Status

Experimental and release builds of the Live ISO are available at https://github.com/helloSystem/ISO/releases.

Changelog

pre-0.9.0

Core system

helloSystem is now based on FreeBSD 13.2-RELEASE and Q4/2023 packages
Allow users access to serial ports
System language is persisted on systems which are not using UEFI, too
Network.app for selecting wireless networks is now launched by default (in the upper-right corner of the menu)

User Interface

Initial Date and Time preferences application (should normally not be needed since helloSystem gets its date and time from the network by default)
Open With dialog now lets the user choose applications from arbitrary locations that are not yet known to the system
Dock is no longer shipped; the menu in the upper-right hand corner of the screen replaces it
The Hardware Probe utility now shows the hardware information in a graphical user interface

Bugfixes

Filer windows now get refreshed when renaming documents or folders
Filer now keeps track of open windows more accurately (using _FILER_PATH X11 atoms; to ensure that there is exactly one window per folder)
Handling of ssh and sftp in Zeroconf.app is fixed
smartd errors in syslog reduced by shipping an empty /usr/local/etc/smartd.conf file
More reliable mounting and unmounting, thanks @vermaden
Fix Kernel panic during boot from live media on MacBook when SD slot is empty #505, thanks __@u20230812 __
exfat volumes are now mounted correctly, thanks @vermaden
Many more bugfixes

Preview

A completely rewritten Filer is shipped in "Under Development". All future development of the Filer will happen there from now on. To test it, boot the system in verbose mode by pressing the "V" key on the keyboard immediately when the screen turns gray

Address DistroWatch review of helloSystem 0.8.0 issues

Why did KWin and Menu crash in the DistroWatch review? Maybe we should not allow software installations in Live system mode?

Address Bryan Lunduke review

Appeal visually more to System 7 (as opposed to Mac OS X) switchers. As Tog pointed out back in 2000, Mac OS X never quite managed to be entirely "Mac-like". We have already started down this path, by the alignment of the window controls, retiring the Dock in favor of the right-hand appliations menu, and by switching to Spatial Filer by default (although its implementation is not complete yet)
"Sound was a nightmare" (possibly follow up with Bryan Lunduke on his particular sound hardware)

0.8.2

Core system

The launch and open commands now use a "desktop database" consisting of symlinks rather than a SQLite database. This is more in line with the "everything is a file" philosophy and allows for easy inspection of what is going on. The "desktop database" is held at ~/.local/share/launch
The open command now allows to set a default application to open all files of a certain MIME type
The open command now allows to set an override application to open a certain file, no matter what application is set to open files of that MIME type. This allows one to open, e.g, all PNG files with GIMP but a particular PNG file with Scribus

User Interface

You can now use the search box in the Menu as a calculator by typing, e.g., 2+2 or sqrt(2), thanks @jsm222
Clicking a Magnet URI (e.g., to download helloSystem ISOs from FOSS Torrents) will prompt the user to download Transmission

Bugfixes

Prevent the system from rebooting during startup on some systems (details)
The open command now handles URLs without :/ correctly, e.g., Magnet URIs that have :?

0.8.1

Core system

USB tethering of Android phones to use their WLAN and cellular connectivity with helloSystem now "just works"
5.1 audio systems, e.g., BOSE Companion 5 (USB) now work out of the box
Swap is enabled by default on disks larger than 80 GB (can be disabled in the installer)
Keyboard and Language choice are now persisted in UEFI NVRAM (fix for EFI based systems)

Bootloader

Load the kernel and modules without showing text on screen
Boot in verbose mode if the V key is pressed
Boot in single user mode if the S key is pressed
Show the FreeBSD bootloader menu if backspace is pressed (which allows to easily select Boot Environments)
Adjust colors for verbose and single user boot

