{"id":39167,"date":"2018-08-10T14:50:12","date_gmt":"2018-08-10T14:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sickgaming.net\/blog\/2018\/08\/10\/elementary-os-juno-brings-only-slight-changes-to-an-outstanding-platform\/"},"modified":"2018-08-10T14:50:12","modified_gmt":"2018-08-10T14:50:12","slug":"elementary-os-juno-brings-only-slight-changes-to-an-outstanding-platform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2018\/08\/10\/elementary-os-juno-brings-only-slight-changes-to-an-outstanding-platform\/","title":{"rendered":"Elementary OS Juno Brings Only Slight Changes to an Outstanding Platform"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/elementary-os-juno-brings-only-slight-changes-to-an-outstanding-platform.png\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/elementary.io\/\">Elementary OS<\/a> has been my distribution of choice for some time now. I find it a perfect blend of usability, elegance, and stability. Out of the box, Elementary doesn\u2019t include a lot of apps, but it does offer plenty of style and all the apps you could want are an AppCenter away. And with the upcoming release, the numbering scheme changes. Named Juno, the next iteration will skip the .5 number and go directly to 5.0. Why? Because Elementary OS is far from a pre-release operating system and the development teams wanted to do away with any possible confusion. <\/p>\n<p>Elementary, 0.4 (aka Loki) is about as stable a Linux operating system as I have ever used. And although Elementary OS 5.0 does promise to be a very natural evolution from .4, it is still very much in beta, but ready for testing. Because Juno is based on Ubuntu 18.04, it enjoys a rock-solid base, so the foundation of the OS will already be incredibly stable.<\/p>\n<p>With that in mind, I downloaded 5.0 and spun it up in VirtualBox. The results are as impressive as I assumed they\u2019d be. Let\u2019s get this open source operating system installed and see what it has to offer.<\/p>\n<h3>Installation<\/h3>\n<p>I\u2019m not going to spend much time on explaining the installation of Elementary OS. Why? If you\u2019ve installed any flavor or Linux (or any operating system at all), then you can walk through the installation of this distribution in your sleep. There\u2019s a rumor that Elementary OS is working in conjunction with System76 on a new installer. As of the current release of Juno, however, there is no sign of such an installer, so you\u2019ll find the same method of installation seen in previous iterations of the platform.<\/p>\n<p>You can run Elementary OS live or install it immediately. Burn the ISO image onto a CD\/DVD or USB flash drive and boot it on your machine (or use the ISO image to create a virtual machine). The installer will have you configure your language, keyboard, select the installation type (Figure 1), select if you want to download updates immediately and install third-party media codecs, and then create a user.<\/p>\n<p>Once the installation completes, reboot the machine and log in. Shortly after logging in, you should be prompted that updates are available. I highly recommend running the updates before using the desktop (since this is still in beta, the updates will come often). Now that we\u2019re installed and updated, let\u2019s take a look at some of those new features.<\/p>\n<h3>The AppCenter<\/h3>\n<p>The Elementary OS AppCenter has been given a slight facelift. Although the previous version was quite serviceable, it seems the designers have taken a nod from GNOME Software (which is a good thing) and added recommendations under the featured titles (Figure 2).<\/p>\n<p>Another upcoming feature to the AppCenter is the ability to pay developers \u201cwhat you want\u201d for apps. The Elementary OS developers are taking a unique approach to apps. Elementary OS first released the AppCenter in May 2017 and by February 2018 they\u2019d processed $1,700.00 worth of payments from just over 750 charges. That means the average paid price for an app, purchased from the AppCenter was $2.30. To make things a bit more lucrative for developers (and to try an interesting experiment), Elementary OS will include a HumbleButton for paid apps that allow users to pay what they will. Another change will be that paid apps won\u2019t automatically update (if you click the Update All button in the AppCenter). Instead, to update the app, you\u2019ll have to donate to the app (starting with $0.00 to $10.00 or a custom amount). Hopefully, that change will translate into more developers getting paid for their work.<\/p>\n<h3>Aesthetics <\/h3>\n<p>You won\u2019t find too much in the way of aesthetic improvements in Juno. You\u2019ll find no complaint here (as Elementary OS .4 Loki was already quite elegant). The designers did officially decide upon an official color palette. The full palette can be viewed <a href=\"https:\/\/elementary.io\/brand\">here<\/a> (along with all logo and font information).<\/p>\n<p>Along with the new palette, Juno brings:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p>A Night Light feature (to make late night staring at the screen a bit less harsh on the eyes).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Latest GTK+ features (which includes some animated panel icons).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Very slight changes to the default theme (icons are a bit brighter and colorful).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>App Changes<\/h3>\n<p>Because there are so few apps shipped out of the box, you won\u2019t find much in the way of change here. The developers have rebranded the default text editor, Scratch, as Code and even rolled in some basic code editor features. Outside of that, the standard default Elementary apps remain intact:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p>Mail \u2014 for your email needs.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Music \u2014 to play your tunes.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Files \u2014 serves as your file manager.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Videos \u2014 plays all of your videos.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Calendar \u2014 schedule your day.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Photos \u2014 manage your photos.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Epiphany<\/h3>\n<p>At one point, I would have said having Epiphany as the default browser was a big miss. However, Epiphany has come a long way. Case in point: The version of Epiphany shipping with Juno includes the ability to log into your Firefox Account, so it can now sync and share data (Figure 3).<\/p>\n<p>Another really nifty feature with newer releases of Epiphany is the ability to install a site as a Web Application. What this does is save a site as a launcher in the Elementary OS menu, such that you only need to click the launcher to open the site. When the site opens as an installed app, you will notice the browser window missing a few components (such as the bookmarks and configuration buttons, as well as the tab button\/feature). It\u2019s a handy way to gain quick access to specific sites you use frequently.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>To install a site as a web application, follow these steps:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>\n<p>Open Epiphany.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Navigate to the web site in question.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Click the Epiphany menu button (gear icon in the upper right corner).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Click Install Site as Web Application (Figure 4).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>In the resulting popup, give the application a name and click Create.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h3>A bit of clean up and a conclusion<\/h3>\n<p>Outside of the above features (and a few more minor details), the rest of the change comes by way of old code cleanup and closing out issues. Thanks to that codebase cleanup, you\u2019ll find a bit of a performance and stability increase over previous releases.<\/p>\n<p>All in all, Elementary OS continues to be my top-rated distribution for new Linux users. It\u2019s incredibly clean, elegant, and user-friendly. Thankfully, the design and development team understand they have something special on their hands and, instead of bringing about new features and radical changes, are set on offering only slight changes and improvements to an already rock solid Linux distribution. So, if you\u2019re looking for something magical and radical in the shift from .4 to 5.0, you might be disappointed. If, however, what you want is nothing more than an improved (and very familiar) experience with Elementary OS, Juno will not disappoint.<\/p>\n<p><em>Learn more about Linux through the free\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/training.linuxfoundation.org\/linux-courses\/system-administration-training\/introduction-to-linux\">&#8220;Introduction to Linux&#8221;\u00a0<\/a>course from The Linux Foundation and edX.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Elementary OS has been my distribution of choice for some time now. I find it a perfect blend of usability, elegance, and stability. Out of the box, Elementary doesn\u2019t include a lot of apps, but it does offer plenty of style and all the apps you could want are an AppCenter away. And with the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-linux-freebsd-unix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}