melon 0.5 “Esfahan”

melon 0.5 “Esfahan”

melon releases are named after melon varieties, in alphabetical order.

Get it

Download melon-desktop-20261017-x86_64.iso, write it to a USB stick with Rufus, balenaEtcher, Ventoy or dd, and boot from it. Try melon in the live session, then install it from there.

_{melon-20261017-x86_64.iso is the console edition: no desktop, just a terminal, for people who barely want a computer. Check either download against SHA256SUMS.}

Already on melon? Run doas apk upgrade and restart.

What's new

• Smaller downloads. The desktop ISO is down to about 626 MB from 794 MB, and the console ISO to about 247 MB from 380 MB. Nothing you need was removed: every translation is still there, and rarely needed firmware is one apk add away.
• A welcome window greets you on first boot, with your folders, updates, games and links in one place.
• Updates without the terminal. An "Update melon" button, and a notice in the tray when updates are waiting.
• Your usual folders are there. Downloads, Documents, Pictures, Music and Videos are created for every new user.
• Newer kernel and NVIDIA support. Linux 7.0 with melon's tuned kernel, plus NVIDIA's open driver for recent NVIDIA cards.
• A calmer boot menu, and melon now says "melon 0.5" everywhere, with a sharper logo.
• Fixes: the power-mode switch works from the terminal (powerprofilesctl), and apps can add their own device rules again.
• melon now builds itself. This release was built and tested entirely on a PC running melon.

Coming next

• More polish for the desktop, and fixes from your reports.
• More apps in the online package repository.

Problems?

If something on your hardware doesn't work, run sudo melon-hwreport and attach the file it writes to an issue on GitHub.