KaOS is an independent rolling-release distribution inspired by Arch Linux and entirely focused on the KDE Plasma Desktop and related Qt Toolkit-based software. It uses Pacman as its package manager but does not rely on software repositories developed and maintained by Arch Linux.
Instead, the software is available from in-house repositories and is built exclusively for 64-bit machines.
Unlike most other Linux distros, KaOS does not provide various installation images with GNOME, Xfce, LXQt, or any other desktop. Moreover, the packages for other desktops are not even included in the KaOS repositories.
KaOS 2022.08 is the fifth released version of this Linux distro this year. So let’s see what’s new.
KaOS 2022.08 Highlights
KaOS 2022.08 introduces several significant changes that users of the distribution have long anticipated, as detailed below.
The most long-awaited is the complete removal of Python2 from KaOS. The default install has been Python2 free for quite some time, but some major packages still require it to build. The last of these, QtWebEngine, has been patched to build against Python3, so KaOS is now completely Python2 free.
The next significant change is the transition from PulseAudio to Pipewire as the default sound multimedia framework. However, for those who still prefer PulseAudio, the KaOS’ Calamares installer implementation includes a module that allows users to choose which sound server they prefer.
Speaking of the Calamares installer, this is where the third major change comes into play. The layout has been tweaked so that moving through the steps is now more intuitive and visually consistent with the other KaOS applications presented in Live mode and during the first boot into the new system.
In addition to the three major changes mentioned above, several others should be mentioned in this KaOS release.
The KaOS 2022.08 ISO installation image includes the recently released KDE Gear 22.08 application collection. This means that users can take advantage of the new features and improvements included in this release. In addition, the most recent KDE Frameworks 5.97 and Plasma 5.25.4 are also included, all based on Qt 5.15.5+.
Under the hood, KaOS 2022.08 ships with the Linux kernel 5.18.17. In addition, of course, a number of the other core elements have also received updates, such as Systemd 251.4, KMod 30, Mesa 22.1.6, Vulkan packages 1.3.224, Libnl 3.7.0, Hdparm 9.64, and Upower 1.90.0.
You can refer to the official announcement for detailed information about all changes.
Download
KaOS Linux is a rolling distribution, so keeping up with the updates is enough to get you the latest packages. The command shown below will always give you the latest.
sudo pacman -SyuThe official ISO is also updated every few months to keep it up to date with all the latest changes for new installations, so you are not presented with a sizeable first update.
The users can download the latest KaOS 2022.08 installation ISO image from the project’s website for those wishing to carry out a new installation.
