A New Snapshot is here to kick off 2019 + 'KDE Experimental' Update

UPDATE: The ISOs have now been completely uploaded, thanks for waiting

It's been 3 months since the last Snapshot, so... if you don't know what that means: It calls for a New Feren OS Snapshot, and it's now released for the 64 Bit Architecture and the 32 Bit Architecture... Also, to kick off 2019, it came right at the beginning of 2019!
This release comes with a series of improvements, as always, as well as some pretty major updates in the Feren OS Backend that have happened to the October 2018 Snapshot since its initial release, so in comparison to the original October Snapshot, let's check out what's changed.

Updating to the January 2019 Snapshot

Simple. Just go into the Update Manager, hit Refresh, and install any updates that might be there, once you've done that, congrats, you're now on the January 2019 Snapshot! This should also be true for users of the 16.04-based Feren OSs, though, seriously, do the Major Update if that's so, there's plenty of improvements waiting for you on the other side...
​PS: You might need to Refresh in Update Manager after the first round of available updates...

Changes since (Original) October 2018 Snapshot:

(All) New Wallpapers:

Just like every other Feren OS Snapshot before it, the January 2019 Snapshot contains a new background set, which to be honest looks pretty good this time around, with a rather unique-feeling selection of Unsplash wallpapers this time around. These wallpapers obviously are also available in the 'KDE Experimental' version as well, just like Titanium (October 2018 Snapshot)'s ones were.

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.

(Stock) New Login/Logout Sounds

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.

(All) Mint Repositories 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.

(All) The all-new Feren Store is here

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.

(All) Start Page 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)'

('KDE Experimental') New Lock Screen Theme

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...

('KDE Experimental') New Login Screen & Login Screen Theme

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.

More

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.

The Feren OS Dev