A brand new version of the Regolith desktop is now available.
Regolith desktop 2.0 aims to meet the needs of those who seek a fast and efficient desktop Linux experience controlled (primarily) from the keyboard. Regolith pairs the i3 tiling window manager with GNOME Flashback, and adds in an assortment of other open-source components to deliver a curated, keyboard-driven UX.
And are some big changes since the Regolith 1.6 release from last summer.
For one, devs have replaced the rofi “launcher” with a new “desktop executor designed specifically for Regolith” called ilia. This tool is, to be fair, pretty awesome and it does do (more or less) everything it needs to, e.g., letting you search, see, and launch apps; managing windows; seeing desktop notifications.
Ilia also assumes the role of keybindings viewer (which shows on first run and is available to view at any time) as pictured below:
Regolith 2.0 also swaps the standard version of gnome-control-center for a Regolith-flavoured respin called regolith-control-center. GNOME Flashback is now uses as a base meaning system-level configuration can take place in a GUI rather than a CLI or text editor (unless you prefer those, of course).
Two new command line utilities are included: lago for managing notifications in the terminal, and regolith-diagnostic for …Well, I’m sure you can figure that one out 😉. Fonts from the open-source project Nerd Fonts project are available to install, and the Regolith i3 config file has been “deconstructed” into partials for easier editing.
Keen to try it out?
You can install Regolith 2.0 on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and Ubuntu 20.04 LTS relatively easily.
First, add the Regolith repository to your system’s list of software sources listed here. Next, install the regolith-desktop meta-package Finally, when complete, reboot to access the (newly-added) ‘Regolith’ session at the Ubuntu login screen and away you go!