- The beta release of GNOME 44 is available for testing with lots of improvements and bug fixes less than a month after GNOME 44 Alpha.
- GNOME 44 Beta includes a huge number of translation updates for Ukrainian, Hebrew, Russian, Turkish, and other languages in addition to quite a few fixes and enhancements.
- Although GNOME lacks the traditional tray icons that allow users to keep track of all the programs running in the background, Background Apps are now supported in the Quick Settings menu.
GNOME is a popular desktop environment that aims to make the Linux operating system simple for non-programmers to use. GNOME 44’s Beta is now out and ready to be tested, less than a month after the release of GNOME 44 Alpha. GNOME 44 Alpha had done big improvements to the GNOME web browser based on the WebKit rendering engine, Epiphany. While Epiphany is not the main attraction of this update, it received some module updates just as Mutter, Nautilus, and more.
What’s new in GNOME 44 Beta?
While GNOME does not have traditional tray icons where users can be on top of all the apps running in the background, now the Quick Settings menu supports Background Apps.
One user said that they were really happy about the change since they would hear an unexpected sound from their PC, only to find that an app was still running in the background which they had to close by manually stopping the flatpak from the terminal.
As well as quite a few bug fixes and improvements, GNOME 44 Beta comes with a ton of translation updates for Ukrainian, Hebrew, Russian, Turkish, and more.
Several modules have been updated since the alpha release, including:
- epiphany
- gnome-backgrounds, boxes, builder, console, control-center, desktop, and more
- gtk
- libpanel
- mutter
- nautilus
GNOME Builder gets an update in which SDK extension resolving has been made asynchronous, so projects load much faster in conjunction with Flatpak. It also got lots of security and user experience improvements as well as bug fixes.
GNOME Control Center now has a redesigned sound, mouse, and touchpad panel as well as many consistency improvements.
You can find the entire log of updates here if you wish to take a closer look at the newest beta release of GNOME.
How to test GNOME 44 Beta
You can test the latest release, GNOME 44 Beta, by installing the GNOME OS on your system, which is developed to showcase the newest features in the desktop environment, by clicking here.
If you do not wish to download the GNOME OS, you can click here to get the files.