We are pleased to announce the publication of new Synex Semi-rolling images, the branch based on Debian Testing. This update concentrates on the COSMIC edition, which advances two versions at once to COSMIC 1.10.0, along with the usual package review on the Debian Testing base.
COSMIC 1.10.0
The COSMIC edition moves to version 1.10.0, accumulating the changes from 1.9.0 and 1.10.0 with respect to the previous version. The update reaches the complete stack: the Wayland compositor, the panel and its applets, the settings centre, the session manager, the greeter and the environment's own applications.
Two new components join the set. cosmic-viewer is the environment's image viewer and becomes the default application for opening images, replacing the GTK viewer the edition had been using until now. cosmic-osk adds an on-screen keyboard, with an applet of its own to enable and disable it; the environment detects it according to the machine, so that it does not appear where it does not belong.
The lock screen is now drawn by the same component as the desktop background, which unifies its appearance with the session. And the interface font is now synchronised from the environment's settings daemon, so that third-party GTK applications take the same typeface as COSMIC applications, size included.
As with every revision, Synex applies its visual identity on top of the original environment: orange accent in both the light and dark themes, Inter and Hack typefaces, its own wallpaper and a dock pre-configured with the system tools.
The COSMIC packaging for Debian and Synex remains public in the cosmic-synex repository, which from this version documents the two versioning schemes the project uses: `X.Y.Z+synexN` for the stable branch and `X.Y.Z+synexN+srN` for semi-rolling. The same patches and scripts serve both, and the semi-rolling branch is the one that receives each new version first.
Main components
These images were built on Debian Testing and include Linux kernel 7.2.11, systemd 262, OpenSSL 3.6.5, GRUB 2.14, Mesa 26.1.6, PipeWire 1.6.9 with WirePlumber 0.5.18, btrfs-progs 7.1, Firefox ESR 153.4.0 and Flatpak 1.18.4. Installation is handled by Calamares 3.4.2 with calamares-settings-synex 1.0.34, and all editions include Synex Package Manager 1.4.0, Synex Snapshots 0.5.1, Synex Connections 0.3.0 and grub-btrfs.
By edition: KDE Plasma 6.7.4 with KWin 6.7.4 and KDE Applications 26.08.2; GNOME Shell 50.5 with GDM3 51.0 and Nautilus 51.0.1; XFCE 4.20, with xfce4-panel 4.20.8, xfce4-session 4.20.4, xfwm4 4.20.0 and Thunar 4.20.10; and COSMIC Epoch 1.10.0.
Post-release update — GNOME installer fix
After these images were published, an issue was identified in the GNOME edition that could prevent Calamares from starting. The issue is related to qgnomeplatform integration with the current Debian Testing Qt stack and does not affect the KDE Plasma, XFCE or COSMIC editions.
The fix is available in calamares-settings-synex 1.0.35. This version uses the Qt GTK3 platform theme when running Calamares on GNOME, avoiding the qgnomeplatform failure while preserving the installer's dark appearance.
Users who have already downloaded the GNOME 26.10.17 image can apply the fix from the Live session, before starting the installer, by running:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install calamares-settings-synexThe update also installs the required dependencies and there is no need to download the image again.
Availability
The new Synex Semi-rolling images are available for immediate download in the KDE Plasma, GNOME, XFCE and COSMIC editions. As always, we recommend verifying the checksums of the downloaded images before creating the installation medium.
Download Synex Semi-rolling from here.