Six months after the previous 8.0.1 release, the team behind elementary OS, one of the most attractive and appealing faces of the Linux desktop, has rolled out the second maintenance update to the 8.x series, elementary OS 8.0.2, built on the Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS release.
The main focus this time is accessibility. The installer has been updated, as screen readers now properly read password strength feedback, markup is handled correctly, and the “Before Installing,” “Try or Install,” “Choose a Disk,” and “Encryption” views have improved labels.
Plus, the installer also includes additional safety checks in custom partition layouts to prevent crashes, and it now always appears centered on the screen.
At the same time, the Initial Setup inherits many of the same accessibility improvements. Screen readers now announce password quality feedback, keyboard layout detection has been made more reliable, and usernames can include trailing hyphens or underscores.
The Music app receives notable upgrades in this release. Users can now search tracks by name, manage large queues more efficiently, remove individual songs, or clear the entire queue.
On top of that, the app now saves and restores the queue along with the last played track, adds new keyboard shortcuts for adding files and quitting, and ensures album art displays in media controls. Issues with long artist names and large system fonts have also been resolved.
The Terminal has been polished to address several usability issues. Keyboard focus now defaults to the first tab in new windows, pasting text containing “#” no longer truncates input, and process output handling is more reliable. Window sizing behavior has also been fixed to avoid odd layouts on some displays.
Aside from what I’ve already mentioned, elementary OS 8.0.2 comes with the Ubuntu LTS Hardware Enablement stack, featuring the Linux kernel 6.14. That means you get performance boosts—especially noticeable in gaming—along with better power efficiency for newer AMD and Intel chipsets, improved security, and wider hardware support covering things like game controllers, Wi-Fi adapters, and audio devices.
Lastly, several smaller updates are included:
- Screenshots no longer fail when saving to custom directories, and a crash caused by unusually tall screenshots has been resolved.
- Camera and Videos menus are now properly marked and accessible via keyboard shortcuts.
- Calculator replaces the text “Del” button with an icon, and the “New Window” action is now visible in shortcut settings.
For more information, see the announcement. The distro is now available for download as a pay-what-you-can purchase at elementary.io. If you don’t want to pay, manually enter “0” in the custom amount box for a download button to appear. Of course, I encourage you to support the distribution by donating if it is within your means.
