The autonomous distribution NixOS, whose package assortment is applicable on other GNU/Linux distributions and on macOS, has unveiled its latest version, NixOS 24.05. This version, named “Uakari”, has been released six months following NixOS 23.11 “Tapir” and incorporates the new LTS (Long Term Support) kernel series, specifically Linux 6.6 LTS. This should deliver better hardware functionality than the Linux 6.1 LTS kernel series used in the prior release.
In addition, NixOS 24.05 introduces compatibility with the most recent GNOME and KDE Plasma desktop environments, specifically GNOME 46 and KDE Plasma 6. Updates are also seen in the MATE desktop environment, now at version 1.28, which supports Wayland when enabling services.xserver.desktopManager.mate.enableWaylandSession.
“This is opt-in for now as it is in an early stage and introduces a new set of Wayfire closures,” the developers explain. “Due to known issues with LightDM, we suggest using SDDM as the display manager. […] To properly support panel plugins built with Wayland (in-process) support, we are introducing the services.xserver.desktopManager.mate.extraPanelApppets option, please use that for installing panel applets.”
This update introduces compatibility with the Lomiri desktop, created by the UBports Foundation for their Ubuntu Touch mobile operating system, as an extension and successor of Unity8. Lomiri operates using the Mir 2.x series display server, enabling it as a Wayland compositor.
Additionally, the latest NixOS 24.05 release enhances its system by integrating zstd compression for firmware blobs tailored for each supported kernel, improving decompression speed. It also features capabilities for installing NixOS without Perl, as well as implementing a stub ELF loader that delivers a detailed error message when users attempt to execute binaries incompatible with NixOS.
For more details, check out the release announcement page. You can download NixTOS 24.05 from the official website as Graphical ISO images for Intel/AMD or ARM systems with GNOME and KDE Plasma desktop environments pre-installed, as well as Minimal ISO images without a graphical environment.
Last updated 7 hours ago