GNOME 44 Desktop Environment Is Slated for Release on March 22nd, 2023

The Epiphany (GNOME Web) web browser finally gets ported to GTK 4 and old-school Gedit text editor makes a comeback.
GNOME 44 Release

While you are probably enjoying your GNOME 43 desktop environment, the GNOME devs are already working hard on the next major release, GNOME 44, due out in late March 2023 with more new features and enhancements.

That’s right, GNOME 44 is coming in a few months as yet another major update in the GNOME 40 series of this popular desktop environment for GNU/Linux distributions.

The release schedule was published a while ago, suggesting a final release date of March 22nd, 2023. Here’s the official GNOME 44 release schedule:

  • GNOME 44 Alpha – January 7th, 2023
  • GNOME 44 Beta – February 11th, 2023
  • GNOME 44 RC – March 4th, 2023
  • GNOME 44 Final – March 22nd, 2023

As you can see, the alpha pre-release version of GNOME 44 is upon us and should be out at the end of the week, according to the release schedule. However, I expect it to arrive a bit later than that, most probably towards mid-January, as development is slow due to the holiday season.

As for the new features to be implemented in GNOME 44, it’s too early to talk about them. However, it looks like the Epiphany (GNOME Web) web browser finally got a GTK 4 port (as you can see from the screenshot below), along with WebExtensions preferences and other improvements, as well as many tweaks and fixes.

The old-school Gedit text editor is also apparently making a comeback as it is being actively maintained these days. In fact, Gedit 44.1 is already available for download on Flathub with a revamped status bar and the ability to expand or collapse items on right or left keypress in the File Browser plugin.

As more features will be revealed during the development cycle, I will either update this article or write new ones.

Meanwhile, if you’re using the GNOME 43 or 42 desktop environment series, look out for the upcoming GNOME 43.3 and GNOME 42.8 point releases that should be out this month.

Last updated 1 year ago

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