FlickOS 2.1

FlickOS 2.1 is still based on Debian 13 "trixie", like 2.0. It adds a login screen, a start menu, a welcome window and a Settings window that covers most of the system. The new History page can undo changes. There are new tools for screenshots and screen recording, for sending things to and from your phone, and an optional Quick Settings panel. The release also fixes installer bugs and makes the panel more reliable.

Coming from 2.0

You don't need to reinstall. Everything in 2.1 comes through FlickOS's apt repository:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

Use apt upgrade, not apt-get upgrade: apt-get keeps the FlickOS desktop back because it needs new packages. Then restart. After this one upgrade, automatic updates also install FlickOS's own updates.

Apps that FlickOS only recommends don't arrive with an upgrade. If you want the software manager, the ad blocker, the task manager and picture thumbnails that new installs get, add them yourself:

sudo apt install gnome-packagekit gnome-package-updater webext-ublock-origin-firefox lxtask tumbler

The upgrade also adds FlickOS's weekly count (see What's new). New installs are asked about it in the installer. An upgraded system is counted until you turn it off in Settings → Privacy.

Coming from FlickOS 1.x (Ubuntu/LXLE based), there is still no in-place upgrade. Back up your files and install 2.1 fresh.

What's new

• Login screen: installed systems start at a graphical login screen in the Arc-Dark look. If you chose Log in automatically in the installer, it logs you in once per boot. The live session still logs in by itself.
• Start menu: the apps button and a quick tap of Super open a start menu with pinned apps, all apps and search. Each layout has its own kind of menu:
• Redmond: classic, Windows 7 style
• Traditional: by category, GNOME 2 style
• Cupertino: a full-screen app grid

You can pick one style for every layout, or go back to the plain app launcher, in Settings → Desktop Layout & Style.

• Welcome window: a new account sees it at every login until you tick Do not show on startup. It links to the layout chooser, Settings, Wi-Fi, keyboard shortcuts, the software manager, the documentation and the place to report problems.
• Settings has grown to about 20 pages, grouped under Desktop, Devices, Apps, System, and Accounts and security. A search box finds any page or setting. New pages and settings:
• Displays: FlickOS remembers screen arrangements for each set of connected monitors, and there is a night light (warmer colors in the evening, on by default). A screen you turn back on is placed beside the others, not on top of them
• Power & Idle: what the power button and the laptop lid do, locking before sleep, and the lock screen background (your wallpaper or a plain color)
• Notifications: Do Not Disturb (critical notifications still show)
• Startup Applications: turn apps that start at login on or off, or add your own
• Language & Region: language and formats for your account or for the whole system
• Date & Time: 12-hour or 24-hour panel clock
• Updates: automatic updates on or off, which updates install by themselves (by default security fixes, Debian's stable updates and FlickOS's own; or security fixes only; or also Debian's recommended updates), and when to restart after one
• Users: add and remove accounts, make an account an administrator, change passwords
• Firewall: turn it on or off
• Phone: pair a phone and choose what it may do (see below)
• Privacy: turn the weekly count on or off
• Memory: shows how much memory your computer has and uses. On older or low-memory computers it recommends making Firefox use less memory (about 130 MB less with 9 tabs open on a 2 GB machine)
• History (Settings → History): lists every change to your desktop's settings and to the installed software, newest first, and has an Undo button on each change. Put Back as It Was… returns your settings to how they were on an earlier day. Before you give your password, it shows what an undo of installed software would do. Turning History off deletes the record.
• Screenshots and screen recording: Print takes a picture of an area you choose on a frozen screen, Shift+Print of the whole screen, and Ctrl+Print only copies it. Super+Shift+S opens a bar for a photo or a video of an area or the full screen, with a delay if you want one. Super+Shift+R opens it for a video, or stops a running recording. A button next to the panel clock shows while a recording runs, and a click stops it. Recordings go to Videos/Screen Recordings. Screenshots go to Pictures/Screenshots and are copied. Click the notification to draw arrows, boxes and text on one, hide parts of it, or crop it.
• Phone (off by default): with the KDE Connect app on an Android phone, you can send pages, text, files and the clipboard both ways, send a screenshot, or make a lost phone ring. Pair it in Settings → Phone. It only works on the networks where you paired it. The panel gets a phone button, and the file manager gets Send to Phone. Files from the phone go to Downloads.
• Quick Settings (off by default): one small panel for Wi-Fi, Do Not Disturb, night light, tiling, the phone, volume, brightness and the battery. Turn it on in Settings → Desktop Layout & Style. Then click the volume or battery icon or press Super+A to open it.
• Weekly count: once a week an installed system sends only its FlickOS version and roughly how long ago it was installed, so we know how many computers run FlickOS. No address, id or settings are kept. The installer asks about it, and Settings → Privacy turns it off. PRIVACY.md has the details.
• Keyboard shortcuts at a glance: hold Super on its own to see every shortcut. Let go to close the sheet.
• Show Desktop: Super+Shift+D or the thin strip at the right end of the panel hides every window. Press it again to bring them back.
• Traditional has 4 desktops: its bottom panel has a window list and a desktop switcher. Super+Ctrl+Left/Right or Super+1…Super+4 switch desktops, and with Shift they take the window along.
• Cupertino's dock is now a real dock. It shows running apps and hides only while a window is maximized or fullscreen.
• Title bar buttons follow the layout in apps that draw their own title bar, such as Firefox. Firefox also shows minimize and maximize now, not only close.
• Redmond's taskbar is taller and shows app icons only, so many open windows no longer push the rest of the panel off the screen.
• Alt+Tab shows the app's name and the window title.
• Firefox opens with vertical tabs (you can turn them off in Firefox).
• Task manager: Super+Esc opens LXTask, a graphical task manager, in place of htop.
• Your default apps: Super+Enter, Super+B, Super+E and the menus open the terminal, browser and file manager you choose in Settings → Default Applications.
• Accessibility: screen readers now read the name of every control in Settings. The keyboard shortcut sheet follows the Light style. The layout chooser fits a 1366×768 screen.

