Budgie Desktop

From the developer of the deprecated SolusOS Linux operating system, we welcome you to Budgie Desktop, an open source software project that  integrates with the GNOME graphical desktop environment.

Comprises of a WM, Session and Panel

The graphical environment comprised of a window manager (budgie-wm), a desktop session (budgie-session) and a panel (budgie-panel). A run dialog (budgie-run-dialog) is also implemented, allowing you to easily launch programs.

Chrome OS-like interface

Budgie uses a traditional, yet modern layout. The main panel is located on the bottom edge of the screen and it’s completely transparent. It aims to look like Google’s Chrome OS user interface, but it uses various applications from the GNOME desktop environment.

It’s implemented in GTK3, Vala, C

As its name suggests, Budgie Desktop is a desktop environment. It is written entirely from scratch and implemented using the GTK+ GUI toolkit, as well as the Vala and C programming languages.

Designed for Evolve OS

Budgie has been designed from the ground up as the default graphical desktop environment of the Evolve OS operating system, the successor of the deprecated SolusOS Linux distribution.

Supports a wide-range of Linux OSes

Budgie Desktop is distributed mainly as source code, via GitHub, which means that you will be able to download and install it on virtually any Linux kernel-based operating system, including Ubuntu and Arch Linux.

Fair warning for Ubuntu users

When installing Budgie Desktop, Ubuntu users are warned that the default theme will break some of the the desktop’s functionality, especially the usability of Budgie Panel component. Therefore, do not use any Ubuntu GTK3 plugins or modifications.

Dependencies, lots of dependencies

The Budgie desktop environment requires the following libraries and components: libpulse, libpulse-mainloop-glib, GTK3, upower-glib, libgnome-menu, libwnck, libmutter, GLib, gee-0.8, libpeas-1.0 and valac.

What is new in this release:

• Fix closing of popovers when opening a popup menu or combobox
• Fix some build issues with older GNOME stacks (3.20/3.22)

What is new in version 8.3:

• Merge pull request #237 from libcg/master
• common.mk: don't use -Werror
• More Solus defaults. You can disable these in Budgie Settings if you dislike.
• Deal with lightdm's weirdess by being GNOME. Vs Budgie:GNOME
• wm: Adapt to GSD 3.16 changes (closes issue #204)
• Undo insanity - broke gnome-screenshot (-i)
• Use executable, not commandline
• panel/applets: Do not trust GdkAppLaunchContext
• data: Disable "md" style - to be removed entirely soon
• applets/budgie-menu: Disable score tracking (optional in future)
• applets/tray: Lock to 24px as its just too problematic.
• applets/tray: Lock down the icon sizes
• Fix handling of Super_L (overlay-key)
• Ensure popovers close with windows key
• Switch to start-here-symbolic icon by default
• wm: Add initial basic "always on top" menu item (no check)
• wm: Fix tab timeout, ain't nobody fast enough for that.
• applets/notifications: Don't enable focus on close button
• Sync lots more translations
• applets/show-desktop: Be visually consistent with launchers
• Add lock button to session dialog (resolves issue #89)

What is new in version 8.2:

• We now have translations support, and an initial set of translations now exist within Budgie Desktop
• Require minimum GTK/Mutter 3.14 - actively developed on 3.16
• Dropped all of our old 3.10 workarounds for Ubuntu 14.04 - meaning we dropped 14.04 support completely.
• Mass of stability and performance changes, notably involving crashes when using popover menus. Budgie Menu now appears virtually instantly.
• Since v8 we switched to the new style notifications
• Right click menus are back (root window/desktop) and on windows. New "Show Desktop" applet
• Since v8 budgie-wm was completely rewritten to be more responsive, and minimise the number of actual allocations to be more responsive. Thus its a bit lighter than it was (still uses libmutter)

What is new in version 8:

