Cassini, packed with new features, is here

[Bryanpwo]

Image by Rockwallaby

It took the development team on a longer journey than expected but we are proud to present you our latest Cassini release, named after the Nasa mission with the Cassini spacecraft carrying the Huygens probe.

Just like the Nasa mission that had its fair share of nail-biting moments, this release had some nail-biting test runs because getting here required a major overhaul in how we build our ISO. The last time we presented such a major overhaul was our ISO-Next release back in August 2021.

Cassini

Wallpaper by Rockwallaby

I know that most of you already know, but better be safe than sorry, if you already have EndeavourOS up and running, you don’t have to reinstall the system. We are a rolling release and you already have the latest updates if you recently updated the system. For certain new features we have brand new Discovery articles to help you further but I’ll come back to those a little bit later.

This ISO and the offline install comes with:

• Calamares 3.3.0-alpha3
• Firefox 108.0.1-1
• Linux kernel 6.0.12.arch1-1
• Mesa 22.3.1-1
• Xorg-Server 21.1.5-1
• nvidia-dkms 525.60.11-1
• Grub 2:2.06.r403.g7259d55ff-1

And it ships with these new features:

x86_64:

• Added a choice of bootloaders as well as the ability to not install a bootloader (systemd-boot is default selected)
• Switched to dracut from mkinitcpio
• Added an entry for Windows when using grub or systemd-boot and Windows is installed
• You can now choose to create a new EFI partition instead of re-using the existing one when using “Replace partition” or “Install alongside“.
• Grub submenu feature is now enabled by default (only default entry is visible extra entries are inside a submenu)
• Default wallpaper/background is now set by settings packages instead of welcome
• KDE/Plasma: Replaced the discover icon with a Konsole icon.
• Cinnamon: Replaced adwaita icons with Qogir
• GNOME: uses Console and Gnome-text-editor instead of now legacy gedit and gnome-terminal, Wallpaper follows night and day theme same for Console (it is set to dark only by upstream default)
• Budgie: is set to Qogir Icons and arc GTK theme and uses Nemo instead of Nautilus (to have even theming possible, Nautilus is not able to get theming from Budgie)
• Lots of Calamares cleanup work
• Reorganized and cleaned up the netinstall packages

As you can read on top of the list, we now offer the options to install the system without a bootloader, systemd boot or GRUB. This will enhance the experience to install a system to your liking from step one.

We now also install the system with Dracut, a highly modular tool for generating initramfs images, instead of mkinitcpio by default. In general, it is superior to mkinitcpio in it’s ability to autodetect needed modules and for most use cases will work without any further configuration.

For users who already have EndeavourOS up and running but also want to switch to Dracut or switch to systemd-boot, a manual is in the making. If you want to read more on Dracut or systemd boot, it can be read over here:

https://discovery.endeavouros.com/installation/systemd-boot/2022/12/

https://discovery.endeavouros.com/installation/dracut/2022/12/

ARM

Wallpaper by Rockwallaby

EndeavourOS ARM also comes with new features

• EndeavourOS Arm now supports Pinebook Pro.
• New linux-eos-arm kernel with amdgpu introduced for more generic Arm device support including pinebook pro.
• linux-eos-arm ships with amdgpu module prebuilt for supporting devices like Phytiuim D2000.
• Raspberry Pi Imager/dd compatible images available for download. Improves accessibility of arm i.e. users from any OS can flash eos-arm to their arm SBC
• Improved headless server script.
• Odroid N2+: vulkan-panfrost and vulkan-mesa-layers installed to reduce artifacts on plasma x11 sessions and improve overall graphics performance and stability.

From now on the Pinebook Pro is officially supported by us.

For hardware and driver support for Pinebook Pro we ship the following packages:

• linux-eos-arm
• libdrm-pinebookpro
• pinebookpro-audio
• pinebookpro-post-install
• ap6256-firmware
• towboot-pinebook-pro

We’ve leveraged existing work and PKGBUIDs of both Manjaro ARM and archlinuxarm-pbp projects to create our Pinebook Pro images and would like to thank them for their continuing work in supporting PineBook Pro for Arch Linux ARM platform.

Thanks

As you can read, with this release some big milestone steps were taken to go forward into the future. I really would like to thank the entire development team and our ISO test group for their perseverance in making this release possible. I know there were some painstaking and frustrating moments along the way, but you kept on going, moving huge mountains. You really deserve all credit for this release.

We hope you will enjoy Cassini and to download the ISO, just visit our download page. It is available in the list underneath the release notes.