User Interface

USB sound devices are now shown with their vendor and model in the Volume menu
Handle already-running installations more gracefully when trying to install applications, thanks @CocoCR300
Improved "About This Computer" dialog, thanks @CocoCR300
"About This Computer" now also shows information about the Xorg GPU driver being used
The "Install FreeBSD" utility is now called "Install helloSystem"
The "Processes" utility now shows the total CPU and memory usage, uses application bundle names and icons
On the Live system, there is now a link to the Install helloSystem utility on the desktop
On the Live system, advise the user to install the system before downloading applications
Menu now autocompletes paths beginning with ~ and /, thanks @jsm222

Applications

The Users preferences application can now also create users without administrative rights, delete users, and enable and disable automatic login
Improved usability of Create Live Media utility
Under Construction: Started work on a Backup utility that uses ZFS send/receive to backup zpool/usr/home

Bugfixes

Hardware Probe now succeeds uploading (fix)
The list of sound devices is now updated when right-clicking the volume menu (e46cf70)
The dialog to enter a password now shows the correct text following the SUDO_ASKPASS_TEXT conventions
If the system is running on VirtualBox, do not show a message about virtualization

0.8.0

Core system

helloSystem is now based on FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE
The launch command, which is used troughout the system to launch applications, now uses a database of application bundles on the system (launch.db)
VirtualBox Guest Additions are preinstalled and enabled, providing for seamless resizing of the screen, copy & paste, etc. when running in VirtualBox
If the language cannot be inferred from the prev-lang:kbd EFI variable (which is set by Mac OS X) or from an attached Raspberry Pi Keyboard and Hub (which communicates its language to the system, as all keyboards should do but don't), then the user is asked to select a system language
The Keyboard preferences application writes the selected keyboard layout to the EFI NVRAM variable prev-lang:kbd (where it persists across reboots and some operating systems)
MIDI controllers (e.g., keyboards) attached to the computer via USB should now be made available to ALSA MIDI supporting applications automatically, thanks @hselasky for alsa-seq-server
Initial support for launching (some) AppImage files using the launch command (requires the Debian Runtime to be installed)
Updated initgfx, added support for GeForce RTX 3070 GPU
Using drm-510-kmod to support recent Intel GPUs like Intel TigerLake-LP GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics] (as found in the Framework Laptop with 11th Gen Intel® Core™) NOTE: Does not work yet on the Framework Mainboard with a HDMI display attached over a USB-3 hub (that supports DP altmode)

User Interface

Increased contrast of the startup screen
Filer now shows application icons for AppImage files, thanks @clefebvre
Menu now shows AppImage files (including thumbnails for icons if they exist)
Search in Menu now also works for submenus, thanks @jsm222
Menu search results are now shown with icons and shortcuts, thanks @jsm222
The System menu now has Force Quit Application
Menu now searches the local filesystem (if indexed by the Baloo engine, thanks @vHanda). Shift-click on search results to show them in Filer instead of opening them
Filer now shows thumbnails for mp3 files, thanks @Marco98
Menu now shows the name of applications while they are being launched (for applications launched through the launch command)
Menu now shows the icon of the active application on the right-hand side and allows switching between applications from there (removes the need for a Dock). Shift-click when selecting a window from that menu to minimize all other windows
Dock is no longer automatically started (you can still start it manually or add a symlink to it in /Applications/Autostart)
Filer now shows EPUB e-book files with their cover image, thanks @marianosimone
Launching an already-running application now brings all windows of that application to the front instead of starting another process
Clicking on the time in the Menu shows detailed date including weekday and time including time zone
Filer can now copy files to disk by dragging them to the disk on the desktop
Filer can now put items into the Trash by dragging them to the Trash
Filer can now eject disks by dragging them to the Trash
Documents can now be opened by drag-and-drop on applications (or symlinks of applications) in Filer
Menu now provides default File and Edit menus in case the application does not provide any menus
Filer now has spring-loaded folders: Drag an object over a folder, wait for a short while, and the folder will open automatically
Filer now shows emblems on folders that are under git version control

Desktop infrastructure

In preparation of supporting XDG specifications only as a fallback, new infrastructure for launching applications and opening files is being introduced. This is currently subject to frequent changes.

