Polaris v1.4.13

Install, update and uninstall are the work of this release, and the first part of it is here: a beta channel, so packaging changes reach people who volunteered for them before they reach anyone's working setup. Turning DRM/KMS capture back off is one command now instead of three. Polaris 1.4.13 keeps working with Nova 1.4.12; existing settings, paired devices and Spaces keep working.

Beta releases

• A release can be published early as a beta, tagged v1.4.13-beta.1 and marked as a prerelease. It carries the version it will ship as and reuses that release's notes.
• A beta never reaches anyone who did not ask for it. GitHub keeps prereleases out of releases/latest, the package repositories never serve one, and Polaris mentions one only when PreRelease Notifications is on in the console's General tab.
• A beta offer always hands you the download command. The repositories carry stable only, so dnf upgrade on a beta would answer "nothing to do", which reads like the beta failed rather than like advice that could never have worked.

DRM/KMS capture

• sudo -H polaris --setup-host --disable-kms takes the capability off the binary, removes the copy of it at /usr/local/bin/polaris-kms that the Bazzite recipe makes, and removes the service drop-in that pointed at that copy. Until now that was three commands to find in the docs and type by hand, and the copy is the one people miss.
• It says what it removed, says so plainly when there was nothing to remove, and leaves a drop-in that points somewhere else alone.

Fixed

• A reading of the Game Mode screen that had already answered no longer makes the next one report that the last one never came back, which placed touch across the whole frame for nothing.

Heads up

• While 1.4.13 is in beta, use the packages attached to the prerelease you are reading. The install commands below name the final release, which does not exist yet.
• Every Polaris install or update removes the KMS capture permission. If this host uses KMS capture, run sudo -H polaris --setup-host --enable-kms after installing, then restart Polaris.
• Bazzite hosts should still install the Fedora 44 RPM through rpm-ostree.

wget --output-document=./Polaris-fedora44-x86_64.rpm https://github.com/papi-ux/polaris/releases/download/v1.4.13/Polaris-fedora44-x86_64.rpm &&
sudo dnf install "./Polaris-fedora44-x86_64.rpm" &&
sudo -H polaris --setup-host &&
systemctl --user restart polaris

wget --output-document=./Polaris-arch-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst https://github.com/papi-ux/polaris/releases/download/v1.4.13/Polaris-arch-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst &&
sudo pacman -U ./Polaris-arch-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst &&
sudo -H polaris --setup-host &&
systemctl --user restart polaris

wget --output-document=./Polaris-ubuntu24.04-x86_64.deb https://github.com/papi-ux/polaris/releases/download/v1.4.13/Polaris-ubuntu24.04-x86_64.deb &&
sudo apt install ./Polaris-ubuntu24.04-x86_64.deb &&
sudo -H polaris --setup-host &&
systemctl --user restart polaris

wget --output-document=./Polaris-steamos3.8-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst https://github.com/papi-ux/polaris/releases/download/v1.4.13/Polaris-steamos3.8-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst &&
(
set -e
trap 'sudo steamos-readonly enable' EXIT
sudo steamos-readonly disable || exit $?
sudo pacman-key --init || exit $?
sudo pacman-key --populate || exit $?
sudo pacman -Sy || exit $?
sudo pacman -U ./Polaris-steamos3.8-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst || exit $?
sudo -H polaris --setup-host --enable-headless-boot || exit $?
sudo steamos-readonly enable || exit $?
trap - EXIT
) &&
systemctl --user enable --now polaris

Assets: Polaris-fedora44-x86_64.rpm · Polaris-arch-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst · Polaris-ubuntu24.04-x86_64.deb · Polaris-steamos3.8-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst