Just like every single other Snapshot ever made for Feren OS, there are a new set of wallpapers to choose from, though I got a little bit too set-construction-happy when building up the Unsplash wallpaper set so there's a few more Unsplash wallpapers than usual this snapshot.
Despite this, this isn't the only change that is present with this new wallpaper set. Actually, on top of this all the logo wallpapers present in the set now use the correct Feren OS Logo on them. Plus, there's a new default background too and new bo0xvn wallpapers! Of course, these wallpapers also appear in Feren OS Next too.

Another significant change in this snapshot is the introduction of the 'First Login OOBE', or feren-oobe, to the Cinnamon Desktop Environment in Feren OS. This program will run at startup on the first login of a user into Feren OS and will provide an easy way to set up the following before the user enters Feren OS:
- Codecs
- Layout
- Light/Dark Mode + Accent Colour
- Animations Toggling

Yes, you heard that right, Feren OS 64-Bit with Cinnamon now has a new installer and a new OEM Setup Experience. Both now make use of the Calamares System Installer and now provide a much faster installation experience from beginning to end.
For instructions on how to make use of the New OEM Setup Experience, click here.

With this snapshot, you can also see some noticeable adjustments to the Feren OS Light Theme, including but not limited to:
- A re-done GTK2 Theme based on the latest Arc GTK2 Theme that now matches with the overall theming of Feren OS once more
- A darkened GTK3 Theme making the light theme more neutral
- Backend changes to the Cinnamon Themes to make them more consistent as well as changing the theme slightly to match better with the new darkened light theme
- Metacity/Window Borders updates to make the title bars consistent with the new theme
- WinStyle and macStyle Window Borders (Metacity Themes) have been re-done to support Accent Colour-dependant colourisation for supported GTK3 Themes

Welcome Screen also saw some noticeable changes with this snapshot, mainly coming down to these changes:
- Most if not all of the resources (logos, icons, and more) in Welcome Screen have now been updated to better represent what Feren OS looks like now rather than in the past.
- There is now a new 'Changelog' page accessible from the headerbar on the Welcome Screen Home Page, inspired by the Vivaldi Update Summary page shown when Vivaldi is updated to a new major version, that gives an overview of most of the changes made since the snapshot before the latest snapshot was released.

For this part, I've chosen to split the changes into different sections in this main changes category:

The Feren OS Repositories have now been moved over to a new repository hosted on a GitLab Repository, which provide a faster than ever experience when refreshing the package lists to check for updates, or simply installing a package from the repositories. Plus, the repositories now have a proper structure to them meaning that packages can be better split into 'components' of the repository to enable or disable certain parts of the repositories on-the-fly.

As well as this, the KDE Neon User Edition Repository has been mirrored into the 'neon-bionic' component of the new repositories, allowing Feren OS to receive the latest and greatest KDE packages. However, there is also an extra change made to the Feren OS mirror of the repository, being that some packages are removed to fix some dependency issues or issues that may compromise on the Feren OS experience, some packages are added in such as new versions of every Qt Style Package available in Ubuntu to keep them working under the newer version of Qt supplied by the KDE Neon User Edition Repositories and the repository delays major updates such as Plasma updates for a little bit to guarantee more stability.
​The ISOs include this new repository out-of-the-box, however for users of older ISOs you can run the following command in Terminal to enable this repository at your own risk:
sudo enable-neon-ppa

Finally, other packages have also seen their own changes:
Steam: The package for Steam has been patched to also recommend extra driver packages required for the best experience on certain types of Steam Games.
Lutris: Lutris makes its way into the 'software' Repository to provide everyone with an easy way to install the program at all times, and will be updated over time on the repository as new releases are released
Komorebi: Komorebi Wallpaper Manager has also had the same treatment as Lutris, making it easier than ever to install the program. (64-Bit only)
GIMP: The available version of GIMP has been updated to 2.10.8 in the repositories (not installed by default)
LibreOffice: Thanks to the Official LibreOffice PPA, LibreOffice is now on 6.2.2.2 in the April Snapshot ISO, introducing the Layouts such as Tabbed to all LibreOffice users.

The Store and Software Sources applications have also been big updates this snapshot:
- Store is now based on MintInstall 7.9.7 and includes all the improvements brought in from that base as well as keeping the core Store experience from previous versions. This also means that the featured application section of Store will now disappear if your screen height is less than is able to fit the window properly in its full size.
- Software Sources has a refined User Interface that makes it look closer to the latest Mint Software Sources application version, as well as pulling in some of the User Interface of the latest version of Mint Software Sources. It also has a fix for being able to run commands as Root after a package downgrade is finished successfully.

Unfortunately, due to uncertainty with the stability of using the KDE Neon User Edition PPA Mirror in a Non-LTS Ubuntu Release and the looming chance of 32-Bit support ending entirely for Ubuntu before 20.04 LTS, I have decided to discontinue the Non-LTS Update Path Toggler. People currently on the Non-LTS Update Path will continue to receive upgrades until 20.04 LTS to Non-LTS Releases, but following the 20.04 LTS Major Update Feren OS will automatically put you on the LTS Update Path once more and the Non-LTS Update Path will no longer receive Major Updates. Sorry for any inconvenience caused. (Non-LTS Users will still receive updates on the LTS Update Path regardless)

Finally, the Hardware-Enablement Stack for Ubuntu 18.04 has been installed into the April 2019 Snapshot ISOs on both 64-Bit and 32-Bit. This now means that you have access to Linux Kernel 4.18 by default in Feren OS.

For current users, installing the HWE Stack is simply (including the kernel), just install these packages:
​- linux-generic-hwe-18.04
- xserver-xorg-hwe-18.04

This is only scratching the surface of what has changed. In conclusion, all the packages that can be updated have now been updated to their latest versions at the time of the ISO's building and there are many other changes in this snapshot that were not mentioned in this post. Go and check the April Snapshot out and enjoy! There was a lot of changes in this release to make Feren OS better than ever... So, enjoy!

While this may not be the final Feren OS April 2019 Snapshot ISO Release announcement, today I'm happy to announce that a new Testing ISO is now available on the Feren OS Development Releases SourceForge Page which features all the changes brought to Feren OS up until today since January Snapshot, as well as featuring a new installer* replacing Ubiquity.
*The new installer will only be in the 64-Bit ISO, 32-Bit will have to wait it out for now until next year's July Snapshot (maybe)

Either way, before I give a download link to those interested in testing the ISO, I'd like to mention a few things first:
- This is not a final representation of April Snapshot - Welcome Screen, the background set, and more are still yet to receive their April Snapshot updates, and also do not have their April Snapshot updates in this ISO yet, for one
- The 'INSTALL NOW' button won't work in Welcome Screen - a fix has already been implemented however to this in the April Snapshot Welcome Screen update (not released yet), so don't worry about reporting that bug
- The GTK2 Feren OS Light Theme is still pure white, which will also be reflected in the new installer - this will be fixed closer to the actual April 2019 Snapshot release
- Use 'Send Feedback' if you've got bugs to report... or just let me know on the Discord Server or on Twitter, either way let me know about any other bugs in this ISO outside of those already mentioned in Release Notes for Feren OS in general and the ones mentioned above.

With that in mind, if you would like to test Feren OS April 2019 Snapshot before it's complete, mainly to test the implementation of the new choice of installer (Calamares) in Feren OS, click the button below to download a 2.2GB ISO of the April 2019 Snapshot updates in an ISO so far:

I'd appreciate as many people testing this ISO out and letting me know of any bugs or other issues introduced with this ISO Update as possible, and thanks in advance to those that do check this Pre-completion ISO out.

Thanks everyone, I cannot wait to release the completed April 2019 Snapshot ISO later this month!

The following changes have been made since the last ISO refresh:

• Plenty of updates to the system itself - all the packages that can be updated have been updated
• OOBE - OOBE now runs on the Live Session as well as on the first login to a new user, although the OOBE is limited to a few steps on the Live Session
• Configs - Feren OS's Desktop and Pictures folders now incorporate into their respective folders if the locale means that the folder is under a different name
• Themes - Feren OS's Light Theme has been updated to make the theme more neutral, and the Cinnamon themes have all been refined and now refer to either the 'feren' Cinnamon Theme or the 'feren-dark' Cinnamon Theme for similar code (Feren OS Next also has the neutral-er theme now too)
• Repositories - Feren OS's Repositories now point to the GitHub Repositories instead of the old SourceForge Repositories.
• More - More small changes have been made that are too miscellaneous to be mentioned here

In conclusion, enjoy the latest updates to Feren OS, and look forward to plenty of changes happening in the future, and have fun with the latest and greatest Feren OS!

For now, the new repositories are being hosted on separate GitHub Repositories on the Feren-OS GitHub Team, with more improvements being planned for the repositories in the future. As of the time of writing this, these are the new repositories:
Stable: https://github.com/feren-OS/Feren-Repository
Unstable (now 'testing'): https://github.com/feren-OS/Feren-Repository-testing (currently empty at the time of writing due to not having any packages to test yet)
Non-LTS Update Channel: https://github.com/feren-OS/Feren-Repository-nonlts
Misc. Extra Software: https://github.com/feren-OS/Feren-Repository-software
Extras for Neon-U.E.-PPA-enabled computers: https://github.com/feren-OS/Feren-Repository-neon

To switch the repositories on your Feren OS install to the new GitHub Repositories, you have two options:

• Either be able to see an update for and update feren-os-ppa-settings to 2019.02.0.0.1 and have the repositories switched over automatically during that update...
• ...or run the following command in Terminal, as long as you have Administrator rights and an internet connection (Sudo Password = Your Password):

.           sudo sh -c 'wget -O - https://github.com/feren-OS/Feren-Maintenance-Scripts/releases/download/2018.02.0.0.0/switch-to-gh-repos.sh | bash'

Once you have done either of those two options, you should now be on the new repositories rather than the old ones.

I hope you will enjoy Feren OS once more after making this change to your install(s), and I apologise for the inconvenience that this issue may have caused. While the new repositories are still repetitively downloaded for some weird reason, they are a step in the right direction towards fixing the 'repeating package list downloads' issue once and for all.
For now, enjoy Feren OS, and I will hopefully see you for better news...

