GNOME team delivers again with 6 months of developments and improvements.
GNOME 3.30, the latest installment in GNOME 3 series released. This release comes after 6 months of development efforts contributed by developers, testers across the globe. This release boasts about major performance improvements that means GNOME 3.30 uses fewer system resources and can run more apps in parallel without performance drops.
Table of Contents
Automatic Update of Flatpak
Flatpak is a new way of software distribution in faster and secure way across Linux distributions. Now using the Software app and turning on a switch, all the installed Flatpak apps would update automatically.
Improve Desktop Performance
With this release, the entire desktop uses very fewer resources which means more apps, games you can use without sacrificing system performances.
Web – Browser – Update
Web, the GNOME native browser is not popular though. But with this release, Web introduces minimal reader view (much like Firefox’s reader view) for applicable web pages. Now you can just concentrate on the content of web pages without images/ads.
Connect Windows Remotely using RDP – Boxes
Boxes, the virtual machine application now capable of connecting Windows servers via RDP. Also Box adapted the ability to import OVA files for sharing virtual machines.
Games
The Games app of GNOME improved a lot which makes your experience with Games even more exciting. This release makes easy to map keyboard with gamepad inputs if you don’t have gamepad with you. Also the finding of games made easier with improvements in games listing.
New App – Podcast
Though there are plenty of cool podcast apps available in Linux universe, however it is always a great feeling when your DE provides a native podcast app. With this release GNOME introduces a new native app called Podcast. As the name suggests, it helps to listen and subscribe to favorite podcasts right from your desktop. It also comes with a feature which allows you to import podcast from other devices.
Files Improvements
Files, the backbone of GNOME DE is a file manager. Files improves its look-n-feel with more clear look of address bar and search. The address/location is now at the top with slimmer and clear look.
Settings – New Panel for Thunderbolt Devices
Settings introduces a new panel with this release which dynamically shows if Thunderbolt devices are plugged in.
Notes
GNOME note taking application, Notes is now includes styles and zoom controls.
Disks
The Disk application of GNOME which used to mount/format/unmount/write disks now introduces support for VeraCrypt encryption.
How to Install
As of writing this article, the GNOME 3.30 is not available in official repositories for Ubuntu and other related distribution which would be available soon. Post availability you can download and install in your favorite Linux distribution.
Summary
GNOME 3.30 overall is a welcome release for the entire Linux community with lots of improvements and introduction of native apps. You can read the complete release notes here.
Image Credits: GNOME, Via GNOME Blogs
