Slowroll Updates Boost Stability, Enhance Performance

As Slowroll continues its journey, the latest updates released on August 30 and two on Sept. 2 with snapshot 20240902T0137 and snapshot 20240902T2146 have brought a slew of maintenance packages that enhance systems. These updates are part of Slowroll’s ongoing effort to provide users with a balanced rolling release that prioritizes stability while keeping the software stack up-to-date.

Updates for the quarter were scheduled for July 9, August 9 and Sept. 9, so the updates are well with the the monthly cadence.

August 30 updates had 49 packages that focused primarily on existing tools. Key updates include:

• Development Tools: Updates to llvm14, llvm15, and llvm17, alongside other essential packages like bash and python-Flask-Cors, ensure that developers working within the Slowroll environment have access to the latest tools and libraries for compiling and development.
• System Utilities: The update includes improvements to NetworkManager-branding and ddcutil-service, which contribute to system performance and hardware compatibility.
• Multimedia and Graphics: Applications like darktable, muPDF, and SDL_mixer received updates to provide smoother performance in graphic-related tasks.
• Virtualization: The inclusion of an update for VirtualBox ensures that users relying on virtual environments continue to have a stable and secure platform for running other operating systems or isolated environments.

snapshot 20240902T0137 updates closely followed and delivered 44 packages. These updates include:

• Network and Security: Updates include those for NetworkManager, bind and dkimproxy for reliable network operations.
• Multimedia Improvements: The update provides enhancements to the gstreamer family of packages (gstreamer, gstreamer-plugins-bad, gstreamer-plugins-base, etc.) that are essential for media processing and playback.
• System Utilities and Development: buildah, dracut and python-flake8 were among the tools updates for to both system administrators and developers.
• Virtualization and Cloud: Updates to nextcloud and python-azure-agent focused on Slowroll’s cloud and virtual environments and technologies.

snapshot 20240902T2146 had 33 packages updated. Key updates include:

• Graphics and Multimedia: Updates to Mesa and gstreamer-plugins-ugly provide improvements in handling 3D graphics and media playback tasks.
• System Utilities: Essential updates to binutils, kernel-firmware, and lightdm enhance system stability and hardware compatibility.
• Development Tools: The snapshot includes updates to gcc14 and several Python versions (python310, python311, python312, python313) and other libraries.
• Security and Networking: Enhancements to openssl-3 and wireshark strengthen system security and improve network analysis capabilities.
• Virtualization and Cloud: Updates to Xen and other virtualization tools aid in Slowroll systems to run virtual machines and manage cloud environments.

The development team is expected to release more updates in the future and people can subscribe to the Factory mailing list to get more information.

View the latest statistics on the Slowroll Stats page.

It’s crucial to understand that Slowroll is not intended to replace Leap. Instead, it provides an alternative for users who desire more up-to-date software at a slower cadence than Tumbleweed but faster than Leap.

If you try Slowroll, have a lot of fun - rolling… slowly!