Fixes

• The panel no longer goes missing. If the panel, the dock or notifications crash, they restart by themselves. Anything they print goes to $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/flickos/panel.log.
• Installer:
• every password was rejected with "error loading dictionary"
• installing failed with "Failed to find unsquashfs"
• the EFI partition couldn't be formatted on UEFI machines
• installing without a network connection failed to install GRUB and to remove the live-session packages
• encrypted installs now work offline, and other operating systems are still found when GRUB is updated later
• The brightness keys work on laptops. Before, only root could change the brightness.
• The clock sets itself from the network on installed systems (before, only the live session did).
• The live session and installed systems report themselves as FlickOS, not Debian, in /etc/os-release.

Trying it and installing

1. Download FlickOS-64bit-v2.1.iso and check it: sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS
2. Write it to a USB stick (for example with Balena Etcher or dd) and boot it.
3. The live session logs in automatically as user (password live). Choose Install FlickOS. It is pinned first in the start menu and is also in the right-click desktop menu.

Basics

Right-click the desktop for the menu.

Known issues

• Opening Settings or the Welcome window a second time doesn't bring the open window to the front, so it looks as if nothing happened. Find the window in the taskbar.
• Low-contrast secondary text: the gray descriptions under settings are hard to read, most of all in the Light style.
• Tiling limits: windows that are already open when tiling is turned on stay floating until you tile them with Super+Shift+T, and all monitors use the same arrangement.
• Traditional's window list shows the windows of all 4 desktops, not only the current one's.
• Quick Settings has no Bluetooth switch yet.
• Phone needs the firewall to let it in. If the firewall is on, allow phones in Settings → Phone.
• There is no upgrade path from 1.x (see above).

Downloads

• ISO: https://sourceforge.net/projects/flickos/files/v2.1/
• Source code and issues: https://github.com/dvbondoy/FlickOS
• Community: https://www.reddit.com/r/flickos/