As promised I'm making available the beta release of LXLE 20.04.4 which I'm simply naming (Focal) as it makes more sense for a distribution such as LXLE to have one release per LTS version of Ubuntu that's had time to mature and stabilize. This approach allows for older systems to benefit by ensuring their hardware hasn't had support dropped due to a latest greatest kernel or LTS version. In effect it takes on a more Debian stable style focus while providing some PPA's/Repositories to enable updated versions of vital software users heavily depend upon such as LibreOffice.

This version has been a bit troublesome to build as some of the usual tools used to create LXLE have not been updated in some time. I'm planning on offering a 'bounty' to developers to update those tools making them available to all. That being said I was able to produce a working build that currently has one caveat. I've included a ReadMe on the desktop that asks the user to disconnect from the internet before installing the OS as the Ubiquity installer tends to hang trying to pull packages from online mirrors.

This version introduces some new software that is meant to replace the aging Seamonkey Suite that currently is battling many sites which simply no longer work as intended. One such piece of software is LibreWolf as the web browser which is a privacy focused modification of Firefox which has removed telementary, pocket and added internal 'hardening' which promotes safer browsing. I've also slightly modified the browser to keep memory use down.

As far as speed this version is seemingly very fast. System76's kernel modifications have been added which optimize the desktop for speed when on AC power. The system is very responsive and snappy however it's more noticeable after the second boot of the installed OS as the first boot has some cleanup to do after being freshly installed such as refreshing the package list, removing unneeded files and first run modifications.

As always a beta requires testing, testing and more testing. I'm hoping as usual there isn't much that needs corrected before the final release. At which time I'll update all the 'help' documentation to reflect the changes in the new version.

Below is a link to iso and md5 files available on Sourceforge.

https://www.lxle.net/images/focaldesktop.jpg

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