Continuity of Auxtral Desktop Environments
Auxtral 4 (Polaris Australis) was released last May 20, 2023 with 5 desktop versions (DE); the official Cinnamon and Xfce, plus the already known Budgie and Mate with the new one for the KDE-Plasma distribution.
Taking into account the amount of downloads of each of the mentioned DE, it is clear that both Budgie and Mate, seem not to have too much acceptance among GNU/Linux users. Something that doesn't stop calling my attention because both one and the other, with its particularities as Budgie, modern and minimalist, with a very own and cared aesthetic, plus a very efficient functionality; and the originally "Argentinean" Mate, light, simple and with a repertoire of own applications, very well studied and exploited by Linux Mint, are very far from the popularity of Cinnamon in the first term and Xfce practically at the same level.
For this reason, and being that maintaining 5 versions of a distribution, if not exceeds at least takes to the limit the effort and time of a single person like the one who writes this, I have decided to withdraw the maintenance of the 2 versions mentioned, to concentrate the work on the two official ones (Cinnamon and Xfce), and to support KDE-Plasma for a while more and to watch, since it, after an initial impulse that put it during the first weeks at the top in terms of downloads, today is following the downward curve just like Budgie and Mate.
This does not mean that they will not remain available for download, at least for a while, but that they will receive a last update along with the other versions during this week and then they will be present but unattended. Anyway whoever decides to download and use them will be able to update them once installed.
Thank you very much for your attention.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
Guillermo Sosa
Auxtral..
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