When Deepin first hit the scene, it blew people away with its beautiful interface.
As time progressed and developers gained experience, their focus shifted to include the design and features that users find in other commercial desktop operating system offerings. i.e. Windows and macOS. Deepin was the first distro to offer Android app support, cloud sync option and more.
And believe me, it’s for good.
Linux distributions have a variety of offerings in the form of various desktop environments. Deepin looks mainstream and might appeal to younger audiences.
Keeping the same goal in mind, China-based developers Deepin released version 20.5 and its main highlight is facial recognition.
New features in Deepin 20.5
The new version added several features based on user feedback. The stable kernel version is now upgraded to 5.15.24 with several bug fixes to improve security.
Let’s see what’s new in this version.
Face unlock is coming to Linux
I know things like this already exist on the horizon. After all, I wrote a detailed guide on adding face unlock functionality in Linux distros using programs like Howdy.
However, these things were more DIY, extra stuff for experienced and intriguing users.
Deepin now offers the face-based biometric authentication method. It should work on laptops with a built-in webcam.
Once you have registered your face in the control center, you can log in to the system with your Face ID from next time.
Easy collection of user feedback in the App Store
You can now easily submit app feedback directly from the App Store.
It’s not that. When you have problems installing and updating the application, you can submit the problems on the application page directly to official support and get solutions (if the developer provides them).
Improved Mail app
Deepin Mail apps now support custom folder management. It can also automatically receive emails after reconnecting to the network. The framework and plugins have been replaced by the popular vue+tinymce.
You can now directly access new emails by clicking on system notifications. For better productivity, you can paste common emails and aggregated emails at the top. Email attachments can also be previewed.
Pinned screenshots
Built-in screenshot tools now allow you to pin screenshots. This way, the captured screenshot stays on top of other application windows. This way you can use other applications at the same time and thus increase your efficiency. And yes, the position of the pinned screenshot can be moved.
Other Changes
Here are some other changes in the new Deepin 20.5 version:
- Stable kernel is updated to 5.15.24
- Multiple IP addresses can be set for a single wired network adapter
- Password authentication interaction for wireless networks is optimized
- System search can now use file types and extensions as keywords
- Device Manager allows you to disable or enable devices
- Document viewer performance for viewing DOCX files is optimized
There are more small features and improvements here and there. You can read about them in the release notes.