A new update is here for the Feren OS Next x64 ISO, bringing all the latest changes to Next so far, and improving the overall experience, bringing a freshly re-done base, and overall improving on the roadmap for Feren OS Next and Feren OS and how they'll be upon Next's completion.
Known Bugs (Changes Below):
- Plenty of System Settings items are currently missing
- A newly re-done base means that some things may be missing
- This is in no way a complete product yet, there's plenty to be potentially changed here...
- 'gtk2' Application Style is still a little bit crash-causing when trying to set it in System Settings
- More bugs were potentially introduced with this freshly re-done re-base
- Some Open With defaults are completely wrong, such as Text Files opening in Okular rather than Kate by default, these will be ironed out near the end of development, most likely
- Hitting 'Install Now' in Welcome Screen STILL does nothing whatsoever
- Updating packages that provide pages in System Settings will cause you to lose the custom layout, to fix this run this command in Terminal: sudo /var/lib/dpkg/info/feren-kde-settings.postinst (Sudo Password = Your Password)
- Welcome Screen is still made for the Cinnamon-using Stock Feren OS
- There is not yet a package for managing additions to Feren OS package-wise (this means you'll have to manually install new Feren OS Packages, for now, as they come to the Feren OS Next Builds)
- OOBE is not implemented yet
- Latte may crash randomly during long periods of being hidden
- The OS isn't yet being optimised too much so expect a bigger than normal installation size, never-mind ISO Size (that thing got compressed... A LOT.)
- The Live Session mostly identifies as 'Lubuntu'. Remember, the work done here is mainly just in the experience past the LiveCD Boot Menu...
- Timeshift is not yet installed by default
- If your Target HDD/SSD is too small for Feren OS but big enough for Lubuntu 18.10 (especially 18.10 Final Beta) then Feren OS will still let you begin installation nonetheless - I have not yet measured the disk space used by a fresh install of Feren OS in order to make an estimated Disk Space requirement for the installer to make sure is satisfied...
- Potentially even more unlisted issues

Things to know:
- Vivaldi may not come with its extra codecs for playing video and audio, to fix this install chromium-codecs-ffmpeg and chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra from the Store or another method
- If you're going from 18.10-based Feren OS to this new ISO (no matter the version of Feren OS before (Next/Stock/Lite/Other OS)) and migrate your whole /home to the new install, you may need to delete the ffmpeg file in HOME/.local/share/vivaldi to make Vivaldi work again.

Changes:
A lot has changed in the backend side with this update, and some changes have also happened on the front-end:
Front-end Changes
- Smaller ISO Size (1.9GB)
- System Settings has a custom layout that is (in my opinion) better designed for people coming from Feren OS Stock and also newbies and users alike (inspiration was taken from both Netrunner Linux (the 'Other' and 'About System' options) and one of the Feren OS concepts (the overall layout))
- Calamares now has an actual installation slideshow to look through when installing the OS
- Ark has now replaced File Roller as being the Archive Manager, and an accompanying Nemo Extension has been made and is also included in this update
Back-end Changes
- The 'KDE Neon' Repository (User Edition) was added, meaning that you will now always have the latest Plasma and KApps versions at all times on supported versions of the Ubuntu base
- Another Feren OS Repository (temporary) folder called 'neon-required' has been added to provide fixed versions of packages such as 'qt5-style-plugins' and related packages for the version of Qt provided by KDE Neon's Repository
- Plasma is now at version 5.15
- 'feren-safeguards' is now in Feren OS Next, meaning your system is now slightly safer from attempts to run a certain destruction command (as well as doing it humorously)
- Most importantly: The Ubuntu Base was downgraded to 18.04

For the best experience, it's probably for the best if you reinstall using this new ISO so you can benefit from all the changes on this ISO Update and be back to an 18.04-base. However, if you don't want to do so, then here is the plan which, assuming everything goes smoothly, will come into place regarding 18.04-based and Non-LTS Feren OS in relation to the usage of the KDE Neon Repository:

LTS
- All Feren OS Users will receive a new (optional) command to enable the KDE Neon Repositories on their machine once qt5-style-plugin-gtk2 is fixed, which will allow them to enable the repositories instantly on the knowledge that only the default set of packages that Feren OS includes has been verified to update successfully so far with the KDE Neon Repository enabled (this command will be really risky otherwise until more tests are done and more solutions to resulting conflicts identified, so Timeshift will be a must before using this upcoming command).
- LTS Users, after a transition phase, will always have the KDE Neon PPA at all times

Non-LTS
- LTS users going to Non-LTS will lose the KDE Neon PPA during the upgrade process, assuming that there are no conflicts with packages during the upgrade process as a consequence of doing so
- Non-LTS users will not have the KDE Neon PPA due to Non-LTS releases not being officially supported by KDE Neon's Repositories

Right now, the plan is to check that Feren OS Next can be upgraded from this ISO to a Non-LTS base with the KDE Neon Repository being disabled, and to then go from there...

Outside of those plans, I'm also planning on making an update to Feren OS January 2019 Snapshot for a second time to fix some issues with Feren OS in GNOME Boxes (e.g.: Indefinite Cinnamon crashes from the get-go), but before that issues need to still be resolved, such as the installer not appearing to install codecs whatsoever during installation, first before I update the ISOs with the new versions of the Feren OS Stock ISOs.

Now, the roadmap for Feren OS and Feren OS Next. It's fairly obvious by now that Feren OS Next is destined to become Feren OS some point in the future once it is completed and is proved to be suitable for taking over the role of being the main Feren OS version on offer, however, there's also other minor changes coming because of this - here's the plan so far:
1. Complete Feren OS Next
2. Transition Feren OS into 'Feren OS Classic'
3. Transition Feren OS Next into 'Feren OS (Stock)'
4. Resume development on Feren OS Lite and side-project Phoenix Linux
5. Work mainly on Feren OS Stock, Lite and Phoenix until Lite and Phoenix are completed and maintain Classic when changes need to be made
6. Work mainly on Feren OS Stock and Lite, and maintain Phoenix and Classic when needed / a new base is released

For now, however, be sure to have fun with the newest Feren OS Next and don't forget to make use of the 'Send Feedback' application to help squash all the bugs for when Feren OS Next is completed​!

All the packages that are update-able to their latest versions on the Ubuntu 18.04 base have been updated to their latest versions, meaning you will not have to do as many updates upon installing the OS than you will have to with the original January 2019 Snapshot ISOs.
As well as this, Weather (Applet) has been updated to make it work again as well as bring its latest available features, thanks to version 2.1.2.

As well as these updates, another program was recently made for Feren OS that all Feren OS Machines will now come with by default (current users may have noticed it being installed with updates) that will only show initially for new users. The 'Welcome to Feren OS' screen, also known as 'feren-oobe', is a screen that appears initially on all new user accounts on Feren OS and allows the user to set up a few parts of the Feren OS experience right from the get-go before they begin using Feren OS:

• Codecs (skips the page automatically if you have installed the codecs during the installer, can be auto-skipped via other ways)
• Theme and Layout (choose between Default, Dark Mode, or one of the Feren OS Layouts)
• Clock Placement (choose between Clock On Desktop or Clock On Panel) if you have chosen Default or Dark
• Animations (choose to enable or disable animations)
• Enjoy Feren OS as you desire it to be initially and be sent right to your Desktop after the screen is finished.

More options might come soon to this 'OOBE' (Out Of Box Experience) Screen, such as picking your Accent Colour, and more, but this will be sure to make Feren OS a lot better for new users that may not like small details such as the theme mode (light/dark), the clock placement, and/or the other tiny details. This 'OOBE' will also be ported over to Plasma in the future as an initial Feren OS 'OOBE' screen for Feren OS Next now that Feren OS Next has a Themer equivalent for it.

In conclusion, I hope new users and current users alike will love the changes made to the January 2019 Snapshot ISOs to improve the initial experience of Feren OS greatly, and I hope you are enjoying and/or will enjoy Feren OS!
​The download link remains the same, have fun.

Alongside this, the wallpaper packs for Feren OS 2015.X (The Original) and Feren OS 2016.1/2 (Lucid) were re-packaged into wallpaper packages for both Cinnamon and Plasma Support, and have been specifically designed to prevent duplicate wallpaper listings in Plasma's wallpaper changer, and have been uploaded to the repositories and are so available, meaning every single released wallpaper pack for Feren OS is now available.
In Conclusion, these are the package names for the Original and Lucid Wallpaper Packs:

• feren-backgrounds-original
• feren-backgrounds-lucid

...you'll find these in Feren Store under the 'Wallpapers' section, as well. If you've checked out Feren OS 2016.2 in the past, and are wondering why the wallpaper appears to be different to the 2016.2 one you've seen, it's because the one in the pack is the original 2016.2 wallpaper before the basing on a newer Ubuntu Version at the time.

Alongside that, the users of the Cinnamon Feren OS Experience might've also noticed that there's new sounds playing when logging into and out of Feren OS by default on Cinnamon. This was brought alongside the new configuration for the Cinnamon 4.0 Update that came alongside the Mint 19.1 Base Update.

The Mint Repositories in both Stock and 'KDE Experimental' have also seen a version bump following the release of Mint 19.1 'Tessa', meaning that everything supplied by the Mint Repositories for Ubuntu are now at their latest version (excluding packages from their 'upstream' repository, those haven't been updated to Mint's versions as this part of the repository was removed from Feren OS for reasons), including Cinnamon, Nemo, and more.
This also means that users of Stock will get the benefits of Cinnamon 4.0 on their Feren OS Installs, and everyone will be able to enjoy a faster Nemo File Manager in the form of Nemo 4.0.

Another change from the original October 2018 Snapshot is the introduction of a new fork of Mint Software Manager from Mint 19.0 called 'Feren Store' into Feren OS by default over MintInstall (aka: Mint Software Manager), which adds many improvements over the core MintInstall experience from Mint 19.0, such as way easier identification of Flatpaks in application listings/package search results, an interface that is tweaked so that fits better on smaller screens as well as not sacrificing any features for the smaller screens, new categories (Featured In Feren OS, Themes, Wallpapers, etc.), tweaks to all the vanilla categories to bring them further in-line to what is available for Feren OS, an improved selection of Featured Applications, Editors' Picks, and more to better reflect what is also available on Feren OS, and a few more improvements as well. On top of this, the icons were changed to better work with a variety of icon packs, and the Store has been receiving updates over time as well at a frequent enough pace. Eventually the plan is to turn this application into a fully-fledged Web-powered Application Store using an application as a wrapper and to manage the installation procedures, and more (ala Deepin), but until then, it's a MintInstall Fork with more improvements.

