EasyOS 4.4.1
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EasyOS 4.4.1 released
Version 4.4.1 has put in place improvements for running apps in containers, plus various small fixes and enhancements.
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EasyOS Dunfell-series 4.4.1
EasyOS was created in 2017, derived from Quirky Linux, which in turn was derived from Puppy Linux in 2013. Easy is built in woofQ, which takes as input binary packages from any distribution, and uses them on top of the unique EasyOS infrastructure.
Throughout 2020, the official release for x86_64 PCs was the Buster-series, built with Debian 10.x Buster DEBs.
EasyOS has also been built with packages compiled from source, using a fork of OpenEmbedded (OE). Currently, the Dunfell release of OE has been used, to compile two sets of binary packages, for x86_64 and aarch64.
The latter have been used to build EasyOS for the Raspberry Pi4, and first official release, 2.6.1, was in January 2021.
The page that you are reading now has the release notes for EasyOS Dunfell-series on x86_64 PCs, also debuting in 2021.
Ongoing development is now focused on the x86_64 Dunfell-series. The last version in the x86_64 Buster-series is 2.6.2, on June 29, 2021, and that is likely to be the end of that series. Releases for the Pi4 Dunfell-series are still planned but very intermittent.
The version number is for EasyOS itself, independent of the target hardware; that is, the infrastructure, support-glue, system scripts and system management and configuration applications.
The latest version is becoming mature, though Easy is an experimental distribution and some parts are under development and are still considered as beta-quality. However, you will find this distro to be a very pleasant surprise, or so we hope.
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Considering future directions for EasyOS
I have decided to release EasyOS 4.4.1 in a day or two, as contemplating major changes that may break things. One major change is a move away from running as the root user. Remember "fido"?
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User 'fido' never got any traction, and has just about been forgotten. I am considering bringing back user fido, but doing it differently. This proposed fido will (maybe) have root privileges -- if go for giving fido full root access, it will be just like before, except apps that object to running as root will no longer complain.
And, fido may have some restrictions, that you can decide on in a menu in the initrd at bootup. In other words, may back off from full root privileges.