[Bryanpwo]

Sorry, the download page is working now, I forgot to disable the maintenance mode

[sradjoker]

Nail biting moment for sure

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I was honking like crazy!!11

[anon50380917]

What does this mean for a new installation with Btrfs and snapper, if Dracut is then active instead of mkinitcpio, when I had previously added a hook in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf to be able to boot with Grub from read-only snapshots? It is the addition grub-btrfs-overlayfs. If then mkinitcpio no longer exists, how can I fix this?

[CommanderKeen]

congratulations on the release!

just a question: with systemd-boot, no more need to run sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg i guess, anything else that needs to be run instead ?
(im going to have to modify all my howtos)

and a suggestion, if it wasnt implremented already: how about an option to choose between firewalld and ufw (or none) in the installer?
or is ufw not usable with systemd-boot?

[dalto]

@CommanderKeen

just a question: with systemd-boot, no more need to run sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg i guess, anything else that needs to be run instead ?

There really isn’t anything that needs to be run instead. It should mostly “just work”.

If you ever want to rebuild your initrams and regenerate your boot entries you can use sudo reinstall-kernels

@CommanderKeen

how about an option to choose between firewalld and ufw (or none) in the installer?

This is just my personal opinion but ufw is basically legacy technology at this point. I think it is better for us to ship firewalld until something even newer/better comes along.

If someone prefers ufw, they are free to install it. There is no real advantage to having it in the installer.

@CommanderKeen

or is ufw not usable with systemd-boot?

They work together.(More accurately, they are unrelated)

[CommanderKeen]

thank you. the thing is i understand ufw, firewalld is confusing and the gui just makes it worse

[dalto]

@anon50380917

if Dracut is then active instead of mkinitcpio, when I had previously added a hook in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf to be able to boot with Grub from read-only snapshots? It is the addition grub-btrfs-overlayfs. If then mkinitcpio no longer exists, how can I fix this?

The author of grub-btrfs is working on support for dracut as we speak:

grub-btrfs: add custom kernel parameters option for snapshots

Once that is done, it should only require a config change. No hooks will be needed.

If you need to do a clean install before that is released, you can switch back to mkinitcpio without too much difficulty.

[dalto]

@CommanderKeen

the thing is i understand ufw, firewalld is confusing and the gui just makes it worse

Sure, if you prefer it, you can definitely still switch to it. We don’t force anyone to use firewalld.

[anon50380917]

Thanks @dalto , for now I will not have to reinstall yet. My wife would also like to switch to Btrfs with her computer now, but that can wait …

[joekamprad]

—> Cassini: vollgepackt mit tollen Sachen

[anon50380917]

To come back to a new installation with the new ISO: If systemd-boot is now selected as default and thus I can no longer apply the familiar grub changes, what do I have to do to select a specific kernel to boot from several installed kernels and how does it then behave with the Btrfs Assistant and snapper regarding displayed snapshots at boot? What about read-only snapshots at boot? Sorry for all the questions, but systemd-boot seems to be an interesting alternative.

[dalto]

@anon50380917

If systemd-boot is now selected as default and thus I can no longer apply the familiar grub changes, what do I have to do to select a specific kernel to boot from several installed kernels and how does it then behave with the Btrfs Assistant and snapper regarding displayed snapshots at boot? What about read-only snapshots at boot? Sorry for all the questions, but systemd-boot seems to be an interesting alternative.

There is no good way to do btrfs snapshot booting with systemd-boot. That is one of the big reasons we kept grub as an option in the installer.

[anon50380917]

very sad …

[joekamprad]

But hey no problem simply staying on using Grub.
Grub is may a bit more work to handle, but if you use snapshots you have already a more complex setup anyway

I use the common BTRFS Grub snapshot thingy on my Thinkpad (legacy Bios system) i would not change it (even can’t)

[joekamprad]

This is the main selling point for gufw indeed…
I do not use the firewalld GUI here much if i need to change something, i will find a way to apply this from the command line in the documentation easily… and after some time i get comfortable with the commands too…

[anon50380917]

Joe, of course you are right, Grub just keeps on running. I was rather thinking of a way to get rid of these circumstances in the future when updating Grub. But no problem so far.

[petsam]

Good luck supporting dracut issues
Until the Archwiki (or EnOS Discovery) dracut article grows about similar (in length and info/cases) to the mkinitcpio one, shipping dracut as default is really an Endeavour!

Providing easy implementation/switch to dracut is one thing. Shipping as default is another…

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