launch.db keeps track of all applications the system encounters
launch uses launch.db to find an application that can be launched when a full path is not supplied
open uses launch.db to find an application to open a document with
Applications are added to launch.db whenever Filer encounters them (implementation details might still change)
Filer does not use network:// anymore. Instead, it uses launch Zeroconf
Filer does not use computer:// anymore. Instead, it opens a window at /
Filer does not use trash:// anymore. Instead, it opens a window at the actual location of the Trash
Filer does not rely on gvfs anymore. As a result, helloDesktop now needs far fewer processes running
Zeroconf.app now can use sshfs to connect to network shares via sftp
Filer now creates shortcuts when URLs are dropped onto the desktop or onto the white area in a folder window
Filer now prevents users from accidentally deleting essential system directories such as /System and /usr

Applications

Now comes with the Trojitá e-mail application in the menu (needs to be downloaded prior to first use)
GPU acceleration is now enabled for WebEngine based browsers such as Falkon, thanks @jsm222
When documents are double-clicked for which an application can be downloaded (e.g., .docx, .stl,...), offer to download the application
New Processes utility

Bugfixes

Install Debian Runtime should now work properly (to be retested; may need sudo service linux stop ; sudo service debian start)
Install Debian Runtime can now also be used on the Live ISO
Improved reliability and performance of mounted archives (e.g., .zip) by using fuse-archive instead of archivemount
Increased robustness of removing directories for mountpoints, thanks @vermaden
Do not automount EFI System Partitions (ESP), thanks @vermaden
Bootloader no longer very slow on some Mac models
Menu no longer steals focus from applications, thanks @jsm222
Menu can be invoked with Command+Space more reliably, thanks @jsm222
Shortcuts can be used while a menu is open, thanks @jsm222
Filer now raises the window to the foreground when "Show in Filer" is used (e.g., when Shift-clicking on a filesystem search result in the Search menu) and when one clicks, e.g., on the "Home" icon in the Dock while an application is in the foreground
Applications launched through app-placeholder are not wrapped in 2 layers of launch anymore
The 'Delete' key now works in zsh
Improved stability of the Live ISO by not using unionfs -o below, thanks @michaeldexter
Menu performance has been significantly improved by importing the menus coming from applications via D-Bus directly into the global menu, thanks @jsm222
Installing the GIMP application no longer stalls at 100%

Infrastructure

Cross-platform buildability can now be tested easily on FreeBSD in lightweight Alpine Linux chroot using the Linuxulator

Known Issues

Volume keys and brightness keys don't work
mp3 thumbnailer does not size down the thumbnails, resulting in large file sizes
Command+Shift+3 does not make a screenshot
USB SD card readers can make the system unbootable or can reboot a running system

0.7.0

Core system

helloSystem 0.7.0 is based on FreeBSD 13.0-RELEASE
Entirely new architecture for the live system
- Boot time of the live system has been improved by a factor of 3
- ISO size has been reduced to under 800 MB (fits a CD-ROM)
- No more copying of the entire filesystem to RAM
- No more initial ramdisk, no more reroot
- Using uzip compressed ufs filesystem image instead of zfs for the live system
- Starting the graphical desktop early in the boot process
helloSystem is now Ventoy Compatible which means that it can be booted from an ISO file stored alongside other ISO files on disk using Ventoy, thanks @ventoy
Developer files (including compilers, headers, object code files, developer documentation, etc.) are now a separate download
Improved compatibility with older Nvidia graphics hardware by shipping multiple versions of Nvidia drivers
The exFAT filesystem is now supported

