Published . Development milestone: October 22, 2026.
Files, Monitor and a more accessible start.
October 22 connected Files more closely to the desktop, brought a new Monitor app to the testing channel, and tried a speaking installer in virtual machines. Mail also received a targeted Trash fix.
October 22 brought several parts of Ecliptic closer to everyday use. Files moved beyond being a separate window to handling actions started from the desktop and dock. Monitor arrived as an optional way to understand what the computer is doing. On a separate development branch, the installer gained speech and a keyboard path through a fresh installation.
Those steps reached different stages: Files and Monitor had testing-channel packages, while the speaking installer remained an unmerged, unpublished prototype. None of this is a public OS release announcement.
Files becomes part of the desktop
The default-file-manager migration reached the development update channel. Folder opens and other apps’ Show in folder actions can now reach Ecliptic Files. Existing homes can retain their own app choices, so this does not mean every earlier installation’s preferences were replaced.
The next step removed the desktop and dock’s reliance on Thunar for file operations. Files handles actions such as copying, moving, renaming, creating a folder or empty file, choosing an app and opening Properties. They can use standalone dialogs without opening a full file-manager window. Longer work has a small progress window with Cancel, and a file conflict gets its own question. Moving items to Trash and updating its full or empty icon happen directly through the desktop’s file interface.
Files also gained Empty Trash, with confirmation because deletion is permanent, and Use as default for this kind of file in Open With. Extract Here and Compress… use Xarchiver; the ZIP tools it needs were added to the installation package list.
VM testing found practical problems along the way: right-click menu items that did nothing, progress covering a conflict question, and small dialogs inheriting the file window’s size. Those were corrected. Copying and pasting into the same folder now makes a neighbouring copy. A later fix lets files dragged from the desktop enter Files; dropping still copies them.
Recorded checks covered updated and fresh local test installations, including operation dialogs, conflicts, Undo, archives, Trash and Show in folder without Thunar. The development machine also completed Thunar’s removal and basic desktop health checks. The final drag-and-drop fix was published to testing but still awaited that machine’s next update at the cutoff.
There are limits: bulk rename remains further work, and an operation left uncertain after interruption can still need review without a dedicated recovery screen. A fresh local test ISO is evidence of the migration path, not a newly released public download.
Monitor helps explain a busy computer
Ecliptic Monitor is now available as an opt-in testing-channel app. Its left menu separates Processes, CPU, Memory, Disk, Network, GPU and NPU, with resource graphs and details for supported devices. A normal title bar lets the window be dragged without holding Super.
For someone wondering why the desktop feels busy, Processes groups related work and supports search. The resource pages help distinguish processor activity, memory pressure, disk work and network traffic. Network initially prefers an active connection with a default route; GPU selection prefers a card driving a display. A manual device choice stays selected while that window is open, even as devices are reordered.
Unsupported measurements say so. GPU and NPU data depend on the driver and hardware; this version does not attribute network or GPU use to individual apps. Process memory is a sum of resident memory, which can count shared pages more than once. History is bounded to five minutes in memory and is not saved between launches.
Ending a process requires confirmation and rechecks that it is still the selected process. It asks that process to terminate, without administrator access or a force-kill option. Unsaved work can still be lost, and some programs may ignore the request.
The final recorded package check passed 23 tests against the downloaded signed testing package. Checks included process identity and permission failures, device selection, missing counters, resource navigation, light and dark themes, and larger text. Longer everyday use, assistive-technology reading and hands-on mouse and keyboard acceptance remain open. Monitor is optional; it was not added to every installation.
A speaking installer, tried before integration
The installer prototype adds a Screen reader switch and Super + Alt + S. A dedicated boot-menu choice can start speech automatically. Controls have spoken names, pages explain where you are, and installation progress is announced. The enabled choice is carried into the new account and its first login screen.
Two recorded VM runs exercised the path: an online install with sound captured, followed by a rebuilt offline ISO installed entirely by keyboard. The offline run confirmed that Orca and its speech dependencies were present after installation and that speech continued at first login. Time-zone search was improved to match a city anywhere in its name, and password mismatch feedback now waits for both entries.
This work was still on a separate branch at the end of October 22. It needed integration, updated help delivery and a new ISO build before it could be treated as the normal installation path. Real speakers, multiple sound cards, Wi-Fi interaction and Braille were not verified. The early encrypted-disk password prompt still has no speech, an important limit for someone planning to install without sight.
Mail: a targeted fix and an investigation still open
Mail gained a fix for emptying Trash after a move whose server reply was lost. Previously, mail awaiting its new server identifier could be left behind. The new path also finds those messages by their message identifier. A regression test simulates the lost move replies and checks that one emptying operation removes the test messages from the server.
An intermittent blank HTML-message problem also remained under investigation. Diagnostic tracing was added to distinguish loading, sizing and drawing problems, without logging message text. That is investigation progress, not a confirmed fix for blank messages.
These checks describe recorded development tests and committed regressions through October 22. This journal preparation did not rerun the OS test suites. Wider hardware and provider testing, the installer branch’s integration and the remaining recovery work are still part of making these paths dependable.