The Start Page that was made for Feren OS, found here, has received some pretty major improvements itself, as well, since the release of Feren OS 2018 October Snapshot, including but not limited to:

• Some visual tweaks to make the disclaimer easier to read, and more
• A new Settings Page to change certain aspects of the Start Page, right now there's only one option to change, but this may change in the future
• You can now change the Start Page Background (setting is stored as a cookie locally in your browser, just like the Last Used Search Engine is), although for now this is only restricted to URLs, due to regulations in Chromium (and therefore Vivaldi, Chrome, etc.) preventing the Start Page from ever loading locally stored backgrounds... I'll probably get around this security measure in the future (not literally though) so that there can also be uploaded backgrounds too for the Start Page Background... Also, there's no 'dark text' option yet so the background cannot be too bright if you want to be able to read the search engine logos and search text...
• Slight changes and fixes to both Start Page and also a minor text change to 'Vivaldi Welcome (unofficial)'

Originally designed by isoaSFlus ('kde-stuffs' Repository on GitHub), the all-new Feren OS Plasma Lock Screen Theme is a slight edit of that lock screen theme to make some changes to make it fit Feren OS better, such as re-adding the background fader to it, although then making it simply darken the background instead a little bit instead of overlaying it with the Plasma Lock Screen Background Colour. However, it still has a rough edge in regards to looking weird on certain Plasma Themes that aren't available by default, and potentially also on Breeze Light right now (brightening the background tenfold instead of darkening it properly). Speaking of which, since it was also tweaked to look more consistent with the login screen...

Also for 'KDE Experimental', there's a new fork of the 'Chili' SDDM Theme for Feren OS now included in the latest update of KDE Experimental's ISO, making the login screen look a little more like the Feren OS Concepts. This fork of Chili has the power buttons at the top-right, a clock at the top-left (same position as on the new lock screen theme), and everything else that you'd also expect from the vanilla Chili. Outside of that, this also means that Feren OS 'KDE Experimental' is no longer using LightDM with Slick Greeter for a login screen, but rather now using SDDM.

Plenty of other changes were made to the OS from the Original October 2018 Snapshot onwards, alongside all of the changes listed above. However, to keep it nice and short, and let people enjoy the January 2019 Snapshot sooner, this will be it for now. Thanks for an amazing 2018, and may 2019 be another great year for Feren OS! All being said, enjoy.

To start things off, on the 4th of January 2018 Feren OS got the January 2018 Snapshot released for it, which added some pretty major changes to the OS, such as the replacement of GNOME Software with Mint Software Manager due to Mint 18.3 being released, brung support for Custom Themer Themes to the OS after being a promise made in a subscriber special (I need to make another one of those :v), merged Themer with System Settings > Themes to have it make a bit more sense than having two areas for changing the OS Theming, and plenty of updates because of the Mint 18.3 base happening (the last snapshot was 18.2 based).

Feren OS Lite Alpha got released following January 2018 Snapshot (aka: 'Platinum') later on in February, showing what a Feren OS Experience with XFCE could be like, to rival the 'Lite' distributions out there. Although right now, Feren OS Lite is on a temporary development hiatus (alongside 'Phoenix Linux' (which is being re-done on 18.04.X)) while Feren OS KDE Experimental is worked on...

Then came April... due to study reasons in that time, Feren OS ended up getting a development hiatus for 100% of the OS, not just Lite or spin-off respins... however this wasn't for too long, and the bases kept it up-to-date during that time anyway. Of course, GCSEs went well in the end!

Feren OS Lite then got an update to its WIP ISO to bring it its own unique XFCE configuration that is unique to Feren OS Lite as a whole, and takes heavy inspiration from Feren OS Concepts, and also saw itself be based on Ubuntu 18.04.X instead of 16.04.X, being one of the first Feren OS ISOs to do so.

Following this, in July, Feren OS got its first ever Major Update, bringing the base up for Feren OS Users from 16.04.X to 18.04.X and therefore Mint 19.0... It was a great first attempt at doing an upgrade path between Ubuntu LTSs, however it did have its rough edges that were, for the most part, worked out over time, and it received many upon many updates to it. (It does need a little bit of a re-write and better modularisation for 20.04 LTS though to make it simpler and easier to fix though in the future)

However, despite all this, Feren OS got major graphical improvements with the new 18.04 base as well (new titlebars, more of a focus on subtle gradients with the application design, etc.), a new wallpaper, and more.

Not that long after the release of the 2018 Major Update, Feren OS received the July 2018 Snapshot, bringing new wallpapers, the new 18.04/Mint 19.0 base right out of the box, a redesigned Inspire Icon Set and the introduction of 'Inspire Dark', major improvements to the GTK Theme as brought along by the Major Update, better Qt theming out-of-the-box, opting in to using the gtk2 theme to style Qt Apps so that they look better placed in the OS, a dialog for when Themer is applying a theme, tweaks to core Feren OS Applications, the introduction of a Virtual Machine Detection dialog, and more. This snapshot, aka 'Silver', was quite a big snapshot changes-wise.

Then, on the 29th of July, Feren OS turned 3 years old. Looking back, it's crazy to see how much it has changed over these years, it's nothing like how it started off anymore, now. Oh, and ironically, that was also the day when Feren OS finally got its newest logo that it's very likely to keep for a very long time now due to it being a fully original logo this time that was inspired by the other logos of the past, and was made in SVG first before converting to PNG this time, so it's scalable to whatever size is needed now. Either way, Feren OS finally got a proper identity in its logo...

This has to be one of my proudest moments so far, not because of the fact it MADE IT into a magazine full-stop, because that could be just the OS being listed and being reviewed and then not really mentioned further, but no... Linux Format went one step ahead of that with Feren OS and not only gave it a review, but also gave it a fully-fledged article called 'Learn Linux with Feren OS'. That was great, and that has to be one of the highlights of Feren OS's lifetime so far... now if only I didn't break stuff for certain people when I tried modularising Themer a little more into different packages for better portability in other Desktop Environments, etc... hopefully the people that did try it didn't get too annoyed by that potentially happening, although it would've been nice if I managed to keep things being fine on the OS in regards to keeping features intact as they're split into multiple packages (for a case such as that, Dependencies aren't an option, as easy as they are that'd mean Themer would 'NEED' all the DE integration packages full-stop), but nevermind, it's too late now anyway for that...

Then, a few days after making clarifications for the Linux Format Article on Feren OS, I released the first ever preview of Feren OS 'KDE Experimental', a project to eventually bring Feren OS from a Cinnamon-using Desktop Environment (will still be available as 'Feren OS Classic') to a Plasma Desktop Environment that's modified to be the way I and many other users from Cinnamon will be more likely to prepare it as being, with a new layout which again, just like Lite's desktop layout, is based on Feren OS Concepts, but is reflected better in Plasma, that makes the need for a Conky (Desktop Clock) null and void, and overall looks beautiful and simple yet powerful. At this point now, Feren OS KDE Experimental is awaiting a Themer tool for the Plasma Desktop as the other ingredients to all the layout themes are effectively there now.

Then, in October, the October Snapshot (aka: 'Titanium') was released to the public. This was a simple one for users to install, however, due to the OS base not changing or anything among that level of change, as per all the normal snapshots. However, despite this, Feren OS received some pretty huge changes in the backend, and also for portability with other supported desktop environments. First, the background set introduced was re-worked to have Plasma compatibility as well, then another big change was made allowing users to upgrade their machines to Non-LTS versions of Ubuntu through more frequent Major Updates (something that's impossible in Stock Linux Mint for their own reasons), Feren OS's GTK Themes got updated to adapt the blue gradients to be easily coloured by Theme Colouriser, and scrollbars were changed to match those of Breeze's to better match in 'KDE Experimental', Theme Colouriser got a major update that allows it to now support community-made scripts for colourising themes as well as the default ones, and also for doing scripts for different Desktop Environments as well, and more. This only made things better for users of Feren OS.

Then, in December, Linux Mint 19.1 got released, and Feren OS Users were among the first to be updated to this base, with massive updates for Themer, Themer's Cinnamon Integration, 'Theme/Layout Manager', and more, all to add better support for Cinnamon 4.0 to make the experience even better. In the not-so-visible side of things, IcingTaskManager was swapped out for Grouped Window List (that means ITM is no longer pre-included), MessagingMenuV3 was fully removed after being phased out of the OS, and during the upgrade Feren OS also transfers the pins of those using IcingTaskManager right to Grouped Window List and also swaps the I.T.M. Applet(s) with a/some Grouped Window List Applet(s) right in the same place as the user put the I.T.M.(s) on their panel(s). Overall, this, combined with two new sounds for login and logout as well as an update for October Snapshot to pre-include all these updates and more, made the experience even better than before, and for users it was reported to be a seamless transition from Cinnamon 3.8 to Cinnamon 4.0.

In conclusion, this is just scraping the surface of what happened, as this is just the most considerable events in Feren OS's history throughout 2018. However, as mentioned before, these were just the events in Feren OS, if we take IRL in to the equation, you'll really start seeing the cracks that made this year a rocky one. Alright, there was plenty of great advancements in Linux and therefore Feren OS or at least soon to be in Feren OS which everyone else has mentioned already so it's pointless reiterating all that here... not everything was peachy.

Let's start with just how hard 2018 was with respects to childhoods, including mine - we lost quite a few people this year that contributed to many peoples' childhoods, including mine... Stefan, Stephen, Stan, just to name a few of them... and it wasn't just childhood tragedy, either - there were a few personal losses too, which some people will know about, to the point where I'm starting to become that person you can relate to quite a bit now, for good or for bad reasons... Hey, it isn't all too bad, though... proud moments still happened IRL, and I got to try things out that I hadn't been able to try out yet at that point, finally tried other things, and became a fan of them, Linux got that bit more of an edge over Windows after a certain Redmond company broke their stuff yet again (this time at the cost of users' files, for early adopters), and... very late in the year, KevinVG207 and his Discord Server even turned me into an anime fan*, so there's that I guess.
(congrats, you got a shoutout Kevin, now learn from your mistake from yesterday before you waste that shoutout opportunity like I nearly did Linux Format showing off Feren OS in one of their articles in one of their magazine editions... seriously though, don't do that joke again on me Kevin and co., thanks)
*No, I'm not turning into a 'weeb' (this is in regards to what some people think is the definition for the word 'weeb'), more-so slightly turning into an otaku, minus the "to the detriment of the person's social ability" part.

Everything that has received updates since the last ISO update has been updated this release, including the Linux Mint Repositories (now 19.1 'Tessa' out of the box in the updated ISOs), everything Feren OS uses from the Linux Mint Repositories (that means Cinnamon, Nemo, and more), Feren Store, MintUpdate, Software Sources, Browser Manager, Layout Manager, Themer, and much more. The ISOs should be on recent package versions made available to Feren OS at the date of release, excluding kernels.

