Budgie 10.8 Arrives with More Streamlined Desktop Workflow

A new version of Budgie Desktop 10.8 is now out with a refined workflow.

Budgie 10.8 has landed, ushering in many improvements and innovations that promise to redefine your desktop experience. From enhanced menu functionality to the exciting Magpie support, this release is about making Budgie Desktop even more polished, efficient, and ready for the future.

Let’s briefly take a look at what’s new.

Budgie 10.8: What’s New

Trash applet becomes core

One of the standout highlights of Budgie 10.8 is the inclusion of the Budgie Trash Applet into the core Budgie Desktop experience. Developed by Evan Maddock, a key Buddies of Budgie team member, this applet streamlines your interaction with your trashcan. Now, you can effortlessly access and empty your trash, and even recover accidentally deleted files with ease.

Magpie support

The debut of Magpie v0.x support in Budgie 10.8 marks a significant leap towards a more streamlined and future-proof desktop environment. For those new to the concept, Magpie is a tailored solution aimed at addressing the intricacies of Budgie Desktop’s interaction with GNOME’s Mutter window manager. Historically, the ever-changing Mutter ABI presented challenges, leading to pressure on the development team. Magpie steps in to restore X11 support, ensuring optimal user experience, and paves the way for a longer-term goal: the embrace of Wayland.

Budgie 10.8 lays the foundation by incorporating support for the Magpie ABI. This is a pivotal step in ensuring a stable Budgie experience across multiple GNOME Stack releases while preparations for Magpie 1.0 continue. The ultimate goal is to make Wayland the focal point, enhancing the desktop’s performance and responsiveness.

Improved user control

This release brings an elevated sense of empowerment to your desktop interactions. The privilege escalation dialog, powered by PolicyKit, now goes the extra mile by displaying action descriptions and IDs. No more wondering about the purpose of that dialog prompt – Budgie 10.8 gives you clear insights into what’s happening.

Plus, for users on supported systems, the battery status applet introduces performance and power modes, allowing you to tailor your system’s behaviour to your needs, whether it’s balanced usage, power saving, or performance-driven tasks.

Improved system tray

Budgie 10.8 takes a significant stride in revamping the System Tray experience. Moving away from the constraints of X11 APIs, the System Tray applet now adopts the modern and vendor-agnostic Status Notifier specification. This shift promises improved scalability, high DPI support, and consistent styling across tray icons and menus. As the development journey continues towards Budgie 11, the adoption of this specification lays the groundwork for even more dynamic and versatile tray applet instances.

Misc changes

Budgie 10.8 isn’t just about big changes—it’s also about refining the small details that make a big difference. The Budgie Menu, a centrepiece of the desktop, receives attention with improvements to the application indexing function and reorganization based on user feedback. This ensures smoother searches and a more intuitive organization of applications. Additionally, internal themes have been recoloured and refined to align with the Budgie project’s vibrant and fresh visual identity.

Download and availability

Fedora 39 (Budgie edition)mand Ubuntu Budgie 23.10 will feature this version once released on the October timeline. So, users of these distributions need to wait a few days.

Arch Linux users can upgrade their system as it’s already landed in the Arch Extra repo.

If you want to compile, the source code is available here.

Wrapping up

This release showcases the Budgie team’s dedication to crafting a desktop that caters to your needs while preparing for the future of Budgie, i.e. Budgie 11. Those who want an alternative to GNOME desktop and a sleek one should definitely try it.

Via Buddies of Budgie blog

Add DebugPoint to your Google News feed.

Join our Telegram Channel and stay informed on the move.

Using Mastodon? Follow: floss.social/@debugpoint

Recent articles from DebugPoint.com