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Endless OS 4.0 is a major release that introduces numerous new features and enhancements, starting with an improved app grid navigation with clickable arrows that allow users to more easily navigate between app pages, with dots that indicate the total number of pages and the page you’re currently on.
This release also introduces fast user switching to allow you to easily switch to a different user while another user is still logged in. The new feature has been implementing in both the user menu and the lock screen. The default desktop environment is based on the GNOME 3.38 series.
Also new in Endless OS 4.0 is driverless printing, a feature that uses the Internet Printing Protocol to automatically discover printers in your local network. When you’ll upgrade from Endless OS 3.9, all configured printers will be removed, but you’ll be able to manually add them again if they aren’t discovered automatically.
Among other noteworthy changes, this release comes with the Rhythmbox music player and Cheese webcam viewer as Flatpak apps, GNOME’s default icon theme, as well as separate repositories for Flatpak apps and the rest of the operating system to improve the performance and reliability of app installations.
Also interesting is the fact that Endless OS 4.0 now features an optional metrics system that automatically saves and sends anonymous usage statistics and problem reports to the Endless OS developers. Again, this is an optional feature that can be disabled during the initial setup or from Settings > Privacy > Metrics.
“In Endless OS 4, submitted data points are no longer associated with the particular computer which submitted it; instead, they are associated with the distribution channel for that computer, identified by the build ID of the installation image, which are typically shared between thousands of systems,” explain the devs.
Under the hood, Endless OS 4.0 is based on the latest and greatest Debian GNU/Linux 11 “Bullseye” operating system series and it’s powered by the Linux 5.11 kernel series. Best of all, this is a long-term supported (LTS) release that will receive software and security updates for several years, even after the release of Endless OS 5.
This release also gives users the ability to customize their own Endless OS installation image, adds support for the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B single-board computer with 8GB of RAM, adds support for L2TP and OpenConnect/AnyConnect VPNs, and adds support for the new SBAT Secure Boot revocation mechanism.
Various functionality that was present in previous Endless OS release has been removed, such as the Shared Account feature, Remote Desktop Viewer app, built-in desktop shortcuts for websites, automatic Google Chrome downloader, Chinese Zhuyin input method, and support for computers using a “split disk” configuration.
If you want to give Endless OS a try, you can download Endless OS 4.0 right now from the official website. Live and installation images are provided for various languages and platforms. For more details about this release, check out the full release notes.