSS class.
Chromium-based browser notifications no longer display with broken icon images. This was due to the fact that these browsers would prefix the icon with file:/// and Chromium-based browsers would not pass the correct path. We will now default to the fallback mail-unread-symbolic icon for these applications.
Notifications and Notification Groups can no longer be selected, which would result in a visual change with no obvious or easy way to deselect them. There are no functional changes, as there are no actions which make use of the selection of Notifications or Notification Groups.
Notifications are no longer appended to Notification Groups, resulting in older Notifications being higher in a Notification Group’s list than newer ones.
The Sound widget will no longer allow raising the volume above 100% when the option is off.
The MPRIS player will correct the album art URLs provided by Spotify, which would otherwise be misreported by Spotify, resulting in images which could not be found.
Budgie Popovers will now properly handle window scale factors.
Crash fixes related to the usage of Wnck have been resolved.
Fix some custom keyboard shortcuts and media keys not correctly applying after boot or reboot.
Night Light will now appropriately start or end if an application has the fullscreen state amongst its many states, and not just being fullscreen. This is useful if you have an application which is fullscreen and above or below other windows, is sticky (maintains position regardless of workspace), shaded, etc.
For this release, Ubuntu Budgei also has a fix added for non-english keyboard layouts such as Japanese/Chinese/Korean etc. We have added a bug-fix into budgie-desktop so that Ibus suggestions are displayed.
Themes
The Vimix theme make-over in budgie-themes & layouts was broken – this is now fixed and backported to 20.04 & 20.10
The latest QogirBudgie theme has been updated from upstream with a whole host of fixes.
Pocillo – enhancements to the look and feel:
a. sidebar now is shaded – this is now consistent with the dark variant.
b. similarly all button controls are now shaded
c. Nemo toolbar is also shaded.
d. Budgie Desktop Settings has been tweaked to resolve right-truncated controls.
e. Shadows has been reduced and
f. padding overall has been reduced to give a more compact feeling.
g. Thanks to @UltraBurstXD scrollbars have been restyled with a better colour suited to the different pocillo variants. In addition scrollbars default to a thin style which make then more elegant in our opinion.
Our Pocillo icon theme now inherits from a combination of Tela-Icons and Qogir Panel/symbolic icons
Our default theme is now "Pocillo-dark"
Moka and Faba icons have now been dropped from the default install.
The Mojave gtk theme has been refreshed upstream and is now in budgie welcome for 20.10 and 21.04 users.
The McMojave circle icon theme has been refreshed upstream and is now in budgie welcome for 20.04/20.10 & 21.04 users
Now available in v0.14.0 budgie-welcome is the WhiteSur make-over which includes the whitesur gtk theme/whitesur icons and roboto fonts. budgie welcome and this makeover is also available for 20.04 and 20.10
Both Plata and Evopop have been removed from our Themes and Makeovers due to these themes not having been updated for 6 months or more. We will also be looking much more closely at the existing themes in this screen for 21.10 – where themes do not support GTK+4 they may be also removed.
Budgie Welcome
Themes and Layouts now show a tab-look interface – this should aid discovery of layouts since it appears people couldn’t instantly visualise that option
Budgie Welcome now starts significantly faster on first start
Budgie Welcome uses the latest bootstrap v4 which includes faster display and navigation usage
Analogue Clock Applet added to Menu – Budgie Extras
Our Getting Started guide now covers keyboard shortcuts to move windows to other monitors
Brave can now be installed from Getting Started – Browser Ballot
Browser Ballot is now aware which architecture Welcome is running on – so only browsers applicable to Pi (for example) is displayed
Gutenprint is a Recommended application
Pocillo makeover defaults to dark-theme for 21.04 to correspond to the new default – the standard theme is used for 20.04 and 20.10
Additional
Often requested, htop has now been added as a default install –> this may be removed again if we can’t hide from the menu
We have run a poll with the community and the community have clearly spoken: thunderbird is now the default email client. Geary has been dropped from the ISO.
The backup tool deja-dup has become a great tool for backups and restores and we are more than happy to include this on our ISO out of the box.
Out of the box we now include thousands of printer drivers including support for Epson and Canon printers via printer-driver-gutenprint
We now include sane-airscan which supports thousands of modern network scanners (and a few USB based as well). Use simple-scan to connect to your scanner.
We now include gnome-remote-desktop instead of vino – Use Settings – Sharing to enable. Lookout for the ability to share Media folders, Remote Login (SSH) as well as Screen-sharing (VNC)
Slick Greeter now has the ability to configure the format of the clock – use Login Window to-do this.
Whilst Moka icons is no longer part of our defaults, we continue to look after the package on behalf of Debian and Ubuntu. Lots of proposed pull-requests have been included in our soft-fork to continue making Moka a first class icon set for all users.