The Feren OS UX (User Experience) hasn't changed all that much since the last ISO, in fact it has only gotten better, with Cinnamon's better snappiness in 4.0, and the optimisations of other applications, as well, such as Nemo's better speeds in 4.0 too, and more coming with this updated ISO pair. Plus, you might find certain aspects of Feren OS, such as Themer, are actually more stable than what is available upstream. (I would show Mint what I did to make Themer more stable, but I haven't yet thought out an efficient way to convey to the user that the layout/theme is changing slowly but surely so that they don't then just think Mint's Welcome Screen has frozen or crashed out, and until then I'm holding off from suggesting my idea to make it more stable to them).
​
You should visit this blog post to find out more about what has changed in the Feren OS Experience due to the Mint 19.1 Update.

As stated in the other blog post, Feren OS has also gained two new sounds: One for log in and the other for log out. These are replacing the current ones used by default, and are directly pulled off of the TouchRemix sound scheme, with the credits and license copying done and placed in /usr/share/feren-os/sounds/LICENSE and /usr/share/feren-os/sounds/LICENSING. Hopefully, these sounds are also less ear-heavy for the headphone users booting into Live Session Feren OS, as well.
Bit of trivia: These sounds were also contributed to Ubuntu for the Yaru theme back when it was called Communitheme... whether a login and a logout sound such as the ones contributed are eventually used once more in Ubuntu, or not, remains to be seen. (They can also be found on the Ubuntu 'Communitheme' GitHub)

Coming back to the Feren OS OOTB Application Selection after last appearing in 2017.0, if not in a Feren OS Snapshot, returns the Fingerprint GUI Application! I don't recall exactly why it was removed from Feren OS, therefore meaning I most likely forgot to re-add it since to the OS, but starting this ISO Update, the Fingerprint GUI Application, designed to assist in people with fingerprint reading devices to log in to Feren OS or unlock Feren OS with Fingerprint Authentication, has made a comeback to the Default Feren OS Experience, re-establishing its place in the Applications Menu. If you have an install of Feren OS from an ISO before this one, and would like Fingerprint GUI, simply go into Feren Store and search for 'fingerprint-gui', and install it, and then enjoy!

That's it for updates, as mentioned before, you can get the new ISOs at the normal download link that you can always get Feren OS from (Get It on the top of the page) and, overall, enjoy the updates to Feren OS, fellow Feren OS users!

The Cinnamon Desktop has received a version bump from Cinnamon 3.8 to 4.0, making the desktop feel more snappy than before, as well as introducing some pretty major changes to theming under the hood, meaning that people using themes such as Windows(R) XP, Vista, 95, 2K, macOS(R), Mac OS X(R), or Ubuntu will notice that their panels have become taller after the upgrade. This is because of the fact that the old method for making the panels smaller has since been removed in the 4.0 Update, and in place of this Themer themes have been updated to make use of the new panel-icon-sizing options, as well as setting panel heights to be the smaller panel heights that they used to be from now on. If you have a taller panel, it can be fixed by simply re-choosing a theme in Themes, or by going into Panel Settings and configuring these settings manually until you have a panel height and icon sizing that you prefer for the panel(s).

As well as this, Cinnamon 4.0 introduces Grouped Window List, an official applet that behaves a lot like IcingTaskManager and also supports configurations for IcingTaskManager too. This means that in Feren OS, IcingTaskManager has now been removed due to no longer being needed, and has been replaced by Grouped Window List. Don't worry, however, your pinned applications should transfer over to Grouped Window List automatically the next time you log into the desktop after the Mint 19.1 update. Furthermore, MessagingMenuV3 got removed too, after being phased out of usage in the themes and configurations, due to being useless by default.

Nemo has also seen a similar version bump from 3.8 to 4.0, giving it all the improvements made to Nemo for Linux Mint 19.1, which can be seen here. Other than that, nothing much has been changed for the Feren OS Customisations on Nemo...

There has been a few updates made to the Feren OS Experience alongside the LM 19.1 Update:
- The default settings have received some tweakage to remove depreciated settings, add new configurations to the new settings brought in by Cinnamon 4.0, and introduce new sounds for Login and Logout (you might need to manually set the login screen sound to /usr/share/feren-os/sounds/login.ogg for it to take effect).
- The Feren OS Themes got updated to theme the Grouped Window List applet, however other themes that aren't made by The Feren OS Developer might or might not have proper theming for Grouped Window List yet.
- More.

Themer got some major updates to tighten up some security issues on it, as well as adding support for 'warnings' (messages logged and displayed when applying a theme that uses depreciated theme settings), and Cinnamon 4.0's new Panel Icon Size settings. All the '-themer' packages got updated so that they bring in the latest versions of the themes to be better optimised for Cinnamon 4.0, and for Cinnamon 3.8 users Themer also received support for automatically swapping out Grouped Window List with IcingTaskManager (which still exists for them) when applying these themes that are optimised for Cinnamon 4.0. Finally, because of the new 'warnings' feature, if you apply an outdated theme after using Themer, you should get a warning about it after the theme has been applied, so you'll easily know when a theme is out of date.

Overall, enjoy the updates to Feren OS brought by me and Linux Mint 19.1, and thanks for choosing Feren OS. Also, if you haven't got Feren OS yet, wait out for a little while if you don't want to have to update to Mint 19.1 yourself via Update Manager, as a New ISO Update is coming out for x32, x64 and 'KDE Experimental' very soon to bring in the Mint 19.1 / Cinnamon 4.0 changes, tweaks, and more out of the box...

If you haven't been checking the Feren OS Twitter recently, every single themer theme has been updated to bring with them changes to make them better support Cinnamon 4.0, since PanelSizeup='s changed values no longer exist in Cinnamon 4.0's settings, including the Yosembiance theme too (even though that's basically dead by now for 18.04+ users). The main changes are that Themer Store now has the latest themes available for every theme, not just the non-Feren-OS-included themes, every theme no longer changes the PanelSizeup value, every theme has lost install-commands, sysfols, and apply-theme (excluding macOS Themes which use apply-theme for Docky changes), every theme no longer has MessagingMenu as an applet, and every theme now uses Grouped Window List.

Themer itself also got updates, ditching sysfols and install-commands support, adding code to make themes install one at a time instead of running while another is running, automatically replacing Grouped Window List with IcingTaskManager for non-Cinnamon-4.0-users, and adding a warning screen for themes setting 'PanelSizeup' still. Also, the dialog for a successful theme install should now be able to name the theme every time normally, as long as the theme has not got illegal symbols on its name.

​Finally, on the subject of themes with noticeable updates:
Linux Mint Layout - This theme now uses the Modern Layout, the layout introduced to Linux Mint by default in 19.1, using the 19.1 BETA panel layout, size, etc.
Linux Mint - Same change as the layout version, but it also now lets you pick a Mint-Y colour scheme following the choice of Light, Dark or Darker (this second dialogue won't appear until the 19.1 update is released, as the theme settings program for the Mint Theme checks to make sure there's colour variants available before offering them to the user).
Adapta - There's now a configurator for this theme, letting you switch between Light, Light Compact (Eta), Dark and Dark Compact (Nokto Eta).
macOS, Mac OS X, etc. - Docky should launch automatically once more upon the theme being changed to one of these

For Cinnamon 4.0, the Cinnamon configurations will see updates adding default values for some new settings in 4.0 and removing depreciated/removed settings values from the default settings, however this will come later, and these updates will be dependency-locked to Cinnamon 4.0+ due to the removal of values lost in 4.0...

Obviously, given it's Cinnamon 4.0, to retain stability with 4.0's changes the applets will see updates released for them system-wide.

As well as this, the themes will be updated to add theming to the Grouped Window List applet, since it has new theme values that aren't changed by the default Feren OS themes currently.

Given Mint 19.1 hasn't really got anything much new in the form of other packages that can be completely deemed necessary for installation on their own, the update procedure will hopefully just be that updates are released, then the Feren OS Repository/PPA Settings package gets updated to bring the repos to LM 19.1 from LM 19.0, and lastly the Major Updater gets a script update to have it upgrade to Tessa instead of Tara for the Mint Repositories part of the procedure.

So, after the poll on the Google+ over the desired choice of Desktop Environment for the 'Emergency Desktop Environment', sparked by the potential desire of Linux Mint Team to kill off Metacity support in Cinnamon (Metacity is the Window Dressings around windows, which includes the Close, Maximise, Minimise and Menu buttons, and the borders around windows), the word from the community of Feren OS Users who participated made their call, with the options being either KDE Plasma or GNOME. Due to a more than overwhelming response in support of using the Plasma Desktop Environment as the next DE, and due to a number of other reasons as well, Feren OS is about to change, for the better.

TL;DR: Cinnamon over time on Feren OS has seen a lot of changes in how its workflow is like, in part to both my own changes, and also changes I didn't really have too much choice but to do, due to a lack of knowledge on fixing what's broken in applet code on Cinnamon, as well as having some hiccups along the way such as that Cinnamon 'Boxpointer' Removal's side-effects hitting themes hard on later Cinnamons, causing slight headaches, and applets by the community then breaking over time with a certain Cinnamon release making them no longer work whatsoever. However, because of that and after the hinting that Cinnamon could remove Metacity support, then me doing a poll on what DE to go to next in case of them doing this, and causing MANY repercussions for certain themes partly due to issues such as the theme-creators' potential non-intention for adding 'CSD Titlebar' skinning to their themes, and finally Mint introducing a 'Modern' panel layout which then makes Feren OS on Cinnamon more redundant, Feren OS is now moving ship from Cinnamon on Mint to Plasma on Ubuntu. Therefore, there's a new testing ISO available known as 'KDE Experimental' to see where Feren OS is going next and see the progress of said move, and during that time Feren OS with Cinnamon will still remain updated with snapshots and the like, until Plasma Feren OS is eventually made ready for Feren OS users to be switched over to.
Fun Fact: Originally Feren OS was going to be Cinnamon on Ubuntu, eventually, before all these events happened.

Well, there's a few major things to be talked about here:
BTW: Before anyone goes ranting at Mint, please understand that they honestly DO NOT desire to break stuff, it's bound to happen... I'm just trying to say here that it did happen, it was kind of annoying that it happened, the themes issue was more widespread than it could've been, and... well, don't cry over spilt milk... I've just got to make sure that Feren OS's users don't suffer from the changes Mint may make for reasons, that then have consequences for non-official Cinnamon stuff, due to the use of unofficial applets inside of Cinnamon... Also, emphasis on unofficial applets, it's more so my fault for using them over the official ones and also potentially the applet-dev's fault for some of these broken applets never seeing their true comeback after they were broken down by certain Cinnamon releases inevitably breaking them... Point in hand, this wasn't all the fault of Mint... maybe a small bit of it WAS Mint's fault, but the blame is shared between me, developers, and (potentially) Mint too...

