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The developer of the Debian-based SparkyLinux distribution announced today the general availability of SparkyLinux 6.0, a major stable update derived from the Debian GNU/Linux 11 “Bullseye” operating system series.
Dubbed “Po Tolo,” SparkyLinux 6.0 is fully compatible with the software repositories of the recently released Debian GNU/Linux 11 “Bullseye” operating system and includes up-to-date packages that were pushed as of August 16th, 2021, along with the long-term supported Linux 5.10 LTS kernel series.
Of course, that’s not the only thing new in the SparkyLinux 6.0 release, which also features an updated and improved Calamares graphical installer, native support for exFAT filesystems with the use of the exfatprogs utility for managing exFAT formatted partitions, and extended driverless printing to USB devices support with the new ipp-usb package, which is also included in Debian Bullseye.
Another major feature of the SparkyLinux 6.0 release is the replacement of the Sparky APTus utility with Sparky APTus AppCenter, which helps users install, reinstall, update, and remove more than 2300 packages and kernels, including over 20 pre-configured desktop environments. All the tools from the old APTus utility are available as well, along with many other improvements.
On top of that, SparkyLinux 6.0 ships with the RiseupVPN application pre-installed for those who want an extra layer of security and anonymity when surfing the Internet. Also, this release replaces the Sparky Welcome app with the new Sparky FirstRun app to help newcomers better configure the system.
Other than that, you’ll find 12 new and beautiful nature wallpapers, PCManFM as default file manager and Mozilla Firefox ESR as default web browser for the MinimalGUI (Openbox) edition, and a new desktop font size (11).
SparkyLinux 6.0 is available in several editions with the Xfce 4.16, LXQt 0.16, and KDE Plasma 5.20 desktop environments, as well as MinimalGUI (Openbox) and MinimalCLI (text-mode only) for 64-bit and 32-bit systems. You can download it right now from the official website.
Of course, existing SparkyLinux 5 rolling users don’t have to download the new ISOs to update their installations to version 6.0, but only to run the sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade commands in a terminal emulator.
Last updated 3 years ago