Groovy backports have been copied to hirsute
Look out for our 21.04 wallpapers – enjoy!
In Settings – there is now a "Power Mode" section. The performance profile will only be available on systems which provide this functionality.
Some GNOME "40" applications are now in the repository. If they have been compiled with GTK-4 they will be Adwaita themed. This is to be expected since the vast majority of GTK themes only support GTK-3 and GTK-2 at this point in time. Please let us know which apps are Adwaita themed so we can monitor in future how these apps behave in newer themes made available as part of the 21.10 & 22.04 development cycles.
KEY FEATURES AVAILABLE TO UB FROM UBUNTU
Linux kernel v5.11
GNOME 40 applications
Latest version of LibreOffice 7.1
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 21.04 include:
Slick Greeter
Login Window Preferences
DesktopFolder
Arc Theme
KNOWN ISSUES
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.
HOW TO UPGRADE FROM 20.04.2 TO 21.04
Basically you don\’t. You should upgrade to 20.10 first before then upgrading to 21.04
HOW TO UPGRADE FROM 20.10 TO 21.04
IMPORTANT: remember to double-check you have the following vital package before you upgrade:
sudo apt install ubuntu-budgie-desktop
A few days/week or two after the formal release of 21.04 in April you will be automatically offered a graphical prompt to upgrade.
Alternatively, from a command line run:
update-manager
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.
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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.
We are pleased to announce the release of the next version of our distro, the second 20.04 LTS point release.
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 20.04.1 release in August:
The kernel found in 20.10 has been backported to 20.04.2. This is part of the Hardware-Enablement-Stack release. 20.04(.1) users are automatically upgraded to the HWE (see later).
Budgie Welcome updates include lots more translation updates.
Budgie Desktop updates include :
Allow non-xkb layouts to appear and chosen in the keyboard applet (LP: #1902317)
Previews – resolve refreshing when there are no windows such as showtime/weathershow on the desktop
Previews – display previews for apps like libreoffice that change their class name after opening
Previews – fix crash when windows are closed whilst displaying previews
Layouts – fix potential crash condition when nemo is hiding its menu but the global menu was expecting it
Countdown – display correctly on vertical panels
Dropby – ensure dropby displays and works for two or more users on the same machine
Brightness Controller – Brightness control slider now works under GNOME 3.36
Shuffler Control – fixed incorrect label display for CTRL+ALT+1
Network applet – sort VPN list in alphabetical order
Latest translations
Brand new Mojave makeover in Budgie Themes & Layouts
Bug fixes to applets
budgie-sys-monitor,
indicator sysmonitor,
budgie-screenshot-applet,
budgie-pixelsaver-applet,
budgie-haste-applet,
budgie-cpufreq-applet,
budgie-calendar-applet,
budge-browser-profile-applet,
Brand new applets:
budgie-clipboard-applet
budgie-analogue-applet
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.
Download links and installation guide are provided. As always – do check the md256sum hash value of the downloaded ISO – this really does help you get on with a flying start for your install.
Remember, 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.
HWE
The Ubuntu LTS enablement (also called HWE or Hardware Enablement) stack provides newer kernel support for existing Ubuntu LTS releases. This enablement stack will be installed automatically as part of your regular updates if you first installed from 20.04 or 20.04.1.
Ubuntu Budgie v20.10 (Groovy Gorilla) Release: Oct 22nd, 2020
Ubuntu Budgie 20.10 is a normal release that will be supported for 9 months until July 2021. Long Term Releases such as 20.04.1 provide assured stability over a longer term (3 yrs) 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.
Ubuntu Budgie is the sum of many hundreds of developers working together.
For 20.10 your Ubuntu Budgie team have concentrated on paper-cuts – tidying up the rough areas reported by you our community. That’s not to say we as a team haven’t had some fun as well!
Shuffler has had some nice touches including the funky sounding sticky neighbours and also a full CLI to allow the tinkers to fully customise their application arrangements.
Our application menu now leverages the search facility to find the various parts of GNOME Settings. Many icons previously displayed are now stripped out allowing quicker visual access to applications. Also, look out for the optional rollover capability now in the category view.
We now include a full Mac like makeover using the fabulous Mojave theme and icons though a click of a button. We have also backported this to 20.04 LTS.
Also, we have developed an optional applet to replace the menu to present a full-screen application icons display based on a new project called lightpad. Again we have backported this and made available to 20.04 LTS.
Much of the bug-fixes have already been backported to our 20.04 LTS users. We will be continuing to rollout fixes throughout the LTS 3 year cycle.
Taken together, all the smaller changes plus the larger enhancements shapes our distro to be fully flexible and customisable to your workflow; with sane defaults to provide a first rate experience from the get-go.