• We added a whole bunch of options for the Budgie Menu to the panel preferences, enabling you to use the traditional layout we used with the Budgie Menu, or indeed stick
• with the new version that doesn't employ categories. We've visually refreshed the run dialog and menu, with a much simpler and intuitive (not to mention more responsive)
• feel to everything. Interaction played a huge part this time round, with the menu now sorting items by usage, saving you a lot of time!
• We have auto hide support, a new dark look, application pinning (pin apps as launchers to the panel), dynamic support for GNOME Panel theming, a menubar applet,
• cleaned up the animations... and a whole bunch more!
• IconTasklist: Add pinning support
• IconTasklist: Use .desktop files for quicklists
• IconTasklist: Use .desktop files for icon resolution
• IconTasklist: Support "attention" hint (blue blink)
• Panel: Support dark theme (used by default)
• Add Menubar applet
• Panel: Initial autohide support (manual, not automatic)
• Panel: Support shadow onall screen edges
• Panel: Dynamic support for gnome panel theming
• RunDialog: Complete visual refresh (bootiful)
• BudgieMenu: Add compact mode, use by default
• BudgieMenu: Sort items by usage
• BudgieMenu: Remove old power option
• Editor: Add all menu options to UI
• Support from GNOME 3.10 up to 3.16 (unreleased, git)
• wm: Kill workspace animation (resolve after v8)
• wm: Better animations for changing of wallpapers
• And Other Stuff! (Test it! >_

What is new in version 7:

• New notification daemon support (freedesktop)
• X11 tray support (temp until new appindicator comes in)
• Native popover rendering
• Various popover placement/sizing fixes
• Volume control via new settings popover (no mute yet.)
• Hide power applet when no battery is found
• Various multihead tweaks
• Scroll with mouse to change volume
• Integration with GNOME clock settings
• Split libbudgiewidgets as shared library
• Initial shadow support (bottom panel only.)
• Vastly improve session logic (fixes frozen start, multiple instances)
• Do not ship .c files in make dist
• Enable changing of menu icon and label via gsettings key (no ui yet)

What is new in version 5.1:

• Almost all of the changes since v4 have been related to the panel. It's been completely rewritten in Vala, lowering the maintenance overhead and significantly reducing the barrier of entry for new contributors.
• So, when your update comes through later on (hopefully) today through OBS if you use it, or for Evolve OS users you already have the update, you should only see minor visual differences. The idea was not to change the look, but to rewrite what was there and make it moar better.
• Plugins:
• All of the applets have been rewritten to use a plugin API. This makes no immediate difference to users but will be heavily expanded on in the upcoming v6 (we'll try to avoid a v6.1 this time..). Users of the Budgie Desktop will be able to write their own plugins in any language supported by libpeas, which includes C, Vala, JavaScript and Python. This essentially means you'll be able to extend the panel with your own applets. To make life a bit easier the plugins will also be able to load from your home directory, promoting an easy way to share and use applets.
• The existing panel will receive changes for v6 enabling you to completely customise the layout of the panel too, making it your own. But, those changes won't come till v6, so lets stop teasing.
• More fixes:
• The panel now stays where it is meant to be, and the right size. This.. somewhat helps, being a panel... Currently no configuration options really exist for the panel, as this will come during the v6 cycle. So, what I can tell you is the panel has full support for top/bottom positions, and *preliminary* support for left/right screen edges, though the menu will look.. odd.
• So, right now the panel is locked at 40px in height, has status icons that are 22x22px, and "launcher" icons that are 32x32. The panel and its menus (main menu and the clock area) should now be faster and smoother to open and operate.
• The automatic darkening of the panel received love too, and it does its job very effectively. Right now its bound to start failing when you start moving the windows to different workspaces - this is a thing to address in the future.
• Lastly:
• The rewrite into Vala took quite some effort, but has immediately paid off. In the future all of the desktop will be rewritten to use Vala, and being the "second write" - we do things better the second time around. Here are the stats for the initial panel rewrite to Vala: 55 files changed, 2749 insertions(+), 2658 deletions(-)