What's new

0.6.0: Jiggity, one ISO for everything and a faster kernel

Jiggity, our own installer, and one ISO for everything. Instead of an ISO per desktop there's now one, about 620 MB, like Debian's netinst. Jiggity asks everything up front: language, keyboard, network, time zone, your account, the disk (a whole drive or the free space next to Windows, encrypted if you want) and which desktop. Then it downloads and installs it, and you restart into your new system. It needs an internet connection while it installs.

Four new desktops to pick from.

• Ranni: KDE Plasma set up to feel like a Mac, with a menu bar at the top, a dock at the bottom and Super+Space to search. The Khongoryn Els dunes on the desktop.
• Play: KDE Plasma with Steam installed, GameMode, and controllers that work when you plug them in. The northern lights over Lofoten on the desktop.
• TTY: the console with floating windows, on ttywm.
• Server: no desktop, SSH on from the start.

A faster kernel. Chamesle now runs CachyOS's long-term kernel, tuned for desktops, so the system stays quick while something heavy runs in the background. If it ever crashes, the blue screen shows a QR code: scan it with your phone and it opens the crash report in a readable form, ready to send to us.

Also in 0.6:

• Lighter. Bluetooth's tray icon only starts on computers that have Bluetooth, and services for programs an edition doesn't have stay off.
• ttywm 0.5. Brightness keys, notifications in a frame in the top right, Super+arrows to put windows side by side, and Super+L to lock with a login prompt.
• fbttywm. ttywm without X, straight on the screen: sudo apk add fbttywm and run it from a text console.

Already on Chamesle? sudo apk upgrade brings the new kernel, and a restart starts it.

ttywm: the console, with windows

Our own window manager is out. Every screen is a full screen shell in the real console font and colours, and windows float on top in frames drawn with box characters. Super+1 to Super+9 switch between tty1 and tty9, and the bottom line shows the network, volume, battery and the time. The settings are one file in plain words, and saving it changes things right away. sudo apk add ttywm, then pick ttywm on the sign-in screen. It's the base of the TTY Flavor. Have a look.

0.5.0: KDE Plasma, and a friendlier start

A KDE Plasma edition. A start menu and a taskbar like you're used to, light windows with the Inter font, and the Matterhorn at sunset on the desktop. Underneath, it's KDE: change anything you like. Have a look.

A friendlier start. A new boot menu that's easy to read, and the splash goes straight into your desktop. Xfce, MATE, Cinnamon and KDE Plasma get our own sign-in screen too; GNOME and Astro keep GNOME's, which their lock screen needs.

A blue screen instead of a wall of text. If the system ever crashes, you get a blue screen with the error on it, not a frozen picture. And if something fails while starting up, Chamesle says which part failed and gives you a repair console, instead of hanging on a black screen.

Also in 0.5:

• A new wallpaper on every edition: the Matterhorn at sunset, a real photo (Sam Ferrara, CC0).
• A new kernel, Linux 6.18 LTS.
• Installer fixes. It no longer offers the live USB's memory swap as a place to install, it doesn't ask about a blank disk when you chose to install next to Windows, and the summary shows your keyboard layout properly.

sudo apk upgrade brings the new kernel, the boot menu and the blue screen to systems already installed. The sign-in screen and KDE Plasma come with the new ISOs.

0.4.0: updates you can undo, and Chamesle Astro

Updates can't break your computer. Before every update, Chamesle takes a snapshot of the system. If an update breaks something, restart and pick Chamesle Linux, from before an update in the boot menu: you're back to how things were, and one click keeps it that way. Only the system goes back in time, never your files, and only the last 3 snapshots are kept, so they don't eat your disk. This needs a fresh 0.4 install (it uses btrfs, which the installer sets up now); older installs keep working as before.

Chamesle Astro, the first Flavor: the GNOME edition with Stellarium, KStars, Siril and Gpredict ready to go, a dark desktop that turns warm at night to keep your night vision, and the Webb telescope's “Cosmic Cliffs” as the wallpaper. Have a look.

Also in 0.4:

• Cinnamon: Wi-Fi passwords. Clicking a network didn't ask for the password and then said it was wrong. It asks now. sudo apk upgrade fixes existing installs.
• Safer installs. The installer kept your password and disk encryption passphrase where other programs on the live USB could read them while it ran. They stay private now.

Already running Chamesle? Run this once

The key that signs the Chamesle repo has changed. If sudo apk update says UNTRUSTED signature, your system doesn't know the new key yet. This adds it:

sudo curl -o /etc/apk/keys/chamesle-20261023.rsa.pub https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tortr-rs/chamesle/main/keys/apk/chamesle-20261023.rsa.pub

Then sudo apk upgrade works again. You only need to do this once, and new ISOs know the key already.

