Includes KDE Applications 18.08 and KDE Frameworks 5.49

Aug 28, 2018 14:38 GMT  ·  By

Neptune Linux developer Leszek Lesner announced today the release and general availability of Neptune 5.5, an incremental update to the Neptune Linux 5 operating system series that brings the latest technologies and software updates.

Coming only a month after the Neptune 5.4 release that introduced a new dark theme and updated several components, Neptune 5.5 bumps the kernel version to Linux kernel 4.17.8 and updates the graphics stack to Mesa 18.1.6, AMDGPU DDX 18.0.1, Nouveau DDX 1.0.15, and ATI/Radeon DDX 18.0.1.

"This update represents the current state of Neptune 5 and renews the ISO file so if you install Neptune you don't have to download tons of Updates," writes Leszek Lesner in today's announcement. "In this update we improved hardware support further by providing Linux Kernel 4.17.8 with improved drivers and bugfixes."

Latest Intel microcode now available

The Neptune 5.5 release also comes with the latest Intel microcode firmware update that mitigates some of the latest security vulnerabilities (CVE-2018-3639 and CVE-2018-3640), as well as the recently released LibreOffice 6.1 office suite and Chromium 68 web browser with a redesigned player and improved HTML5 audio and video playback, and FFMpeg 3.2.12 multimedia framework.

On top of that, Neptune 5.5 ships with an up-to-date KDE Plasma desktop environment based on the sixth maintenance update to the long-term supported KDE Plasma 5.12 series, KDE Plasma 5.12.6, along with the latest KDE Applications 18.08.0 software suite and some backports from KDE Frameworks 5.49.0 as it's still using the older Qt 5.7 application framework.

All users running the Neptune 5 operating system series on their personal computers can now update their installations to the Neptune 5.5 release by performing a normal software update via the Plasma Discover graphical package manager or the command-line and then reboot. But, for new deployments, you can download the Neptune 5.5 live ISO image right now through our Linux software portal.