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 3.38.
Ubuntu Budgie 20.10 ships with a git release of budgie-desktop v10.5.1 which includes everything up-to the 20.10 freeze date.
Patch created to allow you to choose which screenshot app to be invoked when pressing Print, Ctrl Print, Alt Print – dconf-editor is used to change the app
Being a good contributor – we have upstream’d to the budgie-desktop project several 20.04 patches we have developed (Wnck crash, gnome-shell/budgie-desktop conflict as well as the ability to define the print button screenshot app)
Fix created and pull-request made to allow non Latin keyboard layouts from the keyboard applet (to be backported to 20.04)
Started looking at introducing compatibility with GNOME3.38 which will be on 20.10. PR made upstream
Wallpaper changing now respects the animation flag – so if you turn of animations, changing wallpapers occur instantaneously
Fix occasional crash when removing applets from a panel
Upstream has resolved system tray icons breaking on login, resume from suspension
Upstream has resolved Spotify cover art not displaying in raven
Upstream: chromium browser based notifications now display their icons
Upstream has enabled creating new instances of windows via middle click of icon task list applet
Upstream has completely reworked the system tray. This resolves lots of issues including icons appearing to overlap each other.
In raven we display week-numbers by default for the calendar
Patch added to hide the "Default" theme in budgie-desktop-settings which is the Debian specific name for "Adwaita"
Budgie Applets and mini-apps
Hotcorners: Option added to configure hotcorners via budgie-desktop-settings and therefore hide the icon from the panel
Dropby: Applet settings now has the ability to display the USB window notification in any corner you define
Dropby: Animation when copying media so that you now when copying is in progress/finished
Dropby: Crash reports resolved when second user account uses dropby on same machine (also backported to 20.04)
Application Menu: Touch Screen friendly – can now swipe on your touchscreen
Application Menu: Better keyboard navigation from the search to categories etc.
Application Menu: Search bar changes position to the bottom when on a bottom panel
Application Menu: Hide the large number of Settings menu icons shown in the grid view and the System Tools category menu – its more elegant this way – use the search capabilities to find Settings options like bluetooth and sharing etc.
Application Menu: In a similar fashion the logout/restart/suspend/shutdown icons have now been removed. Search actions are now available for these + the ability to "lock" the screen when searching and "hibernate" if you have enabled hibernation separately
Application Menu: Mouse rollover capability in the category view is now available via applet settings
Application Menu: Handling of fractions should be better and more intuitive (e.g. 5.3*0.5 in the search bar)
Application Menu – Category view – styled as a sidebar now
Previews: auto close when app loses focus (also backported to 20.04)
Previews: enable/disabling the capability is now dynamic – there is no need to logout/login
Previews: Multiple Libreoffice windows are previewed correctly to allow switching (also backported to 20.04)
Previews: now displays a tooltip on mouse hover (configurable) to show the full window name
Previews – no longer crashes when there are no windows and you invoke alt+tab multiple times (to be backported to 20.04)
Network: left/right panels do not have a large space when applet placed in end section. (also backported to 20.04)
Network: VPNs listed are now alphabetically sorted to make things easier to find the right VPN (also backported to 20.04)
Brightness Controller applet: Fix to make slider actually work. Should now work against a GNOME 3.36 base (also backported to 20.04)
Window Shuffler – enable/disabling the capability is now dynamic – there is no need to logout/login
Window Shuffler Sticky Neighbours – new capability to resize adjacent windows automatically
(click to launch YouTube video)
Window Shuffler – feedback when trying to tile windows that have a minimum size bigger than the tile placement
Window Shuffler – add CLI option to place apps to any tile position. This allows everyone to script their launch and placement setup
Welcome Layouts – global menu occasionally crashes the panel when using cupertino/theone layouts. For these we now re-enable the nemo menu – for other layouts we hide the menu (remember to use Alt to show the menu) (also backported to 20.04)
Made more distro friendly: Some distros don’t use some stuff located in /usr/bin and other file locations. We have now reworked the vala applets/mini apps to compile to user-defined system locations (i.e. via meson –bindir –sysconfdir –prefix –libdir)
Countdown: This applet is now vertical panel friendly with icons and text respecting the space available on vertical panels (also backported to 20.04)
New applet: Desktop fullscreen applauncher called budgie-lightpad-applet
budgie-workspace-wallpaper-applet has been rewritten in Vala. This has been done primarily to ensure no inadvertent panel crashes. In addition it takes into account the budgie desktop changes we made to switch wallpapers almost instantaneously (without animation) when switching workspaces.
WeatherShow – add the ability to display a custom location for the weather city
QuickChar – don’t crash when run on Wayland based desktops.
