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elementary unveiled today elementary OS 6.1 as the first big update to the gorgeous Ubuntu-based distribution since the release of the elementary OS 6 series.
Dubbed “Jólnir,” elementary OS 6.1 comes more than four months after elementary OS 6 “Odin” and it’s built on top of the Ubuntu 20.04.3 point release of the Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) long-term supported operating system series and powered by Linux kernel 5.11.
Highlights of elementary OS 6.1 include a redesigned quick window switcher (Alt+Tab) that no longer relies on the dock to switch between apps (you can see in action below), animated dialogs, improved File Chooser portal, a new App Chooser, as well as a much-improved dark style.
Furthermore, this release improves the Applications Menu to show you more things when searching, such as bookmarked folders and locations, network shares, shortcuts, etc., as well as the ability to launch apps with the dedicated GPU. The Settings’ search results have been improved as well in elementary OS 6.1.
Another interesting change in this release is a Housekeeping feature integrated in the Settings app that lets you easily delete old temporary and trashed files to save space and protect your privacy.
The AppCenter graphical package manager received a lot of attention during this cycle and it now has a revamped home page with multi-touch support and featuring banners for the most recently released and updated curated apps, redesigned Category view, a new Privacy & Security category, as well as improved app pages.
AppCenter comes with lots of small changes to make your package management experience better, especially the first run experience. As a result, installing apps for the first time should now be faster than ever, and Linux kernel headers are now fetched automatically when installing device drivers that rely on DKMS.
Moreover, elementary now offers some of its apps for the ARM64 (AArch64) architecture if you want to use them on ARM-powered devices like the Pinebook Pro or Raspberry Pi 4 running a different Linux OS.
elementary OS 6.1 also improves the Installer and Initial Setup, lets you stash the picture-in-picture window by pushing it off an edge of the screen, improves the workspace “nudge” animation to also work with the mouse wheel and show only on the primary display, and redesigns the app icon for the Document Viewer app.
It also adds a switch to show or hide the battery percentage in the Panel, improves Bluetooth support during reboots and when resuming from suspend, and a bunch of refinements and new features in Files, Mail, Tasks, Calendar, and Online Accounts to help you be more productive.
Various other smaller changes are all over, including on the Login & Lock screen, the Power indicator, the Captive Network Assistant, as well as the Displays & Scaling, Sound, Mouse & Touchpad, and Keyboard pages in the Settings app. For more details, check out the release announcement page.
Last updated 2 years ago
