Fienix 6.0.1 Released

 Fienix 6.0.1 is the biggest release yet! 

Available Media: 

• Installer for U-Boot and CFE based systems (AmigaOne)
  
• Live USB Image for U-Boot and CFE based systems (AmigaOne)
• Installer for Open-Firmware based systems (Apple PowerPC)
  

OS, Connectivity & Application Highlights:

• Fienix Installer for Open Firmware (such as Apple PowerPC) now installs firmware by default, resulting in better hardware support 
  
• Fienix now comes with built-in, easy-access support to stream media to DLNA devices such as Chromecast, modern game consoles and DLNA-compliant smart TVs and remote speakers, as well as support to stream to ROAP devices such as Apple Airport Express
  
• Streaming to Bluetooth speakers is also supported on systems with a Bluetooth adapter (and Fienix has built-in support for USB Bluetooth adapters)
  
• Improved printer support and graphical printer configuration
• A new, streamlined default theme for a cleaner interface, new wallpapers, and a Fienix screensaver
• Support for GTK 4
  
• Fienix Companion 6.0.1 is much more robust and stable! It now includes Fienix Network Mechanic to correct many network issues, and the curated app suite has been updated
  
• Almost all QT and KDE frameworks packages have been rebuilt from source to improve stability
• QT packages upgraded to version 5.15.4 and KDE frameworks packages upgraded to version 5.98
• Improved menu functionality for QT/KDE applications (the "sticky" menus bug can be closed with Esc key)
  
• Improvements in theme consistency for QT/KDE applications
• Improvements in theme consistency for Java desktop applications
  
• KDEConnect in Fienix 6.0.1 provides integration with both iOS and Android devices (previously only Android devices were supported)
  
• Eolie, a web browser based on WebKit (the same browser engine as Apple's Safari browser), is available on Fienix 6.0.1 and provides great compatibility with websites and JavaScript
  
• Arctic Fox web browser has been upgraded to version 41.0
• Pale Moon browser 32.1 is now available
• SeaLion, a browser similar to SeaMonkey, is available in Fienix 6.0.1
  
• VLC has been upgraded to version 3.0.18
  
• SFML has been patched in Fienix 6.0.1 to correctly play Ogg Vorbis sound format, unpatched it plays only static on big-endian systems 
• Java Runtime Environment (JRE) version 18 is available in Fienix 6.0.1

Other New Applications available on Fienix 6.0.1: 

• Art of Illusion, a 3D modeling and rendering application
  
• Authenticator, an application for two-factor authentication 
• Bless, a hexadecimal editor
  
• BRL-CAD, a solid modeling computer-aided design system with an interactive geometry editor
• Chiaki, a PlayStation remote play client
• Dialect, a language translator 
• Drawing, a draw/paint application
• Feeds, a news reader
• Formiko, a MarkDown editor with live preview 
• Klystrack, a chiptune tracker with built-in synthesizer
• Kodi, a "home theater" media player and entertainment hub
  
• NmapSI4, a graphical network mapper
  
• Mikutter, a Twitter client with advanced features
  
• Ptask, a task manager
  
• Sweet Home 3D, an architectural and interior design application
• Wike, a desktop Wikipedia reader and search tool
  

New emulators available on Fienix 6.0.1: 

• E-UAE, a classic Amiga emulator with JIT compilation
• Generator-Launcher, a Sega Genesis emulator (Generator) with GUI launcher by the Fienix Project
  
• SNES9x, a Super Nintendo emulator
  
• Spectemu, a ZX Spectrum emulator
  

 New & updated games and game engines available on Fienix 6.0.1: 

• AlephOne, a game engine for the Marathon Trilogy and dozens of community games (1)
• Augustus, a game engine with additions and enhancements for Ceasar 3 (2)
  
• Bid For Power, a 3D arena brawler featuring anime style ki-powered superheros (1)
• Billy Frontier, an arcade style action "cowboys in space" game (1)
  
• Bugdom, a 3D platformer (1)
  
• Cendric, an RPG with platformer dungeons (1)
• Classicube, a sandbox block game (1)
• Cro-Mag Rally, a kart racing game (1)
  
• Cytadela, a classic FPS (1)
• Cytopia, a city building game (1)
  
• d2tm, a clone of the classic RTS Dune II (1) 
• Dave Gnukem, a retro-style 2D platform shooter
  
• The Dark Conjunction, an adventure FPS in an apocalyptic fantasy world (1)
  
