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The beta version of the upcoming GNOME 44 desktop environment is now available for public testing ahead of the final release on March 22nd, 2023, so we take a look at what’s changed since the alpha release.
GNOME 44 Beta is an important milestone in the development cycle of the GNOME 44 desktop environment and brings lots of changes to further polish the final release, which will probably be available in most GNU/Linux distributions in mid- or late April 2023.
We already know from the GNOME 44 alpha release that GNOME 44 promises a GTK4 port of the Epiphany (GNOME Web) web browser, a grid view for the GTK file chooser, support for 64px icon size in Nautilus (Files)’s grid view, a new Bluetooth submenu in Quick Settings, the ability to disable Settings search results in Shell, and more.
GNOME 44 beta brings a new preference in Epiphany (GNOME Web) to set a new tab page, various enhancements to Quick Settings like descriptions on each button and a background apps menu, Unicode 15 support in GNOME Characters, and the ability for GNOME Clocks to display seconds in the world clock detail view and to reset snooze time when disabling alarms.
The beta version of the GNOME 44 desktop environment also brings the ability to resize remote desktops in the GNOME Connections app, a new tab overview in the GNOME Console app that replaces the existing mobile switcher, redesigned Sound and Mouse & Touchpad panels in Settings and WireGuard support in the Network panel, as well as the ability to share Wi-Fi networks using QR codes.
On top of that, the GNOME Font Viewer app got improved navigation, the GNOME Initial Setup app now features the Adwaita style on the password page, the GNOME Maps app now has working keyboard navigation for search results, and the GNOME Software app received a new preference for only showing freely-licensed apps and better support for Flatpak apps.
Last but not least, GNOME 44 beta brings improved low-power notifications, capitalization of systemd notifications, a refreshed UI for the GNOME Weather app for a more unified look, as well as a new mechanism to no longer disable KMS modifiers on newer i915 systems.
GNOME 44 beta is available for public testing as an official installer image that can be installed in a virtual machine with EFI support, such as the GNOME Boxes version available on Flathub, but should also work on bare metal. However, please keep in mind that this is a pre-release version intended for testing purposes only.
The next step in the development cycle of the GNOME 44 desktop environment is the Release Candidate (RC) milestone, which should be available for public testing in early or mid-March.
Last updated 1 year ago