The upgrade fixes two things worth having:

• Sound. Nothing started the sound server, so there was no sound and apps that wait for it (like PulseEffects) never opened. Log out and back in after upgrading.
• htop, nano and other terminal programs stopped with "Error opening terminal". They work now.

0.3.0: a GNOME edition

The first edition of 0.3, and the first one that isn't set up like Windows: GNOME's top bar, an overview with all your windows, and a dock at the bottom that gets out of the way when a window needs the room. Tray icons work, windows have minimise and maximise buttons, and the touchpad clicks with a tap. Same Chamesle wallpaper, icons, store and apps. See it or get it.

0.2.1: Windows programs

Double-click a .exe and it runs. The first time, Chamesle offers to install Windows support (Wine, a 650 MB download) and sets it up, with DXVK switched on when your graphics card can use it, so games run fast too. After that it's just a double-click. .msi installers work the same way, and whatever they install shows up in your menu.

Also in 0.2.1:

• The Store, Driver Manager and updates work in the live session. Before, they asked for a password the live session doesn't have.
• The installer fits on small laptop screens. Its pages scroll instead of pushing the buttons off the bottom.
• MATE: no more little grab handles on the panel.
• Cinnamon: the terminal uses a proper monospace font.

Already running 0.2? sudo apk upgrade gets you all of it.

Since the release

Being rolling means 0.2 keeps getting better without a new ISO. Since it came out:

• A Cinnamon edition. Linux Mint's own desktop, next to Xfce and MATE. Have a look.
• An update notifier. A small icon shows up next to the clock when there are updates. Click it, type your password, done. It covers system packages and Flathub apps.
• Driver Manager. It looks at your hardware and tells you if something works better with another driver: NVIDIA cards (it picks the right driver for how old the card is), some Broadcom Wi-Fi chips, HP printers, VirtualBox and VMware. One click, then a restart.
• The store shows a progress bar while it downloads, so big apps don't look stuck.
• Fixed: some Flathub apps wouldn't install and showed a long error about a kernel module.

All of this is in the 0.2.1 ISOs, and sudo apk upgrade brings it to an existing 0.2 install.

pkgimport: .deb and .rpm, just double-click

Most Linux apps on the web come as a .deb (Ubuntu, Debian) or an .rpm (Fedora, openSUSE). On Chamesle you don't have to care which. Double-click either one and pkgimport installs it: it converts the package, pulls in the libraries it needs from the Chamesle repo, and adds it to your menu. Updating and removing works like any other package.

sudo pkgimport install ~/Downloads/app.deb
sudo pkgimport install ~/Downloads/app.rpm

The Chamesle Store

One window for all your apps: Flathub and the Chamesle repo together, with categories, search and an Updates tab that updates everything with one button. If an app is on both, you choose which one you want. It installs .deb and .rpm files too. It's the first version, so tell us what's missing on the board.

A MATE edition

Next to Xfce there's now a MATE edition, with the same Chamesle look and Linux Mint's MATE start menu. Compare them.

An installer

0.1 was live-only. 0.2 puts Chamesle on your disk. Double-click Install Chamesle on the desktop and answer a few questions: language, keyboard, where it goes, your name and password. Then it does the rest.

• Next to Windows. The installer can shrink a Windows partition to make room, and you choose Windows or Chamesle every time the computer starts.
• Or the whole disk, if you're done with what's on it.
• Encryption with one tick box. Your files stay locked if the laptop gets stolen.
• Manual partitioning for people who want it, with ext4, btrfs or xfs.
• Works on both old BIOS machines and UEFI.

The Chamesle repo

The system now uses apk and the Chamesle repo: almost 15,000 packages, each one signed with the Chamesle key. Updating everything is one command:

sudo apk upgrade

Search the packages.

Stable rolling

From 0.2 Chamesle is a rolling release that's careful about it: updates every week, new versions held back for a while before they go out, and a test install that has to boot before anything ships. The kernel is pinned to the long-term support line (6.18 now). New ISOs come every 6 months.

Smaller things

• A new 4K wallpaper, the Inter font and Papirus icons.
• The login screen is Mint's, with the Chamesle logo.
• Qt apps use the same theme as everything else.
• fastfetch shows the Chamesle logo.
• The boot menu of an installed system finds Windows and other systems on its own.

Still to come

0.6: Jiggity, our own installer, and two Flavors: gaming and Ranni. See the roadmap.