• DevilutionX, a game engine for playing the classic ARPG Diablo and Diablo Hellfire (2)
• Diver, a 3D adventure exploration game under the sea (1)
• DSDA-Doom, a Doom engine with support for Heretic, Hexen, several new mapping standards, and tools for demo recording and playback
  
• ECWolf, a game engine for playing the classic FPS Wolfenstein 3D (2)
• EDuke32, a game engine for playing Duke Nukem 3D, NAM (aka Napalm), and WWII GI (2)
• Exult, a game engine for playing Ultima VII (including Black Gate, Forge of Virtue, Serpent Isle and Silver Seed) (3)
  
• GemRB, a game engine for playing Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate 2, Icewind Dale, Icewind Dale II, and Planescape: Torment (3) 
• Hazard, a game inspired by a fusion of Berzerk and Tron, with a great OST
  
• iortcw, a game engine for playing Return to Castle Wolfenstein (3)
• Julius, a 100% compatible game engine for Caesar 3 (2) 
• Lightweight Java Game Library (LWJGL), a Java game engine used by several popular titles
  
• Monkeys of Doom, a cel-shaded, cartoon-like FPS featuring monkeys (1)
• Nanosaur 2, a third-person (or third-dinosaur) shooter (1)
  
• Navy Seals: Covert Operations, a mission-based FPS that focuses on realism (1)
• OpenNotrium, a survival adventure game (1)
• OpenTyrian, the classic vertical shooter (1)
• Otto Matic, an action-adventure game (1)
• Parolotto, a word game
  
• Powder, a roguelike originally made for the Gameboy Advance (1)
• Puzzle Moppet, a 3D puzzle game 
• Pygame for Python2 has been ported so Fienix can still support legacy Pygame titles
• raqgl, a game engine for playing Another World (a.k.a. Out of This World) (2) 
• ReflectionsHLE, a game engine for Keen Dreams, Catacomb 3-D and Wolfenstein 3D (3)
  
• Run Over, a 3D run & jump game (1)
• Smokin Guns, a western FPS (1)
  
• Slayer's Testament, an FPS heavily inspired by Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal (1)
• True Combat, a team-based tactical shooter that focuses on realism in objective battles (1)
  
• Urban Terror, a "Hollywood tactical shooter" placing "fun over realism" somewhat similar to Counter-Strike (1)
• VDrift, a 3D driving simulation game (1)
  
• Witch Blast, a roguelike graphic dungeon-crawl inspired by The Binding of Isaac (1)
• Woof!, a Doom engine with support for many new standards such as Boom, MBF, MBF21, and ZDBSP maps
  
• World of Padman, a colorful, comic-book style FPS (1)
• XQF, a FPS game querying tool
  
• Additionally, QuAC, a compilation package by the Fienix Project, consisting of assets released under FOSS, CC, and other no-charge licenses, to enable playing Quake mods as stand-alone games

(1) - Indicates availability of full game data (whether FOSS or under copyright) in additional to an appropriate (or integrated) game engine

(2) - Indicates availability of a shareware or reduced-content version of the game data (whether FOSS or under copyright) in addition to an appropriate game engine.

(3) - Indicates availability of the game engine in the Fienix repositories, but game data must be provided by the user

Known Issues: 

• GStreamer does not work properly and applications that depend on GStreamer will abort when attempting to play media. See Debian bug https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1029618
• Some interface components in Kodi are rendered with incorrect colors. 
  

Older Fienix Versions to be Retired

The Fienix "Five" test repository and Fienix 5.0 "Fliegend" repository are scheduled for retirement on March 1, 2023. Please ensure your sources.list is updated to the Fienix 5.1 "Spark" repositories to avoid outages and apt errors. 

 

The Fienix 4.0 "Soar" repository will stay active as a "long-term support" option. 

 

Release of Fienix 6.0 is expected to be announced within days. 

 

Spark sources.list: 

#Fienix 5.1 "Spark"

deb http://fienix.servehttp.com/fienix/spark/ spark main 

deb http://fienix.servehttp.com/fienix/spark/ spark additional

deb http://fienix.servehttp.com/fienix/spark/ spark not-foss

#Fienix 5.1 Updates "Spark-Updates"

deb http://fienix.servehttp.com/spark/ spark-updates main

deb http://fienix.servehttp.com/spark/ spark-updates additional

deb http://fienix.servehttp.com/spark/ spark-updates not-foss

Fienix is Four!

