Unlike previous testing calls - we are now looking for experienced testers who want to help the both the UB and BuddiesOfBudgie teams with early testing of our Wayland offering. This should NOT be used who want a stable system.
You can test via a 26.04 install with a test PPA and with the latest 26.04 daily ISO
If you have spare hardware and don’t mind regularly reinstalling when (and I mean WHEN) this testing phase eats your installation then feel free to give your feedback here. Early testing will improve the final release
Testing the install with GNOME Boxes/LXC/QEMU-KVM works. Do note that with host acceleration option turned on the cursor can be shown upside-down. This is a QEMU issue.
Testing the install with Virtualbox 7.2.4 without 3D acceleration does not work
This first post will be updated with the latest important info - so you don’t need to trawl through the posts. Remember - everything listed below is subject to change/removal and should not be used as indicative with this preproduction release.
Do not report bugs to launchpad - all issues should be reported here and we will advise whether to also report to our upstream
The look and feel for 26.04 has now been set.
The key things to note:
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Crystal-dock out of the box configured
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Change from lightdm/slick-greeter to SDDM/our own greeter
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Top-Bar reworked
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Menu now has favourites
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Showtime is now a raven widget
From a bug fix to-do POV:
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working on a fix for setting the keyboard on first install - need to-do a fresh install to confirm what I believe is happening
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complete the upstreaming crystal-dock support in budgie - hide the 1px visible line at the bottom of the screen when an app is full-screen
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add to welcome layout support specifically for resolute - budgie-extras-daemon has been re-enabled in budgie-extras over the weekend to include stopping/starting crystal-dock
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Documenting how people need to identify their primary monitor i.e. the one that panels appear on. A stretch goal will be to actually fix this in budgie-desktop but this will mean also a fix in weathershow and showtime to appear depending upon how budgie-desktop-services says the primary monitor is rather than Gtk/GDK saying what it thinks.
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Translation support for the new greetertranslation support is now in - this needs testing -
anything else that we agree is “serious” or “critical” found between now and beta. “nice to have” will be on a “how easy is it to implement” basis.
The greeter has some default images we have created - 256x256 png format.
We would love folk to find/create their own “avatars” to replace these. Lets see your creations!
draft release notes.
Testing Budgie Desktop with Labwc
For Ubuntu Budgie with Wayland this can be tested via our development only PPA.
For 26.04:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntubudgie-dev/wayland-test && sudo apt full-upgrade
sudo apt autoremove
reboot --
--> login to the desktop
nohup budgie-panel --reset --raven-reset --replace &
Notes
- Qt based apps now better integrate with out desktop. Specifically Qt6 based apps that support kcolorscheme to style dark/light. This opens budgie to lots of new apps. You dont have to limit yourself to Gtk based apps. Let us know those Qt apps that you have tried. Screenshots please!
- Crystal Dock is an exciting development that has recently received labwc & wayfire support and we have included it out of the box. Please note - do remember to keep “Task Manager” ticked when customising the dock if you want to see all launched apps in the dock. Without this option ticked, the dock behaves as a quick-launcher of just the pinned apps.
- Budgie Control Center options should display only those options that upstream intend to be wayland compatible. We need testers to try as many options as possible and let us know whether there are options that do not work.
- Keyboard Layout applet - this does not work at the moment. Keyboard layout switching is available via Alt+Shift
- Compatible applets - use the PPA to test those packages that have been converted to be wayland compatible. We’ll be updating the PPA over this cycle with more applets that we consider are wayland compatible. Do check and test. If your favourite budgie applet is not available in the PPA it has not been converted - or will not be converted to be wayland compatible. https://launchpad.net/\~ubuntubudgie-dev/+archive/ubuntu/wayland-test/+packages
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Accessibility is improved. We no longer need magnus for screen magnification. shortcut super + alt + 8
Do check out the other accessibility options in budgie-desktop - accessibility
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For those gamers or using youtube or apps like Teams you’ll note that the screen-lock can kick in. Use the caffeine applet. If you want a more automatic method then install the sway-audio-idle-inhibit package from the PPA which prevents screenlock if it detects audio playing.
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Adaptive mouse acceleration is now the default
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Alt+F11 can be used to activate a window to full-screen
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Power options are now available in the menu
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Font-viewer now uses the system theme by default
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The default icon-size in nemo has been increased slightly
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VLC is now the default media player - we have dropped parole from our resolute offering.
Testing Budgie with Wayfire
Wayfire is a great compositor if you like subtle animations. Via wayfire.ini you can configure other effects like the cube to switch workspaces.
If you would like to help with making wayfire a first-class citizen just let us know. Here is a repo to get you going with budgie + wayfire
Creating Budgie with Sway
Let us know if you have an interest in helping to develop Budgie with Sway
Creating Budgie with Hyprland
Let us know if you have an interest in helping to develop Budgie with Hyprland
Budgie with Miriway
If you have an interest in using Budgie with Mir/Miriway then this repo has the setup for this window manager. Again - let us know your interest in helping to develop this variant.
I’ve rebuilt it again from scratch, without installing any of the above applets and everything was working fine.
and I haven’t so much time for working on Budgie) I’ll try to install these applets one by one (and I’ll carerfully read what autoremove is asking me, I promise) the way to find out the guilty one (if any), then I’ll let you know.