GNOME 50 is a brilliant release - but I had to look twice to see why

6 days ago 20

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ZDNET's key takeaways

GNOME 50 is upon us, but don't expect a massive parade.
This release is all about what's under the hood.
All the changes come together to make a brilliant release.

I cannot remember the last time I installed a version of GNOME and got excited about the dramatic changes the developers made. The evolution of this Linux desktop has become a slow, prodding process.

That's not necessarily a bad thing.

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GNOME has been very slow to change. The GNOME Shell we have today is very much the GNOME Shell we've always had. And that consistency delivers a level of familiarity that users can always count on.

However, that doesn't mean everything is boring on the GNOME update front.

For the most part, the big-ticket items in GNOME 50 are under the hood, such as the removal of X11 support in favor of Wayland. That's right, X11 has been officially removed from GNOME. That's a good thing because Wayland performs better than X11, is more secure than X11, and is more modern than X11.

There are many more eatures that come along with GNOME 50, such as VRR support for smoother gaming, dGPU handling for better detection of discrete GPUs, a new thumbnail widget that is much faster than previous tools, case-sensitive path completion and enhanced search in the file manager, a new text size slider in the accessibility panel, improved battery charge management, improved symbolic icons, and many others.

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Yeah, sounds kind of boring, right? When you reach the big 5-0 release milestone, you might want to pull out some nifty new tricks to show your audience that they're getting something special.

But why? Why do we consumers expect milestone releases to be associated with gigantic feature lists or massive UI changes? Why not stick with what works and polish it?

That's exactly what the GNOME team did: they took the GNOME we all know and love, and gave it a nice layer of shine.

Still in beta

GNOME 50 is still in beta; to kick the tires, you'll want to download a GNOME OS ISO. Do understand that GNOME OS is tricky to install as a virtual machine, unless you're using GNOME Boxes; otherwise, install it on a spare machine.

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I ran GNOME 50 on a small-form-factor laptop using GNOME Boxes with the minimum amount of RAM and CPU cores required. To my surprise, GNOME 50 ran like a champ, even with minimal system resources.

As I ran through the paces with GNOME 50, I could hardly recognize the difference between the previous iteration and the latest.

Fractional scaling is finally out of the experimental stage

With the status of displays on the market, fractional scaling has become a necessity. Fractional scaling is a feature that makes text and icons easier to read on high-resolution screens. Instead of having to scale via an integer, you can scale your display via a percentage, such as 125%, 150%, 175%, or 200%.

After installing GNOME OS on a small form-factor laptop, I found the text to be a bit challenging to read. Thanks to fractional scaling, solving that issue was simple. I bumped the scaling up to 200%, and all was great. You can also change the size of the text on the display without having to monkey with the scaling.

There's also better GPU detection, especially for hybrid systems. GNOME will always default to the right GPU. It'll also give you virtual monitor support (remote displays will work considerably better), and give you better high-DPI support.

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Speaking of displays, GNOME 50 also received some significant upgrades to the Orca screen reader. One particular feature lets you change language on the fly, so you can use the desktop in English and quickly switch to, say, German without jumping through hoops.

When you peel back the covers to view what's going on beneath the surface, you'll find that GNOME 50 is actually a significant release; it just doesn't show it off. GNOME 50 is a ton of subtle changes that come together to make the open-source desktop look and behave much better than before.

Systemd-homed

GNOME 50 is the first time systemd-homed has been implemented in the Linux desktop. If you're unaware, the Systemd developers made a rather controversial move that dramatically changes Linux user management via portable, self-contained, encrypted home directories. With systemd-homed, users' home directories can be easily moved from one machine to another, are automatically mounted upon login, and are locked when the system is suspended.

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Systemd-homed looks to make user management easier. However, systemd-homed uses encrypted data, so if something goes wrong, a user could get locked out of their home directory. To that end, the developers have decided to use the "Stable" label only for releases they can support long-term and that use systemd-homed.

Another systemd change is the addition of systemd-context, a tool designed to securely and atomically manage configuration files in /etc/. This avoids issues on immutable operating systems like GNOME, where some files need to be writable in /etc.

Does it live up to the big 5-0?

When I asked myself whether this latest iteration of the GNOME desktop lives up to the hype that usually accompanies a 50th release, my initial reaction was a resounding "No!" However, upon further reflection (and use), I believe the developers' work is pretty remarkable. They've essentially taken an already fast and elegant desktop and made it more so in every way. It's faster, it's smoother, it's prettier, it's… everything you need in a major update, without having to learn something completely new.

There are tons of minor updates that all come together to make GNOME 50 an impressive release. Even though it doesn't have any new blockbuster features, there are so many small improvements that the whole experience benefits greatly.

GNOME 50 might not win over new users because of feature X or Y, but it could certainly lean into the idea that this is the most important release in a long time because of all of these minor changes that come together to make for a decidedly smooth and elegant desktop.

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Of course, once installed, you can always expand the GNOME desktop via extensions.

If you're interested in checking out GNOME 50, your best bet is via GNOME Boxes. If you have a spare machine, you can download the ISO, burn it to a USB drive, and install it.

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