BunsenLabs Carbon Release Notes

johnraff · 2026-01-26 07:40:59

What's New in BunsenLabs Carbon?
================================

The BunsenLabs Session is now able to launch Wayland sessions, if the necessary apps and configurations are provided. In the near future a "plugin" metapackage will be available to add a base Wayland session to a BL Carbon system.

Several core apps have been changed to ones that support Wayland as well as X11,
or make theming simpler:
nitrogen > xwwall + feh
tint2 > xfce4-panel
lxappearance > nwg-look
lxterminal > xfce4-terminal
arandr > lxrandr
policykit-1-gnome (obsolete) > mate-polkit

These packages have been dropped from the default install:
xserver-xorg-video-intel (only needed for pre-2007 Intel graphics)
qt5-style-plugins

picom configs have been substantially updated to use the current picom, which now needs 3D acceleration and openGL.
(actual appearance settings have not been changed much)

A wrapper script has been added for pkexec under Wayland, and sudoedit is now used to edit files as root.
See:
https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic … 01#p143401
https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic … 42#p144442

A "bl-menu" command has been added so a menu can be started from the same launcher regardless of running on X11 or Wayland.

blob has seen a lot of work, eg:
- added support for saving and restoring xfce4-panel settings via xfconf
- added Carbon-Sage and Carbon-Bark presets
- older presets still use tint2 (it looks nice): users will be prompted to install it if necessary
- picom files in older presets have been updated so current picom does not crash

openbox and labwc config files have been moved to ~/.config/bunsen/openbox and ~/.config/bunsen/labwc
This means the location of the default openbox rc.xml has changed, but users' original ~/.config/openbox/bl-rc.xml will still exist, so they can either just open that and ~/.config/bunsen/openbox/rc.xml side by side and copy across any changes they want to keep, or use a GUI diff app to compare them (eg meld).
(Later, they can remove bl-rc.xml and bl-menu.xml)

xfce4-panel plugin icons are resized to match the panel with entries in ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css :

/* some buttons are too big */

#pulseaudio-button * { -gtk-icon-transform: scale(0.6); }

#xfce4-power-manager-plugin * { -gtk-icon-transform: scale(0.4); }

#battery-14 * { -gtk-icon-transform: scale(0.6); }
/* adjust the "#14" to match the widget ID of your battery plugin */

If the audio, power-manager-plugin or battery icons look the wrong size,
adjust the scale number to suit your desktop. (The battery icon is hidden by default.)

Two menu items in ~/.config/jgmenu/prepend.csv are commented out:
- Dropbox (bl-dropbox-pipemenu), which helps users to install and use Dropbox
- Choose Language (bl-setlocale), which lets users choose a locale if their login greeter does not offer that option

bl-exit now uses xfce4-screensaver for locking (it works on Wayland too).

BUNSEN_SESSION_TYPE environment variable is set to x11 or wayland and can be used by scripts etc.

XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP environment variable is set to 'BunsenLabs:XFCE'

bunsen-meta-bluetooth now depends on libspa-0.2-bluetooth for pipewire support.

Apt signing keys are now installed to /usr/share/keyrings but till BL Nitrogen have a symlink from the old location in /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d

live-build:
- use zstd compression
- ensure grub first boot menu entry shows "BunsenLabs"
- add Signed-By field to sources
- make sure en_US.UTF-8 locale is installed along with user's chosen locale

bl-welcome:
- rewrite welcome screen to take slightly less space (thanks to @sleekmason)
- offer to convert sources to deb822 format
- drop PAE test (no more 32 bit)

Set GTK4 apps to use dark theme by default in gsettings and add some limited support for theme setting:
https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic … 80#p147480

CREDITS
=======

As always, many people have contributed, with special credit to:
@hhh
@micko01
@sleekmason
@greenjeans

And thanks to Pawel Czerwinski for the beautiful wallpaper that @hhh has adapted for Carbon!

POSSIBLE ISSUES
===============

1) 32bit isos and packages are not available from BL Carbon because Debian have dropped support.
See: https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic … 94#p148894
Users of BL Boron with 32bit systems should not attempt to upgrade to Carbon. Boron will be supported as long as Debian Bookworm, ie until June 2028.

2) NOTE for Virtual Machine users:
If you get an unusable desktop when running Carbon on a VM you may need to disable compositing or enable OpenGL and 3d acceleration.

The compositor, picom 12.5-1, in Debian Trixie and BunsenLabs Carbon, requires OpenGL and 3D acceleration to work properly.

If your BunsenLabs Carbon desktop is unusable when running on a Virtual Machine,
you can:

a) Disable composition from the menu: User Settings > Compositor > Disable Compositing
You will lose round corners, shadows etc but the desktop will be usable.
To make it permanent: menu > User Settings > BunsenLabs Session > Edit autostart
and comment out this line:
bl-compositor --start

or

b) If your virtual machine manager supports it, enable OpenGL and 3D acceleration.
If you are using virt-manager:
In the settings menu, open up the Display Spice section:
Select Spice server for Type:, and None for Listen type.
Check the OpenGL checkbox. Hit Apply.
In the Video Virtio section:
Set Virtio for Model, and check the 3D acceleration checkbox. Hit Apply.

EDIT:
c) a third option is to uninstall picom and install compton. After logout/in you should still have transparency and drop shadows, but at the cost of losing picom's round corners.

See also:
https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic … 23#p141523
https://ryan.himmelwright.net/post/virtio-3d-vms/

Last edited by johnraff (Yesterday 02:44:14)

#1 2026-01-26 07:40:59

BunsenLabs Carbon Release Notes

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