December 5th, 2022 was the four year anniversary of the initial Fienix release. It was announced on Hyperion Entertainment forums on December 5th, 2022. The initial release was a live image for AmigaOne computers. Fienix has seen five major releases since the initial release, and support for other PowerPC computers, such as those manufactured by Apple, has been added. 

Repository Access Restored

 The Fienix software repositories are back up and running. Apologies for any inconvenience.

Fienix 5.1 and Fienix Installer Released

Fienix 5.1 has been released, featuring updated versions of many applications. Additionally, Fienix Installer has been released, allowing installation on Open Firmware based PowerPC systems, such as those manufactured by Apple. Fienix 5.1 was validated on AmigaOne X5000 and Apple Power Mac 11,2 dual-core and quad-core systems. Fienix Installer was validated on Apple Power Mac 11,2 dual-core and quad-core systems. Fienix 5.1 and Fienix Installer are believed to work on a wider variety of systems, possibly using yaboot boot parameters, but this has not been tested.

Arctic Fox 27.11.0

Arctic Fox has been updated to version 27.11.0 in the Fienix software repositories. Version 27.11.0 includes many bug fixes and improvements to Javascript and JIT. According to Riccardo Mottola, the principal developer of Arctic Fox, this version contains "an incredible amount of patches to be imported from FF mainstream. There are improvements in many parts, including JIT, JS support." 

Many thanks to Riccardo Mottola for his work on Firefox. Additionally, thanks to Christian Zigotzky (xeno74) for providing PowerPC binaries of Arctic Fox 27.11.0 for several Linux distributions.

Donations

The Fienix Project is now accepting donations. While I've received offers from several awesome people in the past to make a donation to the project, I've completely self-funded it. At this point additional funding would help address several obstacles.  Any donation, no matter how small, will help to support Fienix and ensure the long-term stability of the project. 

See the Donation Page for additional information. 

Minetest: A Open-World Voxel Sandbox Game

Minetest is an open-source, open-world, voxel-based sandbox game engine with expansive support for mods. Version 5.2, along with several mods, are now available in the Fienix software repository. 

Fienix Open-Source Gaming Series:  Minetest Video
Minetest Website

 

InterWeb ver. 20200607 is Available

The most recent version of InterWeb, version 20200607, is now available in the Fienix software repositories. This version contains several bug fixes and security updates. 

Many thanks to wicknix, the principle developer of InterWeb.
 

SpiderWeb ver. 2.2.2 Available

The most recent version of SpiderWeb, 2.2.2, is now available in the Fienix software repositories. SpiderWeb is a lightweight browser with a classic interface similar to SeaMonkey. 

Thanks to wicknix for his continued development of SpiderWeb! 

 

Branded Live-Boot USB Disks

In partnership with Amiga On The Lake, I am pleased to announce that Fienix 3.0 - Soar is now available, pre-imaged on branded USB disks, compatible with AmigaOne X1000 and AmigaOne X5000. These are extremely high-quality 16 GB disks with high transfer speeds, so you can live-boot directly from the disk, and you'll have plenty of room for whatever applications and games you'd like to download from the Fienix software repositories.

They are a great, affordable solution for anyone who is not comfortable imaging their own USB disk or has experienced trouble doing so (or just likes the branded design).

Please visit Amiga On The Lake
Or the Fienix Disk Product Page
 

Fienix 3.0

Lots of big news!

Fienix 3.0, Codename Soar, has been released. The website has been updated and new images have been posted. Instructions to boot Fienix on Open Firmware systems, such as Apple G5 systems, have been simplified greatly.

New versions of Interweb, Spiderweb, LibreOffice and many other applications are available in the repositories. New applications include a special edition of GIMP, and the latest versions of Kdenlive, Flowblade, Inkscape, Scribus and RawTherapee. KDE Connect has been integrated into Fienix, providing connectivity to Android devices. An entire suite of educational software is now available as well.

SpiderWeb 2.2.0 Released

The newest SpiderWeb release, version 2.2.0, is now available in the Fienix Software Repository. SpiderWeb is a web browser built on a version of the Unified XUL Platform (UXP) modified for PowerPC. It has an assortment of available add-ons, and features a classic, customizable interface similar to SeaMonkey's Navigator/Browser component. 
 

 
Many thanks to Matt (wicknix) for his ongoing support for PowerPC Linux! 

