2021 — whew what a year that was
So, we’re finally at the end of 2021. Welcome back to the yearly article where we look back on what has happened in Feren OS over the last year, as well as touch on life in general if appropriate.
After the absolute dumpster fire that was being sent into space by a rocket and also conveniently directed by Michael Bay that was the year 2020 (that’s an underexxageration, for the record, of 2020), it’s safe to say everyone was looking hopeful for 2021… and we were right to be hopeful — it was so so so so much nicer a year than 2020, for Linux reasons anyway.
Anyway, before we get into Feren OS stuff, we can’t go without mentioning the fact 2021 was just an amazing year for Linux in general — the Steam Deck announcement, KDE’s 25th Anniversary, GNOME… redesigning their stuff…, and a whole lot more worthy of an outstanding Linux Rewind or two.
Seriously, let’s keep this hype going into 2022, shall we?
Anyway, onto Feren OS’s yearly reflection and achievements:
Feren OS January 2021 Snapshot
Right at the start of the year, on January 13th Feren OS January 2021 Snapshot released, bringing with it spit and polish improvements, some minor Chromium-related changes to Web Browser Manager, the movement of colourations in Theme Colouriser from Global Theme to Colours, the automatic generation of both light and dark theme colourisations at the same time, usability improvements for Feren OS theme elements, a minor Desktop Icons cleanup, and some more fixes.
KDE Plasma 5.21
Later in the year, in March, KDE Plasma came to Feren OS, bringing with it KDE Plasma’s Adaptive Transparency feature one release before its official debut in Plasma, the debut of Feren OS’s current default Applications Menu, switching the Status Notch from being a Latte Dock, on the default Feren OS Desktop Layout, to being a Plasma panel/dock, fixes and improvements for the Feren OS theme, consistent panel icon sizing, Plasma Firewall, and the deprecation of the “Kubuntu” Global Theme patches in Feren OS in favour of patching the newly official Breeze Twilight.
Feren OS April 2021 Snapshot
In April, Feren OS April 2021 Snapshot was released. This brought a new default wallpaper, based on the results of a community-voted default wallpaper contest, being the promotion of ‘Surf’ from Feren OS 2017.0 to being Feren OS’s default wallpaper, as well as improvements for all the Desktop Layouts, the Feren OS GTK themes now being available for Snap-powered applications to use, and the complete redesign of https://feren-os.github.io/start-page with LOADS of improvements over the previous version of it.
Feren OS July 2021 Snapshot
Then, in July, Feren OS July 2021 Snapshot was released. This snapshot brought important improvements, such as vastly improved CJK Support, KDE Plasma 5.22, revamped accent colours to address user feedback, Desktop Layouts now becoming their own unique Global Themes with Desktop Layouts included, Doors now looking like the latest version of a certain popular OS, virtual machine improvements, Koko and KDE Partition Manager replacing Photos and GParted in the applications suite, and… the debut of the round Feren OS theme Feren OS currently has.
Chromium’s removal from Web Browser Manager
Sooner or later, Chromium got removed from Web Browser Manager due to some serious issues the Linux Mint branding that Linux Mint’s Chromium build has, in August. A post was made at https://medium.com/feren-os/chromium-has-been-removed-from-web-browser-manager-in-feren-os-b0846774f540 to explain the reasoning for this.
Future of Feren OS’s GTK theme announced
I’ll… just link it here, for anyone wanting to read up on the announcement: https://medium.com/feren-os/the-future-of-feren-os-theming-for-gtk-94051a64e6de
Firefox transition announcement
Finally, in September, another potentially drama-worthy post was made, announcing how Firefox will be distributed in Feren OS in 2022 and onwards, due to upstream changes regarding Firefox: https://medium.com/feren-os/psa-for-firefox-users-in-feren-os-heres-what-s-going-to-happen-in-2022-d8d3eae7800b
Feren OS 2021.10
Finally, Feren OS 2021.10 was released, ditching the ‘Snapshot’ naming system, and implementing a naming system based on the prior naming systems, bringing in a new Splash Screen, a whole new lock screen based on Feren OS design mockups, a new pre-configuration for Mozilla Firefox in Feren OS, and a colour scheme tweak to the “Human” style to reflect upstream changes.
What to look forward to in 2022
Plasma 5.23 finally landing
Plasma 5.23 is in the works for Feren OS, even if it’s very late to debut in Feren OS this time (too much stuff happened to get in the way of working on debuting it to effectively mention here), with some important changes coming with its eventual debut, such as the retiring of Theme Colouriser (accent colours were introduced), the merging of Global Theme and Desktop Layout once more, and more.
A new Feren Store, hopefully
Feren OS’s new Store has been in the works for a little while now, and is progressing along nicely (when it isn’t on hold due to working on other things like Plasma updates) — I’m hoping that I can release Feren OS’s new Store to Feren OS in the initial half of 2022, but with the amount of hype this program’s gonna hold in features, there’s a realistic chance that deadline won’t be met. Still, I’d like to get it out during the initial half of 2022 at least.
The Feren OS Team finally fully forming…?
The Feren OS Team currently consists of me and Thibault. However, once Storium is out of the way, I am hoping to be able to finally fully form the Feren OS Team for realsies, to bring about important changes that are planned to, sooner or later, hit Feren OS.
Translation Support finally being added…?
It has been a long time coming, but once I’ve got Storium and complete Feren OS Team forming out of the way, I very much currently have my sights set on making sure Feren OS is translatable in its fullest. So, watch this space, people wanting to translate.
New Inspire icon set
The Inspire icon set has also had a major redesign in the works, spearheaded by me this time, with help from the original icon designer for the first batches of Feren OS’s current icons, and most of its System Settings icons, Thibault Clm, with completely, redone from the ground up, icons that take advantage of KDE Plasma’s abilities to recolour icons as appropriate, and overall give Feren OS a complementing icon style to its current, and next, theme that truly stands out from the current crowd.
A… new Feren OS theme, again?
Speaking of which, yes, a new Feren OS theme design is in the works, currently in the initial conceptualisation phase and early Plasma Style design phase. Look, with everything happening in GTK, and with me getting really good at designing visuals now (I’d like to think I am decent now), I’ve come up with a new general application and shell design for Feren OS that I’d like to pedal Feren OS towards. Something a little… fresh… while still feeling modern.
More will be revealed later on in time.
Conclusion
With that being said, enjoy your new years day, and I’ll see you next year. Let’s bring some hype to this part of the Linux community, shall we? (also yes, I did just say that bad joke people say on the last day of each year, and now I’ll be running before anyone with pitchforks can arrive)
