Download KaOS_Test

First, minimal test ISO is uploaded for the Januray stable ISO release.

As already announced a few times, this ISO is a major change, a move to Plasma 6. Plasma 6 ISO's have been tested for over a year, so not too many surprises are expected for this test cycle

As always, early test ISOs are minimal, very few apps, just a web-browser, file manager, text editor, GUI package manager. The non-free Nvidia drivers are included since they are a big part of what needs testing, especially the move to 545 will need attention from those who have the hardware to test this driver.

Plan is to have Frameworks 5.248.0, KDE Applications 24.01 RC, Plasma 6 RC and Linux 6.6.xx on the final ISO.

The ISO is using packages from the build repo, but that repo is not enabled, so if you decide to install, make sure to add the build repo to your pacman.conf.

Debug packages for Calamares are part of all ISOs, run Calamares with gdb if you encounter errors.
provide the installation log, if you encounter any issue at all

You can start Calamares from the Welcome app, or run it with:

sudo calamares -d

The install log will be created in the home directory of the Live user, see ~/installation.log. It is available after the install in the target system in /var/log/installation.log
If run from cli, make sure to pastebin the full output, since no installation.log will be copied then, though that log is more complete.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/kaos-test/files/iso/KaOS-2024.01.16-x86_64.iso
SHA256Sum:

001aecae67709dc5fab7548b69b3b25764675a3a651cabacc984e2b6044c4367  KaOS-2024.01.16-x86_64.iso

On this ISO you will find:
Linux 6.6.12
systemd 254.8
gcc 12.3.0
Qt 6.6.1
Frameworks 5.248.0
Plasma 5.92.0
KDE Applications 24.01.90
Calamares 3.3.1
Octopi 0.15.0 with sysinfo & cachecleaner tool

Known issues:

  • The bottom progress-bar in Calamares reacts to mouse clicks & opens a virtualkeyboard (narrow)

kde-next and build don't always sync. I haven't experienced any issues that I know of because of it, but it makes me wonder how soon I might crash because of it 🙂)))). It's Beta so I chalk it up to the two still being worked on. Still running the 12/30 iso with no issues other than that. Periodic sudo pacman -Syu's have it up to date, so no need for me to use this iso.

In the Calamares UI, it looks as if Libre Office is installed by default, but it is not (I assume because it is not on the ISO, correct?).

 mparillo  ~  pacman -Qi libreoffice
error: package 'libreoffice' was not found
 mparillo  ~  sudo grep LibreOffice /var/log/installation.log                                                                                                             
LibreOffice selected
 mparillo  ~  pacman -Q | grep -i office
 mparillo  ~

Full Installation Log

See the first post, this is a MINIMAL first test ISO, full (stable) ISO has Libreoffice.

First full ISO is up.
Quite a few fixes & adjustment in packaging Plasma 6 are included, as are some major updates (polkit, pam had some big changes for example
Kernel moved to 6.6.13.
ISO includes LibreOffice Qt6/kf6 based, this is an RC for the 24.2 upcoming release.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/kaos-test/files/iso/KaOS-2024.01.21-x86_64.iso
SHA256SUM:

a6dcc6fbe8995c8a84ff2af8a957014adbefb4f288cd2f0cb39a886c1db3c929  KaOS-2024.01.21-x86_64.iso

    demm I am using it without issues. I, however did not add build and kde-next. Should I do that?

      4 days later

      Clean install of 01.21, the Nvidia live option is not usable on my Intel/Nvidia 950 system, but that's been the case this cycle. No surprise. Rather go with nouveau with Wayland at this point anyway. If I add the Nvidia drivers post-install I cannot use Wayland.

      Added the [build] repo, updated.

      Noticed it takes 15 seconds for the panel to appear after login. Croeso comes up right away, however. Pop-up details when hovering above items in the panel are much better with no weird artifacts on the screen. this was an annoyance on the normal releases before, likely just an Nvidia/X11 driver problem. Works well on Wayland.

      LibreOffice and Firefox are looking good, launches faster than before. So far, so good. Excited to see the final product.

      Please post a bit more detail about your Nvidia hardware, it might be (if it is an older card) you will also need to add nomdeset to the kernel command line. If more face this (as I do with an ancient card needing the 390xx driver), then it needs to be added to the boot options for 390xx hardware.

      The 15 seconds delay started with the Megarelease RC1, so it is planned now to wait for the final ISO and use RC2, coming out by the end of this month.

      Damn, forgot about the nomodeset option at boot, sorry. The card is a Gigabyte 950, which is about 7? years old. It is perhaps the oldest card that runs on the 545.29.02 series driver.

      CPU is a 6th gen i5.

      I'm heading out for a walk to contemplate the universe and will post more detail later.

      No need, error in the ISO, it is not properly setting X11 for non-free (older nvidia cards definitely can't use a Wayland session), will be corrected next ISO.

      Maybe a stupid question. but will I able to update it to release version when its out?

      • demm replied to this.

        lowe Yes, of course.
        During the test cycle it is a bit harder since many packages are from the build repository (see the first post in this thread), once released, then all is complete normal, everything on the ISO will be in the stable repositories. And since it is a rolling release a regular pacman-Syu will always get you the latest, never a need to re-install.

          A second full ISO is uploading, this should be the final ISO and will be released in one or two days (if no new regressions are found).
          There was a bit of a delay to get this second ISO out. First full had some bugs, so a second was clearly needed, but with that need it made more sense to wait a few extra days and include Mega Release RC2 on the final ISO.
          That was released toady:
          https://kde.org/announcements/megarelease/6/rc2/
          And you will find all of that on this ISO already, meaning Frameworks 5.249.0, Plasma 5.93.0 & KDE Apps 24.0.95.
          Kernel, Systemd, Openssl, Vulkan packages, Alsa & Gstreamer packages were among the many others also updated. Libreoffice 24.2, kkf6/plasma 6 based also moved to a final, stable release.

          https://sourceforge.net/projects/kaos-test/files/iso/KaOS-2024.01.31-x86_64.iso
          SHA256SUM:

          7e7477cc6056ff3a22f69a09fd5d8d2424544d6511dfa1bc3330acbf6a305f54  KaOS-2024.01.31-x86_64.iso