Yesterday, Sunday in Spain, the team of developers behind the graphical environment used by distributions like Ubuntu Budgie launched Budgie 10.9. This new version has arrived about six months after the earlier version, and it does not seem to have an extensive list of new features. It is something that can be understood, since we do find a very important one, perhaps not so much in terms of functionalities, but in terms of its size.
In Budgie 10.9, initial work has been done to bring some of its components to Wayland, and it is expected that in 2024 they will launch a version only for this graphic protocol, although it will also be possible to continue using X11 if the user prefers. In Linux everything is possible, if not in one way, then in another.
Most notable new features of Budgie 10.9
- Redesigned Bluetooth applet. It now provides a direct disconnect function for paired devices, battery percentage indicators and the ability to send files. Among other things, it no longer depends on gnome-bluetooth and now communicates directly with BlueZ and UPower via D-Bus.
- Work has been done to bring several Budgie Desktop applets and components to a compatible library: libxfce4windowing. It's something created by XFCE that attempts to present window concepts (screens, workspaces, etc.) in an independent way. Supports X11 via libwnck and various Wayland protocols. The show desktop applet, tab changer, and workspace applet already use libxfce4windowing.
- New budgie-session, a fork of gnome-session designed to provide a stable session manager for Budgie 10.x. Specifically, it is a fork of GNOME Session 44.x, and supports session code related to X11 and ConsoleKit for BSD.
Budgie 10.9 It is now available, but only your code. This means that distributions can now take it and start working with it, and that the most knowledgeable can install it on their system, but it is not the most recommended for most users. In fact, its developers recommend use it in options such as EndeavorOS or Fedora, among others. Next April it will be on Ubuntu Budgie 24.04.
More information in notes from this release.