Xubuntu Development Update August 2018

July was a surprisingly productive month for Xubuntu. While several folks on the team were on vacation for some portion of the month, we still delivered many great updates! Your Xubuntu development update for August 2018 includes updates to both supported LTS releases and several application updates.

LTS Updates

Xenial Xerus – 16.04.5

This is the final point release for Xubuntu 16.04 “Xenial Xerus.” As Xubuntu has a 3-year support cycle, this release will be supported until April 2019. The Xubuntu team has not made any major changes for this point release, but there have been several other improvements and security updates for other components.

16.04.5 is expected to be released tomorrow, August 2, 2018. If you have a few moments, feel free to do some testing and make sure everything is working as well as we think it is!

Bionic Beaver – 18.04.1

This is the first point release for Xubuntu 18.04 “Bionic Beaver.” At this time, users of Xubuntu 16.04 should begin receiving notifications to upgrade to this release. The Xubuntu team has released a few updates, and others are still coming. Download 18.04.1 here.

• Exo 0.12.2 includes performance improvements and a few minor bug fixes.
• Xfce Settings 4.12.4 improves display manufacturer identification and overall stability.
• LP: #1762595 (gvfs), Thunar incorrectly thinks USB storage device hasn’t finished ejecting, has been fixed!
• Updates for Catfish 1.4.6 and Xfce Terminal 0.8.7.4 are being processed through the Stable Release Update process and should be available in the coming days.

Application Updates

Catfish 1.4.6

The latest release of Catfish features a greatly improved thumbnail manager and numerous bug fixes. With 23 translation updates, this is the most localized release to date! Finally, Catfish 1.4.6 is the first release as an official Xfce project. Check out my earlier blog post for more details.

Xfce4 Panel Profiles 1.0.8

Formerly known as Xfpanel Switch, Xfce4 Panel Profiles has joined the Xfce family. This application makes it incredibly easy to backup, restore, and share panel layouts with other Xfce users. The latest release improves profile management and includes many translations. Find out more about the latest updates on the release announcement.

Xfce Releases

There were 7 new Xfce releases in July, including the two applications listed above. These releases feature several improvements and translation updates, with Xfwm4 4.13.1 featuring an astounding 81 non-translation updates!

• Catfish 1.4.6
• Thunar VCS Plugin 0.2.0
• Xfce Mount Plugin 1.1.3
• Xfce Panel Profiles 1.0.8
• Xfce Whisker Menu Plugin 2.2.1
• Xfwm ( 4.12.5, 4.13.1)

Cosmic Cuttlefish Updates

The following components have been updated in Xubuntu 18.10 since July 1st.

Applications

• Catfish 1.4.6
• Mousepad 0.4.1
• Ristretto 0.8.3
• Thunar 1.8.1
• Xfce Desktop 4.13.2
• Xfce Panel 4.13.3
• Xfce Screenshooter 1.9.2
• Xfce Settings 4.13.3
• Xfce Task Manager 1.2.1
• Xfce Terminal 0.8.7.4

Libraries

• Exo 0.12.2
• libxfce4util 4.13.2

Panel Plugins

• Xfce Verve Plugin 2.0.0
• Xfce Whisker Menu Plugin 2.2.0

Thunar Plugins

• Thunar Archive Plugin 0.4.0
• Thunar Media Tags Plugin 0.3.0

Other Updates

• Bug Fixed! LP: #1762595 (gvfs), Thunar incorrectly thinks USB storage device hasn’t finished ejecting

What to Expect in August?

With the summer months coming to a close, kids are back in school, and everybody is back in front of their computers. This means more updates! Here are some things expected soon:

• We have updated the packaging for the elementary-xfce icon theme. Work on separating this theme from xubuntu-artwork has already been completed. We are now just waiting for some sponsored uploads. The benefit of this change is that the elementary-xfce icon theme is now available in Debian!
• Xfce Settings 4.13.5. We’ll be releasing some improvements to the settings managers soon. One improvement is the removal of the broken icon theme color generation. This worked great with GTK+ 2 themes but has been pretty broken for GTK+ 3. With this removal, Appearance Settings now loads instantly!
• I’ll be reviewing the Pidgin codebase this month. We hope to improve the theme manager to support system-wide status icons and smiley theme installation. This will allow us to ship the pidgin-elementary themes and improve our desktop consistency.
• A few bugs have been reported with Thunar in Xubuntu 16.04 regarding copying and moving files. I’ll be working to update the Thunar version in Xenial to fix these bugs and help folks transition to the latest and great Xubuntu 18.04. (LP: #1514912)

Keep up with the latest Xubuntu developments on our development tracker. Have a great month!