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Today, the Zorin OS team announced the general availability for public testing of the beta version of the upcoming Zorin OS 17 release, which promises new and exciting features.
Derived from the long-term supported Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish) operating system series, more specifically from the Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS point release with the Linux 6.2 kernel and Mesa 23.0 graphics stack, Zorin OS 17 beta is here to introduce a much refined and modern desktop experience.
Even though it is based on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, which uses the GNOME 42 desktop environment series, Zorin OS 17 beta ships with a newer GNOME desktop, namely GNOME 43, featuring Quick Settings, full GTK4 theming, an advanced window-tiling experience, new Power modes, a new screenshot and screen recording experience, as well as a new and refined Activities Overview feature.
It also introduces a new multitasking feature called Spatial Desktop, which includes two desktop effects to make your Zorin OS desktop more fun to use, namely Desktop Cube and Spatial Workspace Switcher. These aren’t enabled by default, so you’ll need to activate them from the Zorin Appearance tool under Effects.
The Zorin menu has been overhauled with a universal search feature that lets you search for things you need in even more places and with the new “All Apps” category you’ll be able to browse through all your apps in an alphabetically sorted list.
As mentioned before, Zorin OS 17 beta is using the GNOME 43 desktop environment series, but many of the preinstalled GNOME apps are kept at the version numbers from the GNOME 42 stack included in the upstream Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish) operating system series.
Among other noteworthy changes, Zorin OS 17 features slimmer status pop-ups for volume and brightness, remote desktop sharing with RDP, a more streamlined pre-installed app selection in the Zorin OS Core edition, support for newer hardware, and an updated logo.
Last but not least, Zorin OS 17 also promises two new layouts that imitate the old GNOME 2 desktop environment and Google’s Chrome OS desktop, but they will only be available in the Zorin OS 17 Pro edition.
Zorin OS 17 beta is available for download right now from the official website. However, please try to keep in mind that this is a pre-release version that may include bugs or unfinished features, so don’t install and use it for production work. The final release of Zorin OS 17 will be available in the coming weeks.
Last updated 5 months ago