Arctic Fox 27.9.19 Released

Arctic Fox, the official browser of Fienix, is a full-featured web browser, specifically designed for PowerPC systems, based on the Goanna layout engine, and supports various plugins, add-ons, and extensions. I am pleased to announce that Arctic Fox 27.9.19 has been released. 

Version 27.9.19 includes several bug fixes and performance updates. 

Many thanks to Matt (wicknix) and Riccardo Mottola for their diligent work on Arctic Fox. Also thanks to Christian Zigotzky for providing Arctic Fox builds for several PowerPC Linux distributions.

Arctic Fox 27.9.18 Released

Arctic Fox is the official browser of Fienix. It is a full featured web browser, specifically designed for PowerPC systems, based on the Goanna layout engine, and supports various plugins, add-ons, and extensions. I am pleased to announce that Arctic Fox 27.9.18 has been released. 

What's new in version 27.9.18: 

• Push notifications feature added
• Javascript performance improved
• Bug fixes and performance improvements

Many thanks to Matt (wicknix) and Riccardo Mottola for their diligent work on Arctic Fox. Also thanks to Christian Zigotzky for providing Arctic Fox builds for several PowerPC Linux distributions.

Fienix Customization Layer 2.2.2

Fienix Customization Layer configures the desktop environment, implements fixes and performance optimizations, and helps keep the system up to date. I am pleased to announce that Fienix Customization Layer has been updated to version 2.2.2. 

Version 2.2.2 includes several bug fixes and interface enhancements. 

• Fixes bugs relating to Fienix branding throughout the distribution
• Changes policies so the user is not prompted for a password whenever an external drive is mounted
• Also upgrades Fienix Panel, which makes minor adjustments for better usability 

Geometry Genocide

Geometry Genocide is an abstract geometric space shooter with a static play field, somewhat similar to the "Geometry Wars" or "Grid Wars" games. The object
of the game is score as many points as possible by destroying the enemy swarm and farming (or managing) black holes when they appear. 

Though it is not available on Debian or Ubuntu, I am very pleased to announce that Geometry Genocide is now available in the Fienix software repository. 

 

Fienix Customization Layer 2.1.3

Fienix Customization Layer configures the desktop environment, implements fixes and performance optimizations, and helps keep the system up to date. I am pleased to announce that Fienix Customization Layer has been updated to version 2.1.3. 

Gramps

Gramps is a genealogy program that is both easy to use and feature-complete, making it suitable for both hobbyists and professional genealogists. I am pleases to announce that Gramps 5.0.1 is now available in the Fienix software repository. 

Arctic Fox 27.9.17 Released

I am pleased to announce that the Fienix software repository now includes the most recent version of Arctic Fox - 27.9.17. This version includes improvements to Javascript and many bug fixes. 

Arctic Fox is a full-featured web browser with support for various plug-ins and extensions, but is still light on system resources.

Many thanks to Matt (wicknix) and Riccardo Mottola for their diligent work on Arctic Fox. Also thanks to Christian Zigotzky for providing Arctic Fox builds for several PowerPC Linux distributions!

SpiderWeb & SpiderMail

I am extremely excited to announce that, thanks to Matt (wicknix), we have a new web browser and mail client available! SpiderWeb and SpiderMail have been added to the Fienix software repository. 

SpiderWeb is a fork of Borealis and is built on the Unified XUL Platform (UXP). 
SpiderMail is a fork of Interlink, and is also built on the Unified XUL Platform (UXP). 

Many thanks to Matt (wicknix) for his ongoing support for PowerPC Linux! 

 

New Moon / Pale Moon 28.4.1

Arctic Fox, the default browser in Fienix, continues to serve us well. But having a choice is always a good thing. So, I'm happy to announce that New Moon, an unofficial version of Pale Moon, is now available in the Fienix software repository. 

Thanks to Matt (wicknix) and Riccardo Mottola for their diligent work on Arctic Fox. Thanks to Matt (wicknix) for his work on New Moon. 

Arctic Fox Update to 27.9.16

I'm pleased to announce that Arctic Fox, the default browser of Fienix, has been updated to version 27.9.16 in the Fienix software repository. This version has many bug fixes, auto-scroll improvements, and adds scroll snapping.

 

Thanks to Matt (wicknix) and Riccardo Mottola for their diligent work on Arctic Fox.

GIMP

GIMP is a powerful graphics editor often compared to Photoshop. Indeed, the functionality in GIMP is similar to that of Photoshop, but it uses a different user interface. I'm very pleased to announce that GIMP 2.8.16 and GIMP Animation Package have been added to the Fienix software repository.