Deepin is a Chinese-made Linux distribution based on the Debian stable branch aimed at the average desktop computer user.
It has a long history of paying attention to visual detail that is more akin to macOS than Windows. Like elementary OS, is visually attractive straight out of the box, with no customization. In other words, it is one of the most good-looking Linux distros.
Deepin 20.7 confirms that impression. It is the most recent “Community” release of this well-known Chinese-made Linux distro, so let’s see what’s changed.
What’s New in Deepin Linux 20.7
Everything in this release is mainly aimed at improving the user’s desktop experience. However, one of the things happening behind the scenes is quite impressive: the inclusion of the HWE Linux kernel.
For those not in the know, an HWE (Hardware Enablement) is a version of the Linux kernel newer than a GA kernel. Its primary purpose is to give more timely support for the most recent hardware devices rather than waiting several months for the next stable version of the Linux kernel to be released.
Deepin 20.7 has the HWE 5.18 kernel, which is intended to be compatible with more hardware devices while improving system compatibility and security. In addition, of course, you also have available the stable Linux kernel version 5.15.45.
The Grand Search feature introduced in Deepin 20.2.4 also received some love from this release. It now supports Google search, but more importantly, the user can choose which search engine is used by default.
Deepin 20.7 includes several enhancements to Control Center. For example, the logic of input methods and keyboard layouts have been adjusted to better fit both Chinese and foreign users’ usage preferences. An effect is also added when right-clicking on an application in the launch bar and more formats for a short date.
Mail is another major app that has seen significant improvements. It now has a calendar functionality for event management and synchronization. In addition, the rich text editor’s graphic editing and style configuration have been improved. Furthermore, the logic for loading emails has also been also improved.
Finally, let us mention some other more important changes worth noting. The Camera app has added support for saving videos in MP4. Two new options have also been added to the Browser app – opening a new window and a new incognito window if you right-click the browser icon in the dock.
On top of that, more Goodix fingerprint scanners are supported by biometric authentication. In addition, there’s good news for Firefox users – the nvidia-vaapi-driver library has been integrated to support enabling Nvidia Video Acceleration decoding.
Of course, Deepin 20.7 also brings numerous other improvements and countless bug fixes across the entire Deepin Desktop Environment.
You can refer to the official announcement for detailed information about all changes.
That concludes our roundup of Deepin 20.7’s more noteworthy features as we look ahead to the upcoming Deepin 23 release, a recently released preview.
Download
Be informed that Deepin 20.7 was a rather large download at 3.5 GB, and the direct download speed was underwhelming.
Additionally, if you’re new to Deepin and if you’re going to try Deepin, especially if you’re going to install it on a virtual machine, know that the Deepin installer requires you to have at least 64GB of disk space.
So, if you want to try it right now, the links to the installation ISO images are at the bottom of the official announcement.
