Its been a busy time since beta 2 was released – so here is a quick run-down of what is new (remember to do a full update to get the latest changes)

New Dock Added. Oft asked is the addition of a Dock. We know via feedback received by the budgie-remix team that many people use a launcher to aid their workflow. The icon tasklist included with budgie is rather limited at the moment – although we expect some nice changes from upstream sometime in the future. We’ve included Plank with the Arc-Plank theme which complements the default Arc themes.

We have removed the icon tasklist applet for new installs and new users. When new stuff is done upstream we will look to see if we can reinstate this applet in the default install (either at 16.04.1 or 16.10)

Don’t worry if you love the icon tasklist applet and don’t like docks. Simply use Startup Applications to stop Plank from launching on logon. Use Raven to readd applets.

We have centered the clock – it just looked too odd stuck at the left hand side of the screen.

We’ve included the stylish Vertex themes – these themes complement budgie very nicely. Plank also comes with a Vertex theme – change this via Accessories – Plank Preferences.

Arc-theme has received updates to support users using the GNOME3 Staging PPA (Gnome 3.20)

budgie-xfdashboard has now been removed as a default application – many people in the community didnt think it added any value. Don’t worry if you like this – sudo apt install budgie-xfdashboard to reinstall.

The stylish gnome-calendar is now installed.

For laptop users TLP is included by default – enjoy better battery life!

Again for laptop users – touchpad tap-to-click is enabled by default

On the logon screen, a budgie-logo is now visible signifying the budgie-desktop session.

The arc firefox theme has been built from upstream sources – this will allow us to bring updates quickly when they are released.

The slideshow used for the installer has received nice new screenshots.

Work is ongoing very nicely to rework budgie-remix.org to be more dynamic and maintainable.

We’ve been working with upstream developers:

budgie logo will be added in a future unity-greeter package

we’ve requested a similar update for the lightdm-gtk-greeter package

Numix now includes a fix for budgie-desktop start-button.

We’ve got positive responses for future work on budgie desktop – support for python plugins, better plugin installation structures and vendor specific customisation of the panel applets

Pinguy has been absolutely wonderful supporting us through all the late breaking installation issues Canonical devs pushed recently. Both Pinguy and ourselves have confidence (bar anymore late breaking changes) that we’ll be pushing out our 16.04 release on-time – weekend after the 16.04 release is our target.