What makes Feren OS different from its base?
This only applies to Feren OS and not Feren OS Classic.
"isn't Feren OS just yet another Ubuntu?"
Feren OS is technically yet another Ubuntu in many ways, but when compared to most Ubuntu-based Operating Systems it's way more than just yet another Ubuntu-based Operating System.
Feren OS isn't your average 'Plasma configuration in an ISO' OS. It does have custom theming, but it has way more work done to it behind the scenes than most may realise.
Feren OS isn't your average 'Plasma configuration in an ISO' OS. It does have custom theming, but it has way more work done to it behind the scenes than most may realise.
Defaults changes
A common complaint with Plasma is that the default configurations are generally needing improvement. This, on top of the desire to make the Feren OS experience as similar to Feren OS Classic as possible to ease transitioning between the two experiences, resulted in me making an abundance of default configuration changes in Plasma and some applications:
- Baloo File Indexing is disabled by default
- Breeze's close button doesn't have the circle around it by default
- Breeze/Feren titlebar themes have been tweaked to give Vivaldi shadows
- GTK applications use "Noto Sans" as the font
- Enabled the option to trigger * Keys by their keyboard triggers (e.g.: Sticky Keys = SHIFT 5 Times) in KAccess by default
- Enabled the toolbar by default in Kate
- Disabled the side-panels by default in Kate
- Changed the default toolbar layout in Kate and Okular
- Cursor theme was changed to DMZ_White by default
- Automatically mounting drives was enabled by default but only for drives that were manually mounted before
- Single Click was disabled by default
- The default Global Theme, colour scheme, icon set, Plasma Theme, GTK Theme, Application Style and Splash Screen were changed
- The default favourites in the application menu were changed
- Stripping White Space when running commands from the clipboard was disabled by default
- Images can be stored in the Clipboard area by default
- Clipboard contents are cleared when logging out by default
- You can empty the clipboard by default
- KRunner's Get New Software searching is disabled by default
- Lock Screen's default background was changed
- Restoring the previous session of login was disabled by default - empty sessions are made instead
- KDE Wallet is disabled by default
- The default ALT+TAB type was changed by default
- The OSD for changing workspaces is enabled by default
- The default desktop effects were tweaked
- Present Windows and Desktop Grid use a grid-based window layout by default
- Present Windows and Desktop Grid are sped up by default
- Hot Corners are disabled by default
- Touch Edges were added for bottom swipe and top swipe
- 4 Window Rules were added - 2 provide fixes for certain applications, 1 provides the shadows around Vivaldi windows on the Breeze and Feren titlebar themes and 1 provides visual consistency for applications known to always use dark themes by default
- The icon size of the Okular sidebar was slightly decreased
- The login and logout sounds were changed by default
- Tap To Click is enabled by default on Synaptics Driver Touchpads
There are also changes made by default for non-KDE software:
- The default Onboard theme was changed by default
- The Onboard system tray icon was disabled and Onboard starts hidden by default
- The 'touch handles' and 'click buttons' in Onboard are disabled by default
- Touch Feedback when pressing keys is disabled by default (it caused some graphical weirdness in Feren OS's Onboard integration)
- Vivaldi has a whole slew of changes which can be found here: https://feren-os-user-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/vivaldi/vivaldiinferenos.html#changes-in-feren-os-to-vivaldi
Patches
Feren OS includes a bunch of patches to the default Plasma experience. As it stands right now, the following patches have been made to the Plasma desktop:
- Konsole was integrated to work in Nemo's "Open In Terminal" feature
- Nemo has been made to work as a default file manager in Plasma as reliably as currently known to be possible (chances are integration can be improved in the future, however)
- The desktop folder view settings were changed to fit Feren OS more
- The default pins on Task Manager were changed
- Global Theme was modified to change more settings through changes to its source code
- Window Decorations was modified to toggle Vivaldi shadows depending on the title bar theme chosen
- Colours was modified to change the Kvantum Application Style theme automatically if one matching your colour scheme is found - if none is found it'll switch you over to the Breeze Application Style to prevent readability issues
- The System Settings items layout was completely changed for Feren OS
- Simple Menu's categories list was moved from the right to the left
- Some extra Plasmoids were added by default
- Desktop Layout was split from Global Theme, and made into its own KCM
System Tweaks
- FRAMEBUFFER=y is set in /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/splash (should make the boot screen appear earlier on supported hardware)
- DefaultTimeoutStopSec=40s is set in /etc/systemd/system (should make most SystemD Services take less time to stop meaning shutdown speeds are faster)
- TapToClick is enabled on libinput globally in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/30-touchpad.conf
Applications
Finally, Feren OS has a relatively unique application selection consisting of the cruicial applications to allow most to get started with Feren OS. If you need any more applications, you can use Store to install more applications.
Among these applications are some applications made just for Feren OS:
Here are some other highlights for applications in Feren OS:
Among these applications are some applications made just for Feren OS:
- Web Browser Manager (install and remove the most well-known browsers available on Feren OS all in one place) (based on Zorin OS's Web Browser Manager, the Feren OS version also recently made an appearance in Peppermint 10 Respin and newer)
- Transfer Tool (a utility to transfer files, and some settings, to Feren OS from either Feren OS or Windows)
Here are some other highlights for applications in Feren OS:
- Some Linux Mint applications make their appearance in Feren OS including Update Manager, Timeshift and Driver Manager