The GNOME Project has released GNOME 51 Beta, giving users and developers a preview of the next major version of its desktop environment, scheduled for the final stable release on September 16.
This beta also marks GNOME’s UI, feature, and API freezes, so development will now focus on polishing existing features, fixing bugs, and getting the desktop ready for its final release.
One of the most noticeable changes is that GNOME Shell now supports the reduced-motion setting, making it easier for users who want fewer interface animations. The Shell also improves keyboard navigation for taking screenshots, fixes the scaling of the magnified cursor on HiDPI displays, and updates the authentication prompt.
Additionally, GNOME Shell improves authentication by adding support for web login and a unified authentication system. Plus, it can now handle event reminder notifications directly.
Mutter, GNOME’s compositor, now supports the ext-background-effect-v1 Wayland protocol, which lets apps request blurred backgrounds behind their windows. It also gets smoother rendering with better frame scheduling, and HDR output now includes mastering display metadata.
GNOME Settings introduces a new fingerprint management interface in the Users panel. The Accessibility section now lets users turn off the focus timeout, and the About panel adds a button to open GNOME release notes and clearly labels the desktop version as the “GNOME Shell Version.”
Moreover, the Settings app now loads and navigates panel pages differently, updates the fallback button-mapping dialog for graphics tablets, and makes small improvements to networking, Wi-Fi, default apps, and global shortcuts.
GNOME Initial Setup now supports creating systemd-homed accounts. GNOME Settings also changed how it handles these accounts by disabling automatic login and ensuring user data isn’t kept when a homed user is deleted.
The Nautilus file manager has been improved as well. Locations opened from other apps now open in new tabs, and search focus moves to more relevant results. GNOME Software is now a bit faster because of better performance when loading icons and processing PackageKit repository data.
GNOME Calculator now saves your calculation history between sessions, making it easier to pick up where you left off. It also uses GMP to keep rational arithmetic exact and avoid rounding errors during calculations.
GNOME Calendar fixes a crash that happened when several events overlapped in week view and solves a problem where changes to an event’s duration were not saved. Epiphany, the GNOME web browser, now supports URL pinning in its history and overview, and fixes several crashes and memory leaks.
Regarding filesystem support, GVfs 1.61.90 now automatically unmounts idle backends, improves input validation for AFP, DAV, FTP, MTP, and SFTP, clears stored passwords from memory before freeing them, and fixes crashes in several storage backends.
However, one notable change will not be part of GNOME 51. The GTK 4 rewrites of GNOME Boxes and GNOME Disks did not make the cutoff and are not included in the GNOME 51 Beta snapshot.
For additional details, see the announcement or review the full changelog here.