User interface

Friedlier boot experience (gray rather than black, native resolution)
No text consoles by default
Many applications, settings dialogs and utilities have been translated
Chromium, Firefox, and Thunderbird (with global menu support and native window decorations) are available as browser choices in addition to the default Falkon browser thanks @jsm222, @mszoek, and @grahamperrin
Keyboard shortcuts are now shown in menus with the Command key ⌘ symbol (no more "Ctrl")
Selected menu items flash/blink
No icons in context menus unless explicitly requested using action->setIconVisibleInMenu(true)
Screen brightness can be controlled using the brightness keys on notebooks
Volume can be controlled using the volume keys on notebooks
Terminal: Command-C and Command-V work like in other applications (press Command-Shift-C or Ctrl-Command-C for POSIX Ctrl-C)
System sounds in Filer and system-wide alert sounds for message dialog boxes, thanks larshenrikoern for some of the sounds
If the desktop cannot be loaded within a certain amount of time, a "Failed to start the desktop" message appears, giving useful information, including a link to the hardware database

Filer

Volumes are mounted at mount points reflecting their name ("volume label"), thanks @vermaden
You now rename volumes (disks, partitions) just like you can rename files and folders
Custom volume icons are now supported using .VolumeIcon.icns files (compatible to the Mac)
Holding down Shift while doing Command-O, Command-Down, Command-Up in Spatial Mode closes the current window
Disk images can be opened by double-clicking (even with multiple partitions), thanks @vermaden

Command line tools

New sudo diskutil rename command line tool for renaming volumes ("volume label")
makeimg command line tool to create disk images from folders

Utilities

New Format Disk utility, can be invoked from the context menus of disks on the desktop
Create Live Media can now also write local .iso and .img files to USB media
Create Live Media now offers to write Ventoy Live ISOs from its menu
The Remote Assistance utility now shows a code in spelling alphabet that can easily be communicated with the person providing assistance over the phone
The Sticky Notes utility is no longer autostarted
There is now an equalizer for sound devices, allowing users to set bass and treble from the Sound preferences application

Under Construction

The "Developer Preview" folder has been renamed "Under Construction". Your feedback and code contributions are especially welcome for those applications and utilities, so that they can be moved out of "Under Construction" in due time. Have a look at the source code by right-clicking their icon in Filer and choosing "Show Contents" .

New Update utility to apply FreeBSD patches without any questions asked, and to update all packages without any questions asked
New Burn Optical Disc utility
New Download Applications utility to download additional application bundles
New Install Debian Runtime utility to prepare the system for running Linux applications

Bugfixes

Minimum system requirements have been lowered from 4 GB to 2 GB
The Create Live Media utility no longer runs into a timeout when trying to download from GitHub
Backlight on Intel GPUs can now be controlled using the backlight command, thanks @evadot

Infrastructure

Everyone can help translate helloSystem now thanks to Hosted Weblate. An "Automatic suggestions" button suggests automatic translations from multiple translation providers, and from various open source projects. This reduces the work to picking the most appropriate translation in many cases
Python-based applications are now localized without the need for compiling .ts strings to .qm files. This allows strings to be edited locally just as easily as Python source code itself
Experimental infrastructure is in place to generate application bundles from FreeBSD packages
The new Monkey Patching facility allows developers to make changes to all aspects of an existing Live ISO without having to re-create it, dramatically improving the development-test cycle
Application bundles for software such as Firefox (with uBlock Origin), Thunderbird, Chrome, and others are available for download

Known issues

/etc/os-release helloSystem-specific entries are not applied
Firewall workstation configuration is present, thanks RoboNuggie, but not enabled by default in order to not interfere with services like Zeroconf and other network device discovery protocols