• Back in the days of Cinnamon 2.X, menus were originally able to have what's known as 'boxpointers', which are arrows that stick out of an applet menu to point to where they come from, or where they were summoned from. However, they then removed boxpointers in the Cinnamon release that introduced sideways panels and, due to that, broke menu theme-ing in Cinnamon, and, even worse, they NEARLY made it so App Menus COULD NOT look different to standard menus, for themes such as CinnXP... Fortunately, this was temporary as Cinnamon Team listened to complaints and restored the independent menu skinning for app menu applets. However, this breakage DID still leave a profound effect on themers, and the fix for the breakage could've been communicated way better before the Cinnamon version in question was then released.
• Also, back in the days of Cinnamon 2.X and early Cinnamon 3.X, and in that case Feren OS 2015.0 to Feren OS 2017.0, we used to be able to use applets such as a Global Menus applet & Slingscold, which were, in the order they were mentioned, an applet that integrated the application's menubar into the panel, for macOS Themes, and an applet that Feren OS used to use as its standard applications menu. But, just like the menu theming was after the removal of boxpointers, this was broken too (but NOT by the boxpointer removal, I'm pretty sure the applets survived to a later Cinnamon than the boxpointers), and since then we've never seen a comeback of Global Menus, and the 'Slingshot' now available is more of a trainwreck, as it doesn't even function correctly anymore, nevermind the huge removal of functional features in it. I know this isn't Mint's complete fault - they were unofficial applets, but it didn't excuse how annoying it was to have to go hunting for other alternative applets, and having to then have users get used to those new applets instead.
• Then, more recently. they expressed a desire to move to GTK/Headerbar-like Titlebars, breaking Metacity Window Decoration Support. What they expressed a desire to do could make theme-ing so much harder, and so much more restrictive, all for consistency between CSD and Titlebar Applications (originally I thought that this was for HI-DPI reasons instead, given I haven't been able to get HI-DPI working right on Metacity on Cinnamon, for the buttons, etc, but it turns out it's just for consistency reasons, and even then Metacity Themes are consistent enough, aren't they Mint? Look at Mint-Y's Metacity, it looks A LOT LIKE if not EXACTLY like it does on a CSD, so if it's just for consistency, mainly, why bother? You're just going to get complaints from quite a few people as a result due to you 'breaking' a piece of theming once more)... when KDE Plasma does button scaling, consistency, and more all fine as is with Aurorae Themes, while NOT having to use GTK/Headerbar-like Title Bars for title bars, and STILL having (nearly) just as customisable and independent-from-GTK Title Bar Themes (plus support for CUSTOM engines for drawing the window title bar & border themes)... Sorry Mint, but I just won't be having any bit of that, not after the mishaps that have happened already beforehand when stuff has been broken... I want a DE that satisfies Feren OS, Mint, not a DE that breaks stuff every now and then for long periods of time, thank you. This isn't a destruction of your reputation, either, it was great being on Cinnamon, but times change.
• Then, finally, on a more positive note than the other reasons, mainly in regard to Mint... Feren OS, in its current form, is slowly but surely becoming redundant.

Truthfully, these weren't the only reasons that made me do this. When I heard of the news, I started a poll on where Feren OS should go in case of an emergency regarding the inability for Feren OS's DE to do its proper job anymore, and since everyone voted on 'KDE Plasma' as what I dubbed 'The Emergency Desktop', I then set forth in trying to implement Feren OS and its features into Plasma, and I wasn't any bit further than impressed with KDE as a Feren OS DE, and so Feren OS 'KDE Experimental' happened, and, well... you can check that out yourself and see how beautiful and functional Feren OS is with Plasma as its DE. From there on out, I knew that, no matter what, Plasma was going to end up being the Feren OS DE before 'Zuro UI' is built due to how much better it is in many ways...

Let me mention the main purposes of Feren OS on Mint: Firstly, to make a more modern experience for Mint that anyone can be familiar with. Secondly, do what Mint did wrong, and try to do it right. Thirdly, to further improve the experience newcomers to GNU/Linux have with their new OS, and let them begin as soon as possible, and fourthly, to provide extra features to the experience to make it easier for the desktop to be tweaked to be as close to the workflow that you, the user, are used to as possible, as well as hold the hand of new users a margin more than Vanilla Mint does if they so desire the hand-holding that is the Welcome Screen, Installer Slideshow, and other sources of help. However, I'm both happy and sad to say that to this day, Mint has been correcting its mistakes, and now it might've just fulfilled the main needs for Feren OS. Not only have they fixed what they did with the Update Manager, but with Mint 19.1, they're finally making one of the nicest changes to Cinnamon: Forking the applet used in Feren OS for window grouping into an OFFICIAL Cinnamon Applet to allow for a 'Modern' panel layout. The only thing left for them to fix is the apparent forcing of Timeshift setups to allow for Mint's Upgrade Process to be done, and maybe also adding an option in Update Manager to upgrade to Major Mint Releases rather than having to do it manually. I couldn't be more happy to be honest with Mint's decisions these days... However, this has a profound effect on Feren OS's current state. While I feel Feren OS had some effect on the decision for them to make a Modern Panel, this also means that Feren OS is going to become rather redundant in its current form, with the only things left to set it apart then being the theming, extra panel layouts, Themer, Transfer Tool, and under-the-hood tweaks. That isn't enough for an OS to be considered unique from its counterpart, and people will then simply say 'Why use Feren OS when you can use Mint and have a Modern layout there too though'...

That's why Feren OS is changing. Now, about Feren OS's new form... Feren OS with Plasma. It'll be a bit of a challenge to make into a more noob-friendly experience, but for sure if it happens, Feren OS with Plasma will seriously pay off, ramping up both Feren OS's useful out of the box features, bringing back some classic lost parts of Feren OS from the past back to the OS (e.g.: Slingshot (kind of), Global Menu Support), and the beauty and eye candy that this OS has, while never compromising on features. A lot of what makes Feren OS unique will be staying in Plasma Feren OS, including the layouts, and more, and the aim is to make the experience as beginner friendly, easy to use, and seamless a switch from Cinnamon as possible. Plus, with the huge community behind KDE and Plasma, Feren OS could really become something great with Plasma. Also, to coincide with the choice of a new Desktop Environment, Feren OS will also be taking one of its biggest criticisms and turning it over its head. That's right, Feren OS will be rebasing on Ubuntu (and then potentially going up the tree to Debian-based in the future).
PS: You're looking at this after seeing Feren OS KDE Experimental and thinking 'but it has lots of Mint still', aren't you? Well, just because its based on Ubuntu doesn't mean it can't benefit from a Mint PPA or two just to ease the transition to Plasma Feren OS from Cinnamon Feren OS...

Source of 'Modern' Layout News: https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3649

First of all, don't put Feren OS at that level, like, seriously. At that level we have respins that are basically just Ubuntu flavours with a small config change and loads of applications, stuff like that, Feren OS is in no way that level of respin. Alright, I'll be honest, I also hate how fragmented the Linux Distribution family is, but at least I've TRIED to contribute to Mint a few times with stuff in Feren OS, for starters, and also I've helped other 'respins'/distributions, such as Nitrux, at times (e.g.: Made an automated BASH command for replacing the glitchy Nitrux Panel back in Nitrux's old releases with their new config for Latte that brought the Latte Dock in as a panel replacement as well as doing the dock as always (yes, Latte can do panels too, BTW) for all users in one short effective burst) with problems users may be facing, and more, so I definitely have contributed to the community, in that manner. I'm not trying to make excuses here, either, I've always felt that Feren OS can do more to gain its own proper identity as a distribution, and this is just one of the ways it is going to be able to do that. Remember, no offence to any other 'respin' developers out there, that not every OS a lot of people term as a 'respin' can say they have done that kind of stuff for the community... in fact, I'm sure a lot of 'respins' can't say that... Feren OS DOES have a few things unique to it, which make it stand out from the crowd, plus with the current state of affairs with Windows 10 and Linux, it's anyone's game to be the distribution that helps in the most distraught ex-Windows users.
Windows is a Trademark of Microsoft Corporation and Windows 10 is a Trademark of Microsoft Corporation.
​
However, as already stated before, times change, and I'm more than aware that Feren OS has been under scrutiny of many users due to its current base, among other factors such as how 'original' it really is in its current form, hence this change of DE was favourable, and I've realised as time has gone on that Feren OS could seriously gain more of an identity on KDE than on Cinnamon. Obviously, the ability to tweak the desktop to be as close to the workflow you are used to as possible will still be there, just re-adapted to KDE (coming soon in KDE Experimental), as well as the Welcome Screen, Installer Slideshow, beautiful wallpapers, and more; What makes Feren OS great for new users and general users alike will, if there's no hiccups along the way with implementing said features into KDE, remain in the new experience, that is for sure. I might've not been successful with giving Feren OS that much of an identity for a lot of less people who don't shout up against the press and media's views on the OS, but this time I will try what I know I can do, as well as making use of the community feedback and what the community has made for all of us users and distribution developers as possible, to make Feren OS an OS based on Ubuntu that's truer to the term 'distribution' than it ever has before.

A lot of features have been added with the introduction of the new experience, and these are just some of the features either being introduced and/or are coming back to Feren OS thanks to this new experience:
Returning Features:
- Global Menu Support: Originally used in Feren OS from 2016.2 to 2017.0 for the macOS Theme, and Ubuntu Theme, Global Menu Support makes a return to the OS once more, in spectacular fashion, used for both themes, and being easily added into the OS with a few clicks.
- Simple Menu: With a design very similar to the original menu used in Feren OS from 2015.0 to 2017.0 for all themes (until CinnVII was born and used for the menu in 2016.2 - Present for Windows Themes)
New Features:
​- Top bar: Designed around the concept of Zuro UI's top-bar, this is an all-new central panel for checking the calendar, time, and notification history, now in the default interface of the KDE experience.
- New icon for Files: Files (Nemo) now uses the File Manager icon in the experience instead of the Folder icon, which, while it might be a small tweak, makes the File Manager look more like a File Manager Shortcut no matter the icon theme, as well as making it more consistent with the File Manager Icon Standard used in a variety of distributions.
- KDE integration with the Nemo File Manager: Feren OS now also comes with a small software workaround for KDE in order to make KDE play nice with the Nemo File Manager, making KDE's shortcuts work just fine when Files is the default file manager, as well as translating shortcuts that otherwise wouldn't be recognised by Nemo so that they also work with minimal user interaction.
- Adding wallpapers to the OS has never been easier.
- A first login script for KDE that allows the OS to automatically retrieve and apply some settings from Cinnamon to KDE before handing the KDE Experience to the user, so that they can get started fast. (NOT IMPLEMENTED YET)
- More...
Moved Features:
- Weather is now in Calendar
Features that are going away:
- CinnVIIStarkMenu (replaced by Tiled Menu)
WIP Features:
- Themer's KDE Upgrade
​- Panel & Theme Snapshotter
- Cinnamon -> Plasma Settings Transfer

There's a lot of goodness to expect from the experience with Feren OS with KDE, which will then trickle down to all you wonderful users of Feren OS, which include:
- Plenty of User Interface Polishing
- A more beautiful Feren OS than ever before
- New Windows-like Menu Design
- Feren OS gets back its Own Menu Design for its themes
- Better Unity Desktop Design
- Easy to use and automated process on first login to KDE to take as many settings as possible from Cinnamon to KDE to allow users to quickly get started with KDE
​- A more purer Ubuntu base starting from a future Major Update and/or distribution reinstall using a version of Feren OS with KDE
​- Better HI-DPI Support..?
- No 'cashew' button in Panels (similar way to enabling Panel Edit Mode in Cinnamon will be used instead)
- Custom themeing for KDE based on Breeze, and giving a dark mode-esque feel to the shell and KDE
- Simpler System Settings interface for KDE, designed around the design used in Cinnamon for System Settings management, although it may be predominately a homepage for settings popup pages at first.
- The KDE that's only powerful when needed
- Better integration of 'Client-Side Decorations' windowed applications that come pre-installed with Feren OS (titlebar used on them where possible)
​- More.

