An important part of using Linux is choosing a decent desktop environment. GNOME and KDE are the top contenders, with an entire ecosystem of applications and utilities integrated to work together, andGNOME 45 entered betaback in August after months of development. Now, GNOME 45 is officially out, and you’ll be able to try it in popular Linux distributions soon.
The GNOME Project has finally launched GNOME 45, also known as “Rīga,” featuring notable improvements and new features. If you want to look through the whole list of changes included in this release, we definitely recommend you read throughour full guide. One significant change is the replacement of the static “Activities” label with a dynamic workspace indicator in the top bar. Search performance across various apps, including Software, Characters, Clocks, Files, and Calculator, has also been significantly improved, resulting in faster search and reduced resource usage.
GNOME 45 introduces a camera usage indicator alongside the existing microphone indicator, and it also includes other minor but notable system enhancements, such as quick settings for keyboard backlight control and a new keyboard shortcut (Super+S) to open and close the quick settings menu. Visual improvements, including new wallpapers and pointer enhancements, are also here to enhance the overall user experience. Several core GNOME apps have received style updates, with adaptive sidebars in apps like Calendar, Characters, Clocks, Contacts, Files, and Settings. Subtle style changes have also been applied to other core apps.
GNOME 45 will almost certainly be included in Ubuntu 23.10 when that update arrives in October, and the update is also expected to be used in the upcomingFedora 39 update. However, many Linux distributions change the default theme or included applications, so you won’t get the intended GNOME experience unless you use Fedora. Rolling release distributions, like Arch Linux, will likely get GNOME 45 soon (if they haven’t already). There’s also GNOME OS, which is mainly intended to be used in a virtual machine for testing.
Again, if you’re curious about every change, check outour feature roundupand GNOME’s own changelog at the source link below.