0.6.0

Windows are now resizable at all edges
Windows snap to certain sizes when dragged to the edge of the screen, similar to "Aero Snap"
Resize icon in the bottom right
Properly centered window titles
Drop shadow rendering that does not appear before the rest of the window
Animations on window resize
Animation when minimizing and un-minimizing windows
Animated overview of all open windows by moving the mouse in the upper-left corner
Stacked initial window placement Cascade = staircase-by-title (while respecting centered Application splash screens)
Rounded corners at the top and sharp corners at the bottom
Rounded corners at the top disappear if windows are maximized or snapped to the top
Tuned kernel configuration for optimized sound, thanks @mekanix
open command now supports -e to open files in the FeatherPad text editor. This is useful, e.g., when editing scripts
Hover over a window title with the mouse that was collapsed with Windowshading to temporarily unshade it
"Open" command in File menu; Command-O and Command-ArrowDown to open files and folders in Filer
Command-Backspace to put files and folders into the Trash
Simplified user interface for Desktop Settings; changes are now applied immediately
Filer: Windows have been simplified, fewer unneeded pixels on the screen
Filer: "Thumbnail View" has been removed
Desktop: The wallpaper now can be set to "Transparent"
Filer: The --desktop option has been deprecated (to restart Filer, press Command+Ctrl+Esc, click on the desktop or a Filer window, and simply launch Filer again, e.g., from the Dock)
Filer: The file operation dialog (e.g., for copying) has been simplified
Filer: Duplicate menu item, Command-D
Filer: Command+Shift+Backspace for deleting immediately (without using Trash)
Filer: An Empty Trash menu item was added to the Edit menu and to the context menu of the Trash icon on the Desktop
Desktop: The wallpaper is now shown earlier (before constructing the icons on the Desktop)
Filer: Simplified "Get Info" dialog
Filer: Implements the org.freedesktop.FileManager1 D-Bus API which allows applications to highlight files in the file manager, thanks @mszoek
Filer: "Show Contents" for Application Bundles
Filer: Remove tabs to simplify user interface
Developer Preview: New Battery applet for the Menu to show the battery fill level, thanks @linuxkettle

Bugfixes

Applications in .app bundles that have paths with whitespaces can now be pinned to the Dock
launch Filer --set-wallpaper /some.jpg no longer garbles icons
Certain Filer menu items are now disabled when no files or folders have been selected
Filer: Do not attempt to copy or move items in the filesystem if source and destination paths are identical
Filer: Fix "Ambiguous shortcut overload" errors, make shortcuts work properly
Filer: Make file operation progress dialog appear only after any question/error dialogs
Filer: "Move to Trash" is now correctly labeled in the menu
Filer: The Trash icon on the Desktop no longer has a "Move to Trash" context menu item
Developer Preview: Network can now connect to encrypted and open wireless networks, thanks @linuxkettle and @jsm222

To be verified

Non-networked HP printers should now work out of the box thanks to the hplip package

Infrastructure

Switched from Openbox to the KWin window manager
Crudely worked around many Plasma desktop specific dependencies of the KWin window manager

Upstreaming efforts

helloDesktop is the desktop environment used in helloSystem. We would like to get it ported to FreeBSD.

Experimental helloDesktop ports and packages for FreeBSD are available for testing
- amd64: Instructions, thanks jsm222
- aarch64: Instructions, thanks s199pwa1k9r

Known issues

We are currently using latest rather than quarterly packages in the hope that Kf5 dependencies will be fewer there (to be revisited and likely reverted in the future)
Mouse cursor is too small when the mouse hovers over KWin window decorations on HiDPI screens
Live mode boot slow, needs 4GB+ RAM (Details)

0.5.0

This release is based on FreeBSD 12.2
The download size of the ISO has been significantly decreased
The System menu is now updated automatically (e.g., when (sub)folders or applications are added, moved, or deleted), thanks @PreyK
Variants of keyboard layouts can now be selected in the Keyboard preferences application, feature request by @nonetrix
QHexEdit application by @Simsys comes preinstalled in /Applications/Developer
Updated initgfx, more GPUs such as the AMD Radeon HD 6630M/6650M/6750M/7670M/7690M (Whistler/Turks) family GPUs found in 2011 Macs might now be supported (pending verification), thanks @mrclksr and @crees
Inital spatial mode option for Filer (each folder opens in its own window), thanks @moochris
"Go to..." menu in Filer, Command+Shift+G
Go up to parent folder in Filer using Command+Up
Get Info in Filer using Command+I
Filer brings already-open windows to the front rather than opening multiple windows for the same folder, thanks @moochris
Android File Transfer (MTP) utility
Windowshading: Double-click title bar to hide all but the title bar, thanks Bruce Tognazzini for popularizing the idea
It is now possible to save (persist across reboots) custom keyboard preferences
Non-root users now can run truss for debugging, thanks @crees
Placeholder .app bundles (and thereby menu entries) are automatically created for applications installed with pkg
Audio Volume can now be set from the global menu bar (right-click to change the audio device for newly started applications)
Closing the notebook lid triggers ACPI S3 sleep by default
The Create Live Media utility now only shows release versions by default
Documentation added for adding user-defined context menus in Filer
Context menu in Filer for opening text files and folders as root
Context menu for ejecting volumes
Filer now shows volumes on the desktop, thanks @moochris
Filer now shows the correct names for volumes ("volume labels")
Adjusted icon grid size in Filer
Filer now shows volumes first in the sidebar
Menus are now available if only the desktop is showing and no Filer windows are open, thanks @moochris
Theme has been slightly improved. Further improvements welcome!
Filer now shows alternating row colors in detail view
Added open command

