I just built 7.16.4 from git and updated my installation. At first, boincmgr wouldn't talk to the client. But, I rebuilt it and now it seems to work like before (I think I last rebuit in 2017 7.14 maybe?).

It's functional, but the desktop integration is dramatically different than it has been for the last 15 years. It used to be that BOINC would show in the system tray and when you clicked the window manager's exit button, BOINC would just minimize. This isn't a huge usability issue, but it is such a big change, I'm worried something is broken. Also, I miss the tray icon quite a lot.

Does anyone know if these changes are expected or is there something broken on my system?

I just built 7.16.4 from git and updated my installation. At first, boincmgr wouldn't talk to the client. But, I rebuilt it and now it seems to work like before (I think I last rebuit in 2017 7.14 maybe?).

It's functional, but the desktop integration is dramatically different than it has been for the last 15 years. It used to be that BOINC would show in the system tray and when you clicked the window manager's exit button, BOINC would just minimize. This isn't a huge usability issue, but it is such a big change, I'm worried something is broken. Also, I miss the tray icon quite a lot.

Does anyone know if these changes are expected or is there something broken on my system?

Expected. at least that is also how 7.16.3 which I built myself from the testing branch works. If I close down with the button, it also stops the client which it didn't used to and I need to run

 sudo /etc/init.d/boinc-client start

to start it again after re-launching. Because of the foibles of the project I run, I prefer to suspend tasks and then exit using the file>Exit dialogue.

It's a conscious decision made by the Linux distribution managers / repo maintainers.

They appear to have a world view which says that Linux is used by workers inside large, centrally directed, institutions (business, academia, science). Their model assumes:

1) BOINC runs as a service, requiring administrator access to stop and restart.
2) End users are not administrators - they have a technical support team for that.

The home / soho sector doesn't fit that model, but they have no knowledge of that sector using Linux.