I know there will be a few KDE users out there looking into Feren OS because of this switch of DE, and also because of 'Feren OS KDE Experimental', so I might as well highlight the changes in Feren OS to the KDE Plasma Desktop that might throw off KDE Plasma Users at first:

• The Cashew is entirely gone from the Panel, meaning you'll have to right-click on the panel, go into 'Panel Options' (sub-menu) if it's there, and then go to 'Configure Panel...' to activate the Cashew's feature, which is more in line with what how do on Cinnamon to edit the panel, hence this will be familiar for the ex-Cinnamon Feren OS Users out there, rather than a Cashew having to stick out of the end of a panel for that same thing needlessly.

First of all, nice, you made it this far into the post! Secondly, yeah, yes you can test it, provide feedback, and see how progress is coming!
So, where you can download it, you may ask? Well, put simply, look for a grey box that says 'KDE Experimental' on the top of the Get It page.

Enjoy testing it, and be sure to take note of the current issues...
Oh, and for the Cinnamon users, don't worry, you'll still be getting snapshots of Cinnamon Feren OS until Plasma's ready for Feren OS.

Now you might be wondering what issues have happened regarding this? Quite a big slip up, actually, that went unnoticed for a few days...
So, basically, what happened was that the 'reset-feren-ppas' command which does what it says on the tin was mistakenly opting in everyone to the Non-LTS Update Channel when said buggy update was installed, meaning that an unsuspecting user would then be updating their system to have a Non-LTS Major Update then come and them be on a Non-LTS base of Ubuntu until the next LTS comes out. I'm truly sorry for this error but from what I know barely any users were affected, and no one reported it as an issue from what I've seen... The only reason I knew about this was because I updated another Feren OS Laptop which was not opted in to Non-LTS just to then notice that the 18.10 BETA (at the time) Major Update was then made available.

Since then, an update was released, and everyone using the updated package would've had their PPAs reset to defaults no matter what having installed that package, so people who didn't want to be opted-in to the Non-LTS channel are no longer opted in, unless they've already installed the Non-LTS Major Updater Update to their machines. If you've taken the update by accident, then you have two choices: Reinstall using the October 2018 Snapshot ISO, or keep Major Updating until the next LTS Major Update, and then immediately go back to LTS-only once that LTS Major Update is complete.
Sorry for the inconvenience caused.

Another big issue that had come as a result of the modularisation of some packages to make Themer better detachable from the Cinnamon DE was that Themes would either be completely hosed from your Feren OS install, meaning NO System Settings > Themes option, or Themes would be the Themes page found in every Cinnamon Desktop Environment using Distribution (the Vanilla Themes page). Sorry about that, too.

This isn't exactly fixable per-se by me past the point I've gone, but for starters the latest ISO is NOT affected by this issue in any way, and rather comes with the fix for this problem, and secondly for users affected, there's a tutorial on getting the Feren OS Themes page back in System Settings. I'm again sorry for this inconvenience that losing this feature temporarily might've caused.

Well, a few things:

There is now a Troubleshooting Page for fixing known issues that may have been caused by errors in packages, being accessible via 'Help' > 'Troubleshooting' on the website, or by clicking here. If there's at any time a major accident ever again with packages, gosh forbid, then that is the webpage to go to for a solution to the problem(s).

As mentioned earlier, there's now the all-new October 2018 Snapshot available to download from our website, which comes pre-fixed from these issues people may then encounter with updating the July 2018 Snapshot, so I'd recommend using the October 2018 Snapshot from here on out instead of July 2018 for reinstalls and the like.

There is one thing however that will be very unlikely to ever happen: Maintenance Tool Online Script Downloading:
The concept of this is that an update would come to the Maintenance Tool to be able to constantly keep its script for checking for and fixing issues up to date so it isn't affected by APT-related issues, however, due to uncertainty over how secure that'd be, especially since the program is always running as Superuser, that will most likely never be happening any time soon.

Overall, I'm sorry for any inconvenience that these issues caused, and there really is no excuse for these issues, but I will try my best to make sure nothing like this ever happens, and gosh forbid it does, I'll try my bestest to be open about said future issues...
I hope you can forgive me for these human errors... even I feel some of the errors I made were sort of utterly stupid at times... Anyway, I hope you understand, and cheers for reading this.
PS: Be thankful that we didn't go Windows 10 1809 levels of accidents... That's a level of mistake(s) I seriously don't want to go ANYWHERE NEAR.
Most importantly, please, if you find issues within Feren OS, DO NOT hesitate to make use of the 'Send Feedback' shortcut, even if you're on Feren OS 'KDE Experimental', it doesn't matter, you can still make use of it fine, as long as the issue at hand hasn't already been reported, and send bug reports to The Developer on just about anything Feren OS.
(BTW, subscribe to EposVox if you want, this might be a plug in a serious post, but seriously though, he makes great content, he deserves the subscribers he gets and the plugs he gets)

Changes-wise, there isn't that much to talk about regarding the Feren OS front-end, as most of the work has been done improving the backend of many applications Feren OS has of its own, and more. Here's a few of the noticeable changes however:

Just like every other Feren OS Snapshot before it, the October 2018 Snapshot contains a new background set. However, the main thing that strikes this apart from previous updates is that the location of the backgrounds has changed to /usr/share/wallpapers, meaning...
​...they now appear in KDE! (hint hint)

Over time, the wallpaper sets of previous snapshots AND previous releases will be updated and/or released if not done so already in order to make them usable on KDE as well as Cinnamon and XFCE (you'll see why they work in Lite, eventually), starting from the oldest release to the newest, so be sure to keep an eye out for those, and don't be surprised to be getting some big package updates in the near future if you have more than one wallpaper set installed. I'll also be working on the removal of duplicate default wallpapers, by putting them into a the wallpaper set in which the version of said wallpaper came from, as well, too, so expect that in the future.

As per the 'feren-os-ppa-settings' package (it will be updated in the future for its real purpose), there's now a new application in town in the System Tools menu called 'Manage Base Update Channel' which allows you to now switch Feren OS's update channel between LTS (in line with Mint Releases' Ubuntu Base) and Non-LTS (in BETA currently until Ubuntu 18.10 is released). This is currently in BETA as said already until Ubuntu 18.10 releases, however if things go good enough this will allow people who want the latest Ubuntu changes on their Feren OS Machine before the Mint Users to then receive their new changes... HOWEVER, since Ubuntu 18.10 is a BETA at the time of writing this, there can be issues, such as an already discovered issue being that Ubuntu 18.10 doesn't supply a package the Cinnamon Desktop needs for installation (this will only affect users of Feren OS KDE unless you deliberately then remove said package that 'cinnamon' needs to install from your system once on 18.10), so do it at your own risk before 18.10 releases. This comes with a catch, however, being that YOU NEED have a Major Update twice a year, compared to the once per two years that LTS Users get, as compensation for the way shorter lifespan of Non-LTS Ubuntu Releases and the Release frequency for the Non-LTS releases, AND you can ONLY go back to just LTS bases once you're on an LTS base again, if you aren't on an LTS, it won't be safe to go back to LTS-only yet. Either way, the option is now there for the adventurous.

The Feren OS Theme has also seen some noticeable tweaks, for those who can tell when certain things have changed a noticeable amount, since the release of the July 2018 Snapshot, and these changes boil down to two things:
​- Gradients are now colour-neutral - using some transparency tweaks, the blue gradients of Feren GTK are now just one colour but with different transparencies to give off the effect of a lighter gradient, meaning that while that may not be such a huge change in itself, it means that themes made in Theme Colouriser are now always going to have button gradients no matter the colour, making the OS more aesthetically pleasing when custom accent colours are used
- Scrollbars are now designed after the Breeze Theme (hint hint) - using the code from the Breeze GTK 3 and GTK 2 themes, the scrollbars in the Feren GTK Themes are now designed to look like the ones you'd find on KDE's default theme. This is really just a cosmetic change to improve consistency with the Breeze Scrollbars made available by the Plasma Browser Integration extension available for Vivaldi, Chrome, Firefox, etc, and also with the scrollbars in Feren OS KDE.

Speaking of Theme Colouriser, the Theme Colouriser has seen a massive update which not only adds an easy means of adding support for multiple Desktop Environments, but it also modularises the program a considerable amount meaning that the application now supports community-made scripts. While it's in its early days of implementation, people can currently add their scripts to the 'theme-colouriser' system folder under a specific DE, with support for user-wide script installation and improvements to the ability to use community-made scripts coming down the pipeline in the future. Right now it only supports scripts made for the Cinnamon Desktop, but over time it'll also support scripts for Lite and KDE.

As well as all those, the backends of many Feren OS Applications have been improved and had a few bugs squished with time, as well, giving the user a better experience than ever before.

So, for those who may not have heard, or taken the hint, most of the work this snapshot has been done regarding the implementation of Feren OS Features and the core Feren OS Experience to other Desktop Environments, mainly being KDE. Why? Well, if you haven't seen it already...

Either way, enjoy, and be sure to check out the Experimental KDE Feren OS, noting that it is still a Work In Progress. Hopefully Feren OS will be a serious contender past that point for the spot of the 'Newbies Distro', due to the many improvements having KDE as your DE brings.

​Enjoy Feren OS October 2018 Snapshot though too!

Known Bugs/Issues for 1/1/2019 Update:
- 'Login Window', aka 'lightdm-settings', is left-over from when LightDM was still the DM for Next
​- displaymanager.conf has been re-added to the Calamares Installer (caused LightDM Initialisation Failure issues for some users) for SDDM Configuration, but I'm not entirely sure about whether it will work fine for everyone now or not.
- Default Favourites will only display once the menu has been swapped out for an 'Alternative' menu, due to a slightly glitchy value for the default favourites value (don't know what causes it, but looking into it)...
- Some Open With defaults are completely wrong, such as Text Files opening in Okular rather than Kate by default, these will be ironed out near the end of development, most likely
- Potentially more minor niggles
Changelog...? Check the January 2018 Snapshot Announcement Blog Post for that...

Another new build for experimental ISO of Feren OS is now available, showing the early workings of what Feren OS could be like with the KDE Desktop Environment. Note that what you see in the ISO is NOWHERE near the finished product, with a lot of change planned over time, some of which will potentially make the experience as a whole feel different, and all the ISO is right now is the accumulation of the Default Settings and Experience for KDE being put in the OS. This means that the ISO is nowhere near the final product still. However, with this build, there are some huge changes happening with this build, including:

• Now based on Ubuntu 18.10 (BETA)
• ​New Vivaldi Configuration (available to all new Feren OS users)
• KDE 5.13, meaning A LOT of improvements regarding Resource Usage, etc.
• Themes can now be changed on the fly without the need to restart applications (users of the old ISO will have to install the package 'feren-xsettings' for this functionality)
• Calamares System Installer has replaced Ubiquity System Installer
• More

This also means that the following things are still missing, that aren't mentioned by the WIP Notice on the OS:

• ????? ?????? ???????? (shh, you'll find out about this at a later date)
• Welcome Screen optimised for KDE
• Package for managing additions to Feren OS package-wise (this means you'll have to manually install new Feren OS Packages, for now, as they come to the Feren OS Next Builds)
• OOBE
• Themer (though you can assemble the layouts of many Layout Themes using the 'Add Panel' menu in the Panel right-click menu and the 'Layouts' menu in the Latte Dock (by default it's the 'notch-thing' up top) right-click menu)
• More

There's also a few issues to iron out right now, that may or may not be mentioned in the 'WIP Notice':

• Latte (top floating panel thing, also Familiar Looking Dock) crashes when the 'Connection Established' notification is closed and/or times out. Weirdly it doesn't seem to trigger Apport's reporting utility when it does though, even if it's a thing added directly to Startup. For now, the OS simply launches a script to keep Latte going for a few crashes, instead of Latte directly, on startup.
• The OS isn't yet being optimised too much so expect a bigger than normal installation size, never-mind ISO Size (that thing got compressed... A LOT.).
• The Live Session and the Installed OS both mostly identify themselves as 'Kubuntu'. Again, the work done here is MAINLY JUST KDE Configurations
• Kvantum Theme Engine isn't in the OS as an option yet, it might make its debut into Feren OS with KDE later on in its development...
• Timeshift isn't yet pre-installed
• 'Open In Terminal' in Nemo (Files) points to GNOME Terminal and therefore does nothing
• 'Install Now' in Welcome Screen still points to Ubiquity, and since the OS now uses Calamares for its installer (Feren OS Next only right now), that button will do nothing.
• Latte Layouts are pending some slight renames, in the spirit of what the Panel Layouts for Panels you can add to Plasma are called)
• If your HDD is too small for Feren OS but big enough for Lubuntu 18.10 BETA then Feren OS will still let you begin installation - this will be rectified in the future once I figure out a final estimate of the HDD Space needed by Feren OS with Plasma.
• More

Fixed Stuff:

• Favourites are now pre-included in the default configuration in application menus
• The panel's intended height is now reflected for the default screen resolution the user starts at, no matter how wide that screen may be, though this also means that the panel will still go back to the Vanilla KDE Height upon a screen width change
• Live Session User now auto-logins successfully
• GDEBI has its latest version meaning there shouldn't be any issues relating to it using GKSU instead of PKEXEC, once installed
• Fixed Opera's installation failure issue in Web Browser Manager
• Nemo (Files) now should have all the pinned folders on the left-side, as is on Cinnamon, in Next
• You should no longer be rejected by the login screen and kicked back into your user account in a new session when you log out of your user

Stuff to know:

• Vivaldi will fail to play certain YouTube Video Codec'd videos with a 'A playback error occurred' error, or similar, on YouTube's part, to fix this install 'chromium-codecs-ffmpeg' or 'chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra' via Synaptic, Terminal, or the Software Manager, and then relaunch Vivaldi and try again. This won't be as much of an issue once the 'Codec Management Tool' is introduced to Feren OS in the future (this package will be one of the codecs available to install/remove in that application).
• Just like Cinnamon, in Feren OS Next to edit a panel you must right-click on it, and look for 'Configure Panel'. If you don't find that option, look for a menu called 'Panel Options', and if you find that, it should be in there. No offence to the Cashew Fans, but I prefer not having the 'Cashew' button on my panel when widgets are unlocked, plus it needlessly attracts newbies into customising the Plasma Panel wondering how to make the Cashew invisible, and potentially trashing their configuration or thinking Plasma's more complicated than it really is.

Lastly, there's EVEN fixes done by me for KDE in Feren OS:

• Nemo File Manager has been fixed for KDE in Feren OS so that with 'feren-kde-nemorouting' installed, Nemo will integrate pretty well with Plasma's shortcuts, though it isn't fool-proof, as some features simply are not implementable into this, such as KDE Connect Phone File Browsing via Nemo, from my current knowledge of KDE Stuff.
• (KWin Rule) KWin has been given a ruleset for most Office in Wine programs to fix issues with the maximise/restore functionality of Office 2010 windows, and potentially other Office versions too that use the Ribbon User Interface Design.
• (KWin Rule) KWin has been given a ruleset for EVERY WINDOWS PROGRAM, forcing them to be 'Closeable' in KWin's eyes. This is to prevent the annoyance that is programs such as Games forcing you to play with no obvious quit option once you're into them, as well as them preventing their windows from being closed normally, on top of the lack of a quit option. In this ISO, those games WILL NOT stop you from having the ability to try and close them.
• (KWin Rule) KWin has been given three rulesets, one for Vivaldi, one for Opera and one for Welcome Screen which all force KWin to draw window decorations around these programs's windows if they're undecorated, which, combined with Breeze Window Decorations being tweaked to make these programs NOT have titlebars with buttons on them, means that these windows then have shadows around them, when they otherwise would not.

Overall, this ISO is mainly for getting feedback on the current default experience that the ISO gives its users with KDE, as well as showing KDE x Feren OS as it progresses... Check it out. Download link at top.

A new experimental ISO of Feren OS is now available, showing the early workings of what Feren OS could be like with the KDE Desktop Environment. Note that what you see in the ISO is NOWHERE near the finished product, with a lot of change planned over time, some of which will potentially make the experience as a whole feel different, and all the ISO is right now is the accumulation of the Default Settings for KDE being put in the OS. This means that the following things are still missing, that aren't mentioned by the WIP Notice on the OS:

• ????? ?????? ???????? (shh, you'll find out about this at a later date)
• Welcome Screen optimised for KDE
• Package for managing additions to Feren OS package-wise (this means you'll have to manually install new Feren OS Packages, for now, as they come to the KDE Experimental Builds)
• Latte Layouts (e.g.: Unity)
• More

​There's also a few issues to iron out right now, that may or may not be mentioned in the 'WIP Notice':

• Latte (top floating panel thing, also Familiar Looking Dock)'s 3 crashes re-launcher seems to hammer CPU when running Latte as a child process. I'm looking into this, but as of right now I can confirm that it appears to only be happening when Latte is running through the program, as the moment Latte, hosted by this program, is terminated, the program immediately drops back to 0% CPU usage in my testing, until it re-launches Latte again. The latest post-ISO 'feren-latte-config' update should now fix this.
• Latte (top floating panel thing, also Familiar Looking Dock) crashes when the 'Connection Established' notification is closed and/or times out. Weirdly it doesn't seem to trigger Apport's reporting utility when it does though, even if it's a thing added directly to Startup. For now, the OS simply launches a script to keep Latte going for a few crashes, instead of Latte directly, on startup.
• KDE's panel is designed to have different panel sizes per different screen widths, meaning Feren OS's intended 36 pixels high panel will only be 36 pixels high if your screen is 1366 pixels wide. -.-
• Opera may have issues installing via Browser Manager, seen that happen myself, will look into it.
• Nemo lacks the pins for Documents, Downloads, Pictures, Music, and Videos by default.
• The ISO is BIG... yet there's barely any applications on the OS... KUBUNTU, what exactly did you put in that ISO of yours (current base of this)...................?
• Applications upgraded by Mint DO NOT have their upgraded versions in this ISO, meaning for instance GDEBI might have the GKSU instead of PKEXEC issue, unless it has been fixed by Ubuntu Team too. ('upstream' PPA is disabled by default)
• Live Session doesn't have autologin for the Live Session User at first
• No favourites out of the box, I'm currently trying to control what KDE adds to favourite as the menu is switched in Alternatives...
• The Live Session and the Installed OS both mostly identify themselves as 'Kubuntu'. Again, the work done here is MAINLY JUST KDE Configurations
• Kvantum Theme Engine isn't in the OS as an option yet, it might make its debut into Feren OS with KDE later on in its development...
• Timeshift isn't yet pre-installed
• More

Lastly, there's EVEN fixes done by me for KDE in Feren OS:

• Nemo File Manager has been fixed for KDE in Feren OS so that with 'feren-kde-nemorouting' installed, Nemo will integrate pretty well with KDE's shortcuts, however, it isn't perfect... yet.
• (KWin Rule) KWin has been given a ruleset for most Office in Wine programs to fix issues with the maximise/restore functionality of Office 2010 windows, and potentially other Office versions too that use the Ribbon User Interface Design.
• (KWin Rule) KWin has been given a ruleset for EVERY WINDOWS PROGRAM, forcing them to be 'Closeable' in KWin's eyes. This is to prevent the annoyance that is programs such as Games forcing you to play with no obvious quit option once you're into them, as well as them preventing their windows from being closed normally, on top of the lack of a quit option. In this ISO, those games WILL NOT stop you from having the ability to try and close them.
• (KWin Rule) KWin has been given three rulesets, one for Vivaldi, one for Opera and one for Welcome Screen which all force KWin to draw window decorations around these programs's windows if they're undecorated, which, combined with Breeze Window Decorations being tweaked to make these programs NOT have titlebars with buttons on them, means that these windows then have shadows around them, when they otherwise would not.