Bugfixes

Fix Turkish name of "Turkish", thanks @bitigchi, fix Japanese name of "Japanese", thanks @jatin-cbs
Fix 100% CPU usage in Zeroconf application, thanks @PreyK
Add license for xubuntu-icon-theme, thanks @mbullington
Fix typos in welcome wizard, thanks @KaiTheCEO
Fix Menu and desktop on multi-monitor setups, thanks @PreyK
Fix missing tabs in Terminal application, thanks @grahamperrin
Notifications are now styled correctly
Autostart is now working
Startup Disk size is now correctly shown in the About This Computer dialog, thanks @LouiIPSW
.app bundles within mounted archives are now recognized in Filer
sudo su works now, thanks @crees
Symlinked .app and .AppDir bundles are now recognized by Filer, Menu, and the launch command
Touchpad continues to work smoothly after ACPI S3 sleep
Clicking on the Trash in the Dock works
Terminal can now handle drag-and-drop of paths with spaces in them
FAT media (MS-DOS volumes) are now accessible and files on them can be executed by everyone
Filer now shows filename extensions for files with long names
The Logs utility now also shows /var/log/messages (also known as dmesg output), thanks @grahamperrin
Fix wrong font sizes, especially in virtual machines
The global menu now respects the vertical size of menu items as set by the Qt theme

Infrastructure

The ISO build system can now use private packages, such as to provide a workaround for the broken Intel graphics driver in FreeBSD 12.2, thanks @crees
It is now possible to translate helloSystem components into different languages, thanks weblate.org (pending verification)
All helloDesktop core components build on Linux now (although not all functionality may be present on that platform)
helloDesktop can now be used with KWin instead of Openbox (although the user needs to set this up manually for now)

Known issues

Installation to removable devices is currently disabled due to https://github.com/helloSystem/ISO/issues/200
We currrently need to use quarterly rather than release_X packages because
- On 12.2 installation fails with release_2 packages
- On 12.2 releasing the mouse over a menu does not work release_2 packages
- appmenu-gtk-module is not available in release_2 packages and installation from GH Releases can fail with SSH Authentication Error Using quarterly packages is not ideal because unlike the name suggests, they can change and even disappear throughout the quarter, preventing builds from succeeding. As soon as release_3 packages are available, we should switch to those

0.4.0

Mouse preferences application
Rudimentary screencast recording tool on Ctrl+Alt+R
mountarchive tool for mounting file types supported by libarchive (this removes the need for extracting archives just to open a file in them)
Application icons in the System menu
Dock is now .app bundle and .AppDir aware, showing their icons and allowing them to be kept in Dock
'Open' animation in Dock
Logs utility highlights errors in red and sends a notification upon errors (while the application is running)
Bare-bones Users preferences application to add new users to the system
Home is now the first icon in the Dock
HiDPI cursors
Developer Preview versions of applications you could help make
- Disk First Aid utility to recover data from ZFS pools
- Disk Utility
- Energy Saving preferences application
- Network utility that resides in the upper-right hand corner of the global menu bar
- Screencast utility that resides in the upper-right hand corner of the global menu bar
- Simple Browser
- Start Disk to select the UEFI start disk
- Volume utility that resides in the upper-right hand corner of the global menu bar

