Heya folks! It's time for another roundup of the Solus news!

This week, we have moved our LTS kernel version to the latest in the 6.6 kernel series. This is the same kernel that users running the -current branch have been using for quite some time, now. If you're running the LTS branch and experience any issues or regressions, please report them on our issue tracker!

#davidjharder updated our libpinyin stack this cycle. This enables the typing of Pinyin Chinese characters with a keyboard. Additionally, it unblocks one part of an update to IBus, a piece of software that enables easily switching between keyboard and input layouts.

New to the repository this week is Foliate, an eBook reader. It handles EPUB, Mobipocket, Kindle, FB2, CBZ, and PDF files, supports paginated or scrolled mode for reading, and much more. If you enjoy reading books, check this one out!

Also being included is the developer tool icdiff. Unlike diff, this tool uses color to highlight changes between files, making it easier to see what changed.

Budgie Application Menu was included this week, as well. It is a menu applet for the panel that shows applications in a grid instead of a list. Originally created for Elementary's Wingpanel, UbuntuBudgie forked the project and ported it to Budgie Desktop.

@joebonrichie has finished up work on the Python 3.11 upgrade! With just over 1,000 Python packages, this is a significant task; it's one of the largest software stacks in Solus. This will be hitting Unstable users later this weekend and into early next week. Due to the size and scope, next week's sync will be deferred. There will be no sync next week.

Security updates

The Budgie folks released an update to Budgie Control Center this week. This release fixes CVE-2023-5616. Notably, sections for GNOME Online Accounts and GNOME Remote Desktop sharing have been removed due to upstream changes making them incompatible with GTK3 and, in the case of Remote Desktop, LightDM, the display manager usually used with Budgie Desktop.

Thunderbird was updated to 115.8.0, fixing a number of security issues:

wpa_supplicant was patched to fix CVE-2023-52160.

Media updates

Gaming updates

  • gnubg was updated to 1.08.001 (@alfisya)
  • openjazz was updated to 20231028 (@Staudey)
  • openxcom was updated to the latest commit (@alfisya)
  • pentobi was updated to 24.0 (@algent)
  • puzzles was updated to 20240103 (@alfisya)
  • rocksndiamonds was updated to 4.3.8.2 (@algent)
  • simsu was updated to 1.4.3 (@algent)

CLI tool updates

System updates

Using USB devices in VirtualBox virtual machines is possible again. @ReillyBrogan backported a patch to systemd to add support for a new syscall added by glibc. This syscall was used by VirtualBox to set up the USB device nodes, failing to assign the correct permissions if the syscall was not present. Additionally, the last systemd update caused the 50-systemd-user.sh to have the wrong permissions, causing certain environment variables to not be propagated to the systemd user manager. This in turn caused several issues, primarily with the XDG desktop portals. With this latest update, the affected file will have the correct permissions.

Mesalib was downgraded earlier this week to 23.3.6 to fix issues with nVidia hardware.

The psmouse kernel module will now always be added to the initrd image. Some Fujitsu laptops route the internal keyboard through this bus. Ensuring that the module is always installed in the initrd means that LUKS systems can be unlocked from the internal keyboard on these devices.

Language updates

Other desktop updates

KDE Gear applications were updated to 23.08.5 by @Justin.

  • Brave was updated to 1.63.161 (@algent)
  • CoreCtrl was updated to 1.3.10 (@ermo)
  • fb2converter was updated to 1.75.0 (@nazar)
  • Firefox was updated to 123.0 (@ReillyBrogan)
  • font-iosevka-ttf was updated to 28.1.0 (@nazar)
  • freeplane was updated to 1.11.0 (@algent)
  • gpxsee was updated to 13.16 (@nazar)
  • Hexchat has been updated to 2.16.2. This is the final release of Hexchat. (@Harvey)
  • Kitty was updated to 0.32.2 (@nazar)
  • Opera was updated to 107.0.5045.36 (@Harvey)
  • pandoc-crossref was updated to 0.3.14.0 (@GZGavinZhao)
  • polybar was updated to 3.7.1 (@davidjharder)
  • tailscale was updated to 1.60.0 (@nazar)
  • Teamspeak3 was updated to 3.6.2 (@alfisya)
  • Telegram was updated to 4.14.16 (@ReillyBrogan)
  • Vivaldi (snapshot) was updated to 6.6.3271.33 (@Harvey)

That’s all for this week, folks! Catch us here for the next roundup!

How did the sync go for you?

This poll has ended.

    saw -current and -firmware and pretty much rebooted immediately. behaves wonderfully, thanks!

    EbonJaeger New to the repository this week is Foliate

    Foliate installed fine on my Plasma laptop, and appeared in the Office menu section, but I was unable to launch it. I tried twice, with no joy.

        WetGeek Confirmed on Plasma. It is missing libwebkit-gtk6 and libadwaita on rundeps. Can you please try to install those and see if it launches?

            Cherry-picked update for foliate missing rundeps.

              Updated and everything is still smooth sailing!

              alfisya Can you please try to install those and see if it launches?

              Only one rundep was missing. Here's what the eopkg command looked like.

              I thought it might be a GNOME vs. KDE issue, so I checked it on my Xfce laptop as well. I remember when I installed it on the Plasma machine, three packages were instaled. On Xfce, only one was. But the result was the same - i.e., installed in the menu, but unable to launch. I'm going to try adding those two packages now, and see if that cures it on Xfce as well. (I need to end this here, and edit it on the other laptop after I try this there.)

              On the Xfce machine now. Here's what the eopkg command looked like here.

              Even though the theme for this laptop is set to Qogir-Dark, it's obviously not paying any attention to that. But that's the subject of another bug report that I filed. It appears I can't do anything about it.

                Harvey Cherry-picked update for foliate missing rundeps.

                Sorry I missed seeing this. I just got back from dinner with some visiting family guests. I saw @alfisya's post first, and replied to his, then I noticed yours.

                Thanks for taking care of it - I was looking forward to finding out whether Foliate will display the Nook books stored on my Books share. They're EPUB-based, I think, but with DRM of some kind. But I think Kindle books are, too, so that gave me some hope.

                  Foliate in the repo is awesome! Had problems with flatpak version so I'll try this one this evening

                  Another week another successful sync on my XFCE and Plasma setups.

                  How are things going with testing Discover app store? When will it be released in the stable version approximately? 😊

                    MrAiupov AFAIK, it is not going to replace solus-sc until Solus 4.6 ISO is released.

                      As a now middle-aged guy, Solus makes me feel the strangest emotions among all distributions I hopped the last 15+ years: wellness, homeliness and trust. I can barely believe it, it looks like some kind of love. What a nerd have I become?! FĂ©licitations l'Ă©quipe, chapeau bas !

                      EbonJaeger The Budgie folks released an update to Budgie Control Center this week. This release fixes CVE-2023-5616. Notably, sections for GNOME Online Accounts and GNOME Remote Desktop sharing have been removed

                      Does this mean you can't set up online accounts like gmail account for addressbook/calendar integration at all any more in Budgie? That would be a huge regression.

                          Sebastian Unfortunately, this is correct. You'll have to temporarily install Gnome Control Center to do this now. Nothing much we can do about it :/

                            That is very unfortunate indeed. But at least there is a workaround. Thank you for the clarification.
                            Fingers crossed for Budgie 11 then. Also in regard for Raven calendar integration.