Overall, this ISO is mainly for getting feedback on the current default experience that the ISO gives its users with KDE, as well as showing KDE x Feren OS as it progresses... Check it out. Download link at top.

Firstly, logos. Now in the screenshots it does show the LATEST Feren OS logo, as per the up-to-date Feren OS System they must have been using when they took said screenshots, however, it did come to my attention that someone obtained one of the SCRAPPED logo designs from a while ago that was in a Google+ poll, but was voted out by a milestone, and put that as the logo in both the bottom-right of one of the pages of the Article, and also on the CD Sleeve thing. For reference, the logo you see on the Feren OS Website is the newest logo, and it's also now accessible via the Work In Progress Press Page, along with being in one of the posts on the blog.

Another thing I noticed was that one of the writers said that Feren OS had Wine built-in. Now, to prevent confusion, Feren OS does not include Wine Windows Program Loader, but rather a custom dialog made for Feren OS that has an application name of 'Wine Windows Program Loader (Recommended)' in 'Open With' dialogs and the like. All that application is is a BASH Script to have 'Zenity' ask the user if they would like to run a program opened with that 'application' to be run in Wine, to make it more consistent with how Feren OS prompts the user over the execution of Linux Executable Files by default, as well as adding a small extra layer of security. However, if there is no installation of Wine, the dialog will simply be a prompt about installing Wine to allow the program to run instead. Feren OS 2017.0 was the last Feren OS version to include Wine out of the box, mainly because of the realisation of how insecure including Wine as a direct double-click option for EXEs is, given running something like WannaCry with Wine still allows the program to function and realise its malicious purpose. (Tested on a VM without the ability to do Networking, Shared Folders, or anything else, also tested on Zorin OS 12.2, which heeded similar results)
​
In short, Wine hasn't been a default option in Feren OS since 2017.0, due to finding out that in today's world the modern threats that can hit Windows can also do serious damage to the user that runs said threat in Wine in Feren OS, and other Linux Distros with Wine. (This is also why I try to warn users over getting an antivirus in Feren OS if they do get Wine on their machines) However, trying to run an EXE in Feren OS without Wine does give the user the option to quickly get Wine installed and then be able to run the EXE the second time around... also some people just don't have the need for Wine.

Ok, this one isn't exactly a clarification, as the point made was completely valid at the time the article must have been written, but as an FYI, Feren OS recently got an update to Themer that finally fixes the main gripe of the 3.1 Layout. Originally the Layout was kind of a small joke, due to how basic Windows 3.1 really was when you look back at it now, but since people would be likely to try it out when exploring, and there might be people who would use the 3.1 Layout, the layout also received an update, too, which, when combined with the Themer update, gives these improvements:
- There is now a Files window that opens into /usr/share/applications, in the vain of Windows 3.1's Program Manager, which, just like in 3.1 fashion, stays open while the theme is used.
- There is also now shortcuts to User Options, Battery, Network, and Sound on the bottom-right of the screen... because of I thought having those options at your disposal quickly would come in useful.

There seems to be a little bit of confusion regarding the bases of Feren OS Editions, and so to clarify, these are the current bases of Feren OSs:
- Feren OS - Linux Mint (transitioning to Ubuntu)
- Feren OS Lite - Ubuntu (Xubuntu)
- Feren OS KDE Experimental  - Ubuntu (Kubuntu)
- Phoenix Linux - Ubuntu (Lubuntu)

The GCSEs Break has ended for a while now, and to great grades, too, just to let you know, so development's back on its feet once more... that's kind of it for that subject.

Overall, cheers for the article, the review, and the OS being on a Disc... I'll be sure to keep improving Feren OS, due to that feedback, and more.

So... I just realised a few minutes ago (oops), but today is the 3rd Birthday of Feren OS, having been first released today 3 years ago as an Operating System. With this, I'll take the time now to talk about a few things I've been working on:

Ironically, I thought of doing this on this exact day earlier, not even realising what day it was, but Feren OS, after a few iterations and attempts in Inkscape, now has a new completely original logo. You might've already noticed it by looking at the top-left, but, yeah, Feren OS now has a new, original, logo for it, with, as per tradition, both blue and white versions, but this time being in SVG Goodness, with a 1024x1024 graphic inside. For current Feren OS Users, you can upgrade 'inspire-icon-theme', 'feren-artwork', and some other packages now to enjoy the new logos in all their goodness, being immediately used in place of the old ones.
​For those who haven't yet seen them, these are the new logos, in their high quality goodness (An SVG of the new logo (in blue) is in the package update to 'feren-artwork'):

I've been recently working in the background to, using the version of Calamares found in Ubuntu 18.04's Universe Repos, eventually replace the Slower but Still Usable Ubiquity Installer that Ubuntu provides, and Mint and Feren OS also use, as of right now, with the Speedy and Well-known Calamares Installer, and so far it's going very well. Now I've been contemplating on releasing the Calamares Bundled ISO (WIP) to the 'Development' SourceForge Download Mirror, as so far it's already in a decent state when it comes to installing the OS normally. However, there's still a lot that needs to be done yet before it can be considered ready for Stable:

• OEM Install Mode (Might just end up making it an optional package which an OEM can temporarily install, once ready, which then goes through the step of naming the OEM Brand (first exclusive step of the OS Installer for OEM Install Mode, which is then, obviously, not in Calamares AFAIK), followed by preparing the OS for making the next reboot to go to User Setup)
• Calamares is more-so designed for Installation than it is Configuring The Current System, so I might end up just making a completely new OEM Config Screen in Glade & Python3/PyGTK, for usage as the Post-reboot User Setup screen)
• The LiveCD's initrd.lz (or whatever file does the boot argument reacting by the in-LiveCD-OS) will need to be tweaked to point the installer-only modes to Calamares rather than Ubiquity
• Potentially More Stuff

Either way, there's some changes happening right now for Feren OS, that will improve the experience on it, in the future, and...
...for all those who have, or still do, use Feren OS: Thanks for staying with me on this journey, let's keep improving Feren OS, together... and maybe someday we might show those other competitors how you make a Personal OS in the Modern Era.

Some notes:
- Please follow the instructions on the Repository Description in order to contribute translations
- It'd be preferred if you DO add po and mo files in the specified locale's folder, based on the main POT File, you can use programs such as 'poedit' to create the 'po' file, and then you can make the 'mo' file with commands such as 'msgfmt -v namehere.po -o namehere.mo'.
- The repo, at the time of writing this, is currently sparce. The repo will gain more and more POT files as the OS gets more and more packages updated in order to add translate-ability to them, as so far only Layout Manager has translate-ability in-code. (2018.07.0.0.1)

Also check out the release notes for:

• Linux Mint 19.1 Tessa Cinnamon Edition (Base)
• Ubuntu 18.04 (Core Base)

...once you're in while booted in No Mode Set, log in, and immediately go into Driver Manager, and install the drivers that are there, and hopefully the next time you boot Feren OS up you won't need to use No Mode Set anymore.

• Using an older Feren OS: With newer kernels, while there may be better support for a lot of hardware, regressions can also occur. If you're having issues with the 18.04-based Feren OS Releases, you can download to the 16.04-based releases from here and install them. However, some updates will be unavailable due to them being targeted solely for the 18.04-based releases of Feren OS.

What a difference that 3 months can make. Ubuntu 18.04 and Mint 19, and of course, a new snapshot of Feren OS, for both the 32 bit architecture and the 64 bit architecture. This release, obviously, comes with serious improvements from both upstream and from me too. Listed below are the changes I remember, and how to upgrade.

This is kind of awkward, but until 18.04.1 gets released, the Major Update path that you use to upgrade your Feren OS April 2018 or older snapshot machine to an 18.04 base is currently blocked, as to make sure that any mess ups that are currently happening in upstream don't then mess up your Feren OS install... as trust me, there's plenty of mess ups happening upstream at the time of making this... relating to the kernel version used.
BTW, the reason this hasn't been written earlier is because of I was waiting until x32 was finished before announcing the new snapshot.

There's plenty of changes to cover, so here's the main ones that you'll probably want to know about:

From here on out, Feren OS is now based on the latest LTS Release of Ubuntu and latest release of Mint, being Ubuntu 18.04 and Mint 19, meaning you now have access to all the latest and greatest packages the upstream has to offer from Feren OS, in the stable format that LTSs are known for.

As per tradition, every snapshot comes with a new set of wallpapers out of the box, and July Snapshot is no exception, and with a new default background BG from Unsplash for the 3 Feren OS wallpapers, as well as all the other new wallpapers from Unsplash.

The Inspire icon theme has received a HUGE update with a new set of icons for folders, and for System Settings pages, along with some applications sporting new icons, such as Software Manager, Screenshot, and so on. Also, the brown folder icons are now a thing of the past, being now available via the package 'inspire-icon-theme-old', and (Blue Variant) 'inspire-icon-theme-old-blue'. As well as that, there's now a new icon set called 'Inspire Dark' which supplies a dark folder and dark archive icon variant of the Inspire icon set.

The Feren OS Theme has been improved heavily, with a darker shade of white on the theme now being used instead of blaring white, as well as having a gradient from white to the toolbar's colour on the title bar. Speaking of the title bar, the buttons on the title bar have also been redesigned, removing their colour as requested by others, as well as making the size of the buttons consistent between all the buttons. Dark has also seen some major improvements too, looking more sleek than it had before, all in the GTK 3.20 version of the theme. On top of this, the Cinnamon and Title bar themes have also seen welcome improvements and fixes.

Speaking of theming improvements, I've also improved the integration of Qt applications within Feren OS that comes out of the box for all users, which means now that applications like VLC now fit right in with Feren OS, using the GTK2 version of whatever theme you have currently applied.

The Themes section of System Settings has seen some huge improvements, from the preview glyphs of the default themes being simpler and easier to get the gist of to the theme application being less confusing, as there's now a dialog that appears whenever you're applying a theme from this release onwards. Here's what it looks like:

A lot of applications for Feren OS have been improved with this snapshot, including the small bits such as Theme Layout Manager, as well as tweaks to the core Feren OS Theming, and the core Feren OS Desktop, to make sure that it's more user friendly.

There's plenty of other things to add, such as a warning about usage within Virtual Machines, and so on, that isn't covered here, so you're bound to find something else new in this snapshot. Either way, a lot of work was put into making this release as great as possible, and I thank you all for waiting patiently for this snapshot to finally see the light of day. Here's to the future, and what's next!