14 DAY TRIAL // Today, September 21, 2016, is a big day for Linux users, especially those who love the GNOME desktop environment, as the next major release is now officially available.
Yes, that's right, we're talking about GNOME 3.22, dubbed Karlsruhe after the German host city of the annual GUADEC (GNOME Users And Developers European Conference) event, which took place last month between August 12-14, and during which the GNOME developers planned the new features to be implemented in the next version, GNOME 3.24.
Getting back to today's release of GNOME 3.22, we can tell you that it includes six months of hard work, lots of improvements and new features to make your daily computing activities more productive and fun, as well as an up-to-date GNOME Stack with the latest components and applications, which other GNOME-based desktop environments use.
"GNOME Software can install and update Flatpaks, GNOME Builder can create them, and the desktop provides portal implementations to enable sandboxed applications. Improvements to core GNOME applications include support for batch renaming in Files, sharing support in GNOME Photos, an updated look for GNOME Software," says Matthias Clasen in today's announcement.
Here's what's new in GNOME 3.22
Prominent features of the GNOME 3.22 desktop environment include batch rename functionality and support for integration of compressed files built directly into the Nautilus file manager, a new Week View, support for alarms, and the ability to drag and drop events to the GNOME Calendar, as well as an updated GNOME Music app that supports handling of music libraries with thousands of tracks.
There are lots of improvements for the GNOME Games app as well, as it now offers support for numerous retro gaming consoles. Among other improvements, we can mention Flatpak integration, photo sharing, revamped GNOME Software app with support for firmware updates, redesigned keyboard settings and a brand new GNOME Control Center panel, and a redesigned dconf Editor.
But wait, there's more! GNOME 3.22 also comes with an updated Polari IRC client that now remembers NickServ passwords, support for different playback rates in the Videos (Totem) app, clone function support for the GNOME Boxes virtualization software, several enhancements for the next-generation Wayland display server, a shortcut window and new context menu for the Epiphany web browser, and many more that can be viewed in the official release notes.
Make sure that you watch the videos attached below if you want to see some of the new features listed above in action. We know that by now many of you are asking themselves when they'll be able to install GNOME 3.22 on their Linux PCs, but that's a tough question, as it usually takes about two-three weeks for a rolling operating system like OpenSuSE Tumbleweed or Arch Linux to offer a major GNOME release.
