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elementary OS is easily one of the best looking Linux distributions around, with such an incredible attention to the finer details and a big new release is up now. With elementary OS 6.1 the developers focused on addressing feedback from the previous release, new and more useful office productivity features and expanding compatibility with a larger range of hardware.

elementary OS 6.1 Jólnir takes the same foundation as OS 6 Odin and elevates it to a new level of polish. Thanks to some great new tooling and release management processes at elementary, we’ve been able to make larger strides in less time than ever before. This release represents the sum of our work over the last several months as a single major update to the OS 6 series—and we believe there’s enough great new stuff here that this release deserves its own name and identity.

Danielle Foré, Founder & CEO

Pictured - elementary OS 6.1

Looks like a fair amount of work went into improving their AppCenter now they've done their switch over from Debian packages into Flatpak it was time to continue improvements there. Making much better use of spacing, along with giving more details about each application right away, it definitely looks like a big improvement. To make things clearer, they've also now separated the category views between paid, free and non-curated apps (third-party Flatpak repos like Flathub). Big improvements also came for those who do add a third-party repo, so you no longer have to restart for example to have applications from them show up in the AppCenter.

Across the desktop itself there's been some pretty big changes too, like the ALT+TAB switcher getting a redesign, expanded options for the File Chooser dialog, improvements to the Dark Style preference, the Applications Menu will let you find bookmarked folders and locations and absolutely tons of other smaller improvements.

See all that and more in their announcement post.

You can download it from the official website using a pay what you want model.

Check out a video our friend Nick did to go over some of what's new:

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10 comments

Fredrik Dec 21, 2021
Well Im sorry but I think you need new glasses, its the ugliest distro out there, and it looks like its made for kids.
tdkuhl 7 years Dec 21, 2021
Intriguing that they use Flatpaks first. Aren’t they typically slower than locally installed deb packages?
Bloombery Dec 21, 2021
I wait for CuteFishOS
Bumadar Dec 21, 2021
Quoting: FredrikWell Im sorry but I think you need new glasses, its the ugliest distro out there, and it looks like its made for kids.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder :)
tdkuhl 7 years Dec 21, 2021
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: tdkuhlIntriguing that they use Flatpaks first. Aren’t they typically slower than locally installed deb packages?

I use flatpaks extensively and they are not any slower. Bigger packages due to the bundled dependencies but not slower

Gotcha. I thought I had heard people complain snap and flatpaks take longer to launch.
I don't use them a lot as I pretty much pull things from the AUR. I do have one system that is still on Linux Mint that I was thinking about loading Flatpaks for some of my missing programs.
TheRiddick Dec 22, 2021
Is it trying to be like MacOS? looks like it.
ElectricPrism Dec 22, 2021
I am grateful LinusTechTips didn't choose this.
CyborgZeta Dec 22, 2021
I generally don't like to pooh-pooh specific distributions, but this is one distro I feel gets way more attention than it probably deserves.
Jarmer Dec 22, 2021
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: TheRiddickIs it trying to be like MacOS? looks like it.

Not sure why this comes up so often but it's nothing like it.

I have not used it, so I cannot comment, but from the screenshots it looks identical to macos. I suppose the same could be said for gnome, and kde looking like a windows variant. So in the end ... I don't think the DE matters as much as people put weight into. Get into something YOU like and works for you, and move past it. You spend the majority of your time on the machine either working or gaming or browsing etc... than messing around in various de windows.
StoneDancer Dec 23, 2021
I've always checked in on elementary in the past hoping that it would mature to be something i'd like to use. I thought I was sold this time until I saw they're using flatpak for everything. errrgh bloat.
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