Heya folks! It's that time of the week! There is a bunch to cover, so let's get started.

Rust has been updated to 1.79. In addition, it now links against the system libcurl and libssh2.

The Matrix client Nheko has been updated to the latest release. This is significant because it now uses Qt6! This is quite a big release for Nheko, and you can find the full changelog here. Note that upstream Qt6 has an issue with scrolling with mouse scroll wheels, which results in it feeling laggy or sluggish. To work around this, we've added a downstream patch that uses a component from Kirigami, a KDE library, which makes the mouse wheel scrolling feel like how it feels in KDE applications. As this downstream patch is a significant departure from how it works with upstream Nheko, (who prefer to work with Qt developers to resolve it which is likely to take a long time), please report any issues with scrolling on the SOLUS issue trackers so that we can take a look at them. Please don't report them on the Nheko issue tracker (but other issues should be fine to report there).

VLC was updated to 3.0.21. While updating it, @ReillyBrogan took the opportunity to modify our package to split it between the binary and the library portion, meaning that VLC should now be able to be uninstalled on Plasma. The full changelog for 3.0.21 can be read here.

As of this week, Bash will now inherit the $PATH from the process that spawned it, rather than resetting it. This fixes a long-standing issue where if you run the following:

export PATH=/stuff:$PATH
bash
echo $PATH

The output of echo $PATH will not contain /stuff. Now, it will.

An issue was fixed where some processes or services couldn't find configuration files. This was fixed by setting XDG_CONFIG_DIRS from multiple sources, so it should always be set.

On the stateless front, all packages that shipped files in /etc/xdg have been fixed to ship them in the correct stateless directory instead.

In desktop news, GNOME has been updated to 46.2. This is a bugfix update, and should be a safe and uneventful upgrade from 46.1. The full list of changes can be downloaded and read from here. Likewise, KDE Frameworks has been updated to 6.3.0. This release contains many fixes and improvements to the KDE Frameworks 6 series. It's a long list, and you can read all the details here.

Mesalib was updated to 24.1.1. GNOME will now use explicit sync for Wayland-native applications for AMD and Intel GPU users. XWayland applications will have to wait for an updated XWayland, and Plasma users have to wait for Plasma 6.1. Mesa 24.1 also has a lot of optimization and performance enhancements for AMD and Intel GPUs. More news about Mesa 24.1 can be read here.

There are a couple of exciting additions to the repository this week! First off, we have Zed, a high-performance code editor from the creators of Atom and Tree-sitter, written in Rust. Initially developed for use on macOS, Zed recently went open-source and started porting it to other platforms. It's a pretty neat project, so be sure to check it out.

Also debuting this week is Dragon Player. Dragon is a multimedia player where the focus is on simplicity, instead of features. It is designed to not get in your way, and just play your multimedia files.

Next, for the artists in the community, we have OpenTabletDriver. This is an open-source, cross-platform, user mode tablet driver. It aims to have the highest compatibility in an easily configurable graphical user interface.

Security updates

There are two security updates this cycle, in addition to the usual browser updates that have gone out throughout the last two weeks. Be sure to install updates for the latest protections.

General updates

As usual, the full list of updates can be found here.

That’s all for this week, folks! Come back next time for more Solus news!

How did the sync go for you?

This poll has ended.

    I considered calling it a great update, but on my plasma laptop two issues that I've described after previous updates remain. On reboot and startup, Bluetooth works long enough to log in, then it's shut off. And the panel that serves as a dock still starts out at its minimum size with icons that look like colored dots.

    Since it's a laptop, I can use the thumbpad to fix the Bluetooth problem, by starting the system settings and "forgetting" the mouse and keyboard that I use, then pairing them again. And the panel returns to full size when I simply "enter edit mode."

    These are both easy fixes, just annoying.

      Zero issues on my Solus KDE install on my Samsung Galaxy Book Pro laptop. 🖖

      WetGeek These are both easy fixes, just annoying.

      On my Xfce laptop, and my wife's Plasma laptop, neither of which use Bluetooth, both updates were flawless. I expect that to apply to my VMs, as well, and I'm just about to start on those.

        thanks for the update, amost all good, really like the detailed posts desscribing the updates
        there is however a problem with conky, i dont know if its a bug or if something has changed that requires changes in my configs

        it doesent seem to respect 'minimum_height' any more
        did something change with the syntax?

        edit: this has been fixed in 1.21.3, see https://github.com/brndnmtthws/conky/releases
        can we get this version asap?

          The funny thing is that most of the disk space that VLC uses is in the new vlc-core package (which contains all the plugins and libraries that things need to use the VLC "engine"). That package takes up ~51MB of disk space, while the now-uninstallable vlc package is only ~6MB. So the people who wanted to uninstall VLC are not really saving much space at all but at least they'll get their wish and won't have to see it when they search for applications.

          I haven't been updating in a while, but was the icon fallback changed in any way in the last few weeks (in Budgie)? I have an icon theme that falls back to papirus for symbolic icons, but now it does that only if papirus is the first fallback (which then uses papirus also for some applications).

          I have recently been updating using Discover, I like being able to update firmware and Flatpak from the same program. Today it appeared to have stalled for a short while at 50% and then jumped to Updates Completed after a few minutes. Everything seems to have completed without issues so patience was all that was required here.
          Discover does not require a password for updates like Software Centre used to, is that by accident or design? A password is still required to install software.
          Like WetGeek I use a Bluetooth mouse on my laptop but have never had any connectivity issues on Plasma. Could this be a manufacturers dependant problem? I use a Logitech Pebble.
          Many thanks to the Solus Team for another painless update.

            • [deleted]

            • Post #15

            Great update, but the issue with Element window not being visible unless forcing Xwayland still remains.

              thoughts:
              arcmust've been updated my icons changed a wee bit. fine.

              zed was native to xfce or lxde I forget? It's identical to gedit and could never tell them apart. I've used it when it was named xed. fork?

              dragon player looks like lite fun but I have purposefully kept my budgie K-package free this year 🙂. Great throwback look.

              EbonJaeger Mesalib was updated to 24.1.1. GNOME will now use explicit sync for Wayland-native applications for AMD and Intel GPU users. XWayland applications will have to wait for an updated XWayland, and Plasma users have to wait for Plasma 6.1

              ^^ this evolution is interesting. baby steps.

              everything functioning fine this morning, thank you.

                  brent zed was native to xfce or lxde I forget? It's identical to gedit and could never tell them apart. I've used it when it was named xed. fork?

                  No, zed is completely unrelated to xed. It's a new editor from the creators of Atom. https://zed.dev/
                  As the original post here says it's native to neither XFCE or LXDE, as it was originally written for macOS. Linux support is new-ish, and work still ongoing on that front.

                    brent zed was native to xfce or lxde I forget? It's identical to gedit and could never tell them apart. I've used it when it was named xed. fork?

                    Totally different project, it is very new and unrelated at all to xed. Read more here . This is more akin to vscode or Jetbrains IDE.

                    🥷'd by @Staudey

                      [deleted] TBH at this point I'd probably just set DISCORD_NO_WAYLAND in your .bashrc and call it a day. I haven't heard of anyone else with the issue