0.3.0

Experimental build in 0.3.0 series

Bootsplash with no text unless verbosity is explicitly requested by the user
Automatic graphics hardware configuration (tested with Intel and Nvidia GPUs) using initgfx (thanks mrclksr)
Rounded window corners
...
Versioning scheme with version numbers (0.3.x) and build numbers (0Cxxx)
Improved automatic mounting of disks
Users can unmout disks in the Filer
Log utility
Hardware Probe utility with the optional ability to upload Hardware Probes to a database
Automatic detection of Apple keyboards and configurable Key swapping for handling the ⌘ key
Initial HiDPI support
Falkon browser with preconfigured search shortcuts (e.g., man ls)
Developer Tools and curated applications which get downloaded on demand
URW Nimbus font family default Sans and Serif fonts
Adobe Source Code Pro font default monospaced font
Welcome animation and wizard
Improved documentation
IRC channel #helloSystem, bridged to Matrix room

0.2.0

Variants based on FreeBSD 12.2-RELEASE and 13.0-CURRENT
Search more prominent in the menu bar
Search result gets selected automatically once only one is left
Calculator, Sticky Notes, and BuildNotify utilities

0.1.0

Booting the Live ISO from USB (thanks malco2001)
Booting the Live ISO from DVD (thanks malco2001)
Installing the system to hard disk using the 'Install FreeBSD' utility (thanks FreeBSD Foundation for permission to use the trademarks), including automatic hostname setting and automatic sshd setup
Browsing the network using the 'Zeroconf' utility
Global menu for Qt5, KDE, Gtk 2, Gtk 3 applications (thanks rekols)
Filer file manager with initial .app and .AppDir support
Filer window closes when medium is unmounted/removed (even from outside the file manager)
Desktop icons
Automount
Error messages in the GUI in the case of errors while running .app and .AppDir (via the launch command)
Action Search in global menu (thanks aoloe and antony-jr)
'System' menu (thanks antony-jr)
GUI for OpenZFS Boot Environments
Automatic Raspberry Pi keyboard language detection, sets computer language, keyboard layout, and timezone (thanks spl237) [details]
Set keyboard layout and system language based on Apple 'prev-lang:kbd' EFI variable
gvfs, e.g., computer:/// and network://
Chrome extensions uBlock Origin and I Don't Care About Cookies preinstalled
Dynamic submenus in System menu for applications
Action Search in global menu can now also launch applications (thanks to the above)
Alt-Q in addition to Alt-F4 for Quitting applications [Openbox]
launch command can now also launch .app and .AppDir using a given path; this is used by Menu to launch applications
Contents of 'System' menu are populated based on the directory structure on disk: /Applications, $HOME, and the downloads directory are searched, including their subdirectories (if there is at least one .app or .AppDir application in the parent directory)
Applications in the menu can be launched from the Action Search ('Search in Menu')
Take screenshots by pressing the PrtScn key (if you have it) or the Alt-Shift-3 key combination
Forcefully quit applications by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Esc and clicking on the application
Open new windows in a top-left location (window placement)
Printing to IPP printers on the local network with zero need for configuration
Tapping and two-finger scrolling on Synaptics and Elan touchpads
Search in the menu using Alt+Space, cancel the search using the Esc key

Status

Changelog

pre-0.9.0

Core system

User Interface

Bugfixes

Preview

Address DistroWatch review of helloSystem 0.8.0 issues

Address Bryan Lunduke review

0.8.2

Core system

User Interface

Bugfixes

0.8.1

Core system

Bootloader

User Interface

Applications

Bugfixes

0.8.0

Core system

User Interface

Desktop infrastructure

Applications

Bugfixes

Infrastructure

Known Issues

0.7.0

Core system

User interface

Filer

Command line tools

Utilities

Under Construction

Bugfixes

Infrastructure

Known issues

0.6.0

0.5.0

0.4.0

0.3.0

0.2.0

0.1.0

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