Budgie Welcome
Extras – rename "Applets" to Extras to better reflect the types of things that can be installed
Extras – Instructions on how to enable applets after install displayed immediately next to the install button when invoked.
Extras – All window previews to be uninstalled
Add Budgie Lightpad Applet installable for 18.04 and later
Themes – Corrected picture sizing to be identical for all themes
Themes – Allow users of the vimix makeover to install individual parts
Themes – Latest Upstream Paper theme has now removed Paper cursors – so rework to remove this from makeover
Mojave theme/icons and font makeover is now available in budgie-welcome. This has been backported to 20.04 as well
Getting Started – point to the correct YouTube video for Shuffler
Getting Started – Corrected 20.04 keyboard shortcut to launch Shuffler
Getting Started – Added Brave Browser to the browser ballot
Getting Started – fixed bug where translated topics had an apostrophe which caused the topic not to respond to a click to display the topic.
Arc-Theme has now been updated – the maintainer has changed to https://github.com/jnsh/arc-theme. The theme now has an additional theme called Arc-Lighter. Do give some feedback especially about anything budgie related to the new maintainer – do give thanks to the new maintainer taking on this challenge.
Paper-Theme updated to the latest upstream version
Pocillo-Theme – all the deprecated SASS code has been fixed. This future proofs the theme. Any help – large or small is welcome. Join the UB team by becoming the pocillo theme dedicated maintainer! https://github.com/UbuntuBudgie/pocillo-gtk-theme
QogirTheme – as requested by the community, the highlight focus colour has changed from Ubuntu Orange to Standard Blue.
Additional
All packages are now arm64 available. This means you can now use desktopify and create a Raspi v4 Ubuntu Budgie image
gedit text edit highlight for current line turned off. Dark themes are broken with gedit and often the text color cannot be read.
New option "Align to grid" when right click the desktop – this switches on the desktop grid mode. Note there will now be a "Customise" right click menu option available when you choose Align to grid and this can be used to customise the grid including turning off/on the icon auto-arrangement
We now ship with our own file extension handling list of apps e.g. picture files should open in the viewer gthumb and .deb should open in gnome-software
We now disable the nemo behaviour where a double-click in an empty area would go up one folder
We enable default in nemo to allow a slow doubleclick on filename to rename a file
The Ubuntu Budgie team choice wallpapers are now available in 20.10. Enjoy!
Nemo – Enforce asking when deleting and moving to trash so that inadvertent deleting files is not possible
Slick-greeter is part of the packages UB maintains – this has now been updated to the very latest available. So check that all is well.
lightdm-settings (the companion to slick-greeter) is part of the packages UB maintains – this has now been updated to the very latest available. So check that all is well.
All the backport packages have now been rebuilt for groovy – both amd64 and arm64 architectures.
Both nemo-share and nemo-dropbox backport packages have been rebuilt from the upstream v4.6.0 package
For new accounts/new installs, gnome-software no longer autostarts. This reduces the memory desktop usage by approx 100-150Mb. You’ll see an autostart entry in your autostart list – don’t worry, this is just to stop the autostart running for budgie-desktop – but runs correctly for GNOME Shell/Unity desktops.
KEY FEATURES AVAILABLE TO UB FROM UBUNTU
Linux kernel v5.8
GNOME 3.38 applications
Latest version of LibreOffice 7
GRUB2 is used to boot the ISO both in legacy and UEFI mode
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 20.10 include:
Slick Greeter
Login Window Preferences
DesktopFolder
Arc Theme
KNOWN ISSUES
Windows flicker when resizing – occurs on intel graphics. Its annoying – you can use this TearFree intel.conf method described by this answer but be aware this can cause performance issues since its using an older intel graphics driver..
Broadcom BCMWL driver fails to load i.e. no wifi capabilities – the workaround is to reinstall the bcmwl-kernel-source package
various reports that the ISO does not boot/install grub. The boot capabilities which includes introducing GRUB2 in legacy booting has caused a few instances where the ISO does not boot or not able to boot after installation. Do remember to report these issues to launchpad so that these edge cases are found and hopefully resolved during the next development cycle.
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.
HOW TO UPGRADE FROM 20.04.1 TO 20.10
IMPORTANT: remember to double-check you have the following vital package before you upgrade:
sudo apt install ubuntu-budgie-desktop
After the release of 20.10, ensure you change your Software Sources to offer updates for any version:
You will then 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.
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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.
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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
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We would like to announce Ubuntu Budgie 20.04 testing week. Ubuntu Budgie beta starts on April 2nd and lasts till April 8th. During the testing week, we invite the community to work with use so that we can iron out all the little bugs that may have hidden during the pre-beta testing.
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