GNOME 43 is officially out now, bringing with it some pretty wonderful sounding changes to one of the most popular Linux desktop environments.
One of the new highlights is a Quick Settings feature. This is a redesign of the status menu in the top right, giving you more settings that are easy to change like the UI style, a screenshot button, the ability to switch between sound devices and more.
More apps are switching over to GTK 4, the next-generation GNOME user interface toolkit and as of GNOME 43 these apps have newly moved over: Files, Maps, Logs, Builder, Console, Initial Setup and Parental Controls.
The Files app also went through a refresh with a new modern design for the file and folder properties window, the layout adjusts itself to various widths automatically, reorganized menus, a new layout for search results, recent, and starred files, there's a new Open With dialog and in the list view opening the context menu for the current directory is now much easier.
You will also find a new Device Security section in the privacy settings, a new and improved Web Apps feature to install websites to the desktop as apps and more.
Lots of other improvements including:
- The screen keyboard now shows suggestions as you type. It will also show Ctrl, Alt, and Tab keys when typing in a terminal.
- Web’s screenshot feature is now easier to use: it can now be found in the web page context menu, or triggered with the Shift+Ctrl+S keyboard shortcut.
- Also in Web, the style of interface elements in web pages has also been updated, to match modern GNOME applications.
- The Characters app now includes a much wider selection of emoji, including people with different skin tones, genders, and hair styles, and more regional flags.
- Some of the animations in the Activities Overview have been optimized, so that they are smoother.
- The “about windows” of GNOME apps, which show details about each app, have been revamped.
- In Software, application pages have an improved switcher for selecting the source and format.
- The dark UI style used by GTK 4 apps has been polished, so the appearance of bars and lists is more harmonious.
- When connecting to GNOME with a remote desktop app (using RDP), it is now possible to receive audio from the host.
- GNOME’s range of alert sounds has been updated, and includes a new default alert sound.
See the release notes for more.
As for when you'll get it? You'll need to refer to the update cycle of your Linux distribution as they're all different. You can try it out right now though, using the GNOME OS Nightly image.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
DebianUser Sep 23, 2022
Quoting: RaabenLooking forward to this with the new Fedora release next month!
Looking forward to this with the new Debian release next year!
2 Likes, Who?
Quoting: lionblaze55The Fedora beta has been great with Gnome 43, all my extensions have been working without issue as well! Loving the work being done with these projects.
I am getting crashes with the AppIndicator after lock screen for some reason. Or I think so since that disappeared after I disabled it.
Otherwhise it's so far pretty good. I dislike that they do not show the device for the audio output change (now I have two devices to switch to with the same name), but everything else seems pretty good.
Seems they did some work on switching windows too, some weired games as M&B Warband now actually appear when you click them in the preview (it runs real fullscreen, no windowed fullscreen option).
Last edited by STiAT on 23 September 2022 at 2:41 pm UTC
0 Likes
pleasereadthemanual Sep 24, 2022
Quoting: itscalledrealityI'm not making any assumptions about what you want with your desktop. I'm simply saying that if you want GNOME to be reliable, don't rely on extensions. If you can't use GNOME without extensions, it almost certainly isn't for you, and you'll have a bad time with it.Quoting: pleasereadthemanualQuoting: itscalledrealitySo don't use addons. The only one that's necessary in some instances is AppIndicators. Can you name some of these forceful restrictions?Quoting: slaapliedjeAnyone figure out how to get it onto the SteamDeck yet? Still maintain that Gnome would have been a better interface on it...
Gnome would be a worse interface due to it’s forceful restrictions and constant desire to break it’s addons.
Plasma is looser but less likely to decide things like “the global file menu isn’t necessary” or “the calendar and clock should be centered”.
Yikes, that’s the whole issue with Gnome is telling it’s users what they do and don’t need. I don’t use Gnome at all because it’s very restrictive. To the point where you have to install a separate config utility to tweak certain options on the desktop.
So I will gladly not use addons because I don’t use Gnome I use KDE Plasma.
Maintaining an extensions API requires time and attention that can't be spent anywhere else. That's why the GIMP Team almost deprecated their extensions feature recently until somebody offered to maintain it. I can't begrudge the GNOME Team for focusing on what they believe is important at the expense of what they don't.
GNOME being opinionated is a good thing, as well. It means their small team only needs to focus on specific use cases they want to support, and most features work very reliably. More features are being moved from GNOME Tweaks to the general settings application over time, though I think the only feature that doesn't belong in Tweaks right now is Startup Applications.
There are things about GNOME that I wish were different, of course:
- I wish that I didn't have to go through dconf-editor to add keyboard shortcuts for workspaces 5-10 (and I wish that I didn't have to spend far too much time figuring out the keysyms to get this done, even working around a bug that prevents the "correct" keysym from being used)
- I wish that there was an option that dismissed notifications after 3 seconds.
- I wish GNOME Books wasn't useless.
I'm actually using Sway right now, but I've always been fond of GNOME. I think it takes all the good things from macOS, combines that with solid window management and workspace management, and doesn't ship a terrible file manager. I've always treated it as a WM with far less time investment required from the user.
I really don't think GNOME is particularly restrictive...it just doesn't have some of the features you want, and if you want them, you can rely on an extension at your peril. If GNOME were really adamant about their way being the only way, they wouldn't bother maintaining their extensions feature at all, and they wouldn't ship GNOME Tweaks. Instead, they nudge their users into considering an alternative to the traditional desktop metaphor because they think it's better.
1 Likes, Who?
Quoting: pleasereadthemanualQuoting: itscalledrealityI'm not making any assumptions about what you want with your desktop. I'm simply saying that if you want GNOME to be reliable, don't rely on extensions. If you can't use GNOME without extensions, it almost certainly isn't for you, and you'll have a bad time with it.Quoting: pleasereadthemanualQuoting: itscalledrealitySo don't use addons. The only one that's necessary in some instances is AppIndicators. Can you name some of these forceful restrictions?Quoting: slaapliedjeAnyone figure out how to get it onto the SteamDeck yet? Still maintain that Gnome would have been a better interface on it...
Gnome would be a worse interface due to it’s forceful restrictions and constant desire to break it’s addons.
Plasma is looser but less likely to decide things like “the global file menu isn’t necessary” or “the calendar and clock should be centered”.
Yikes, that’s the whole issue with Gnome is telling it’s users what they do and don’t need. I don’t use Gnome at all because it’s very restrictive. To the point where you have to install a separate config utility to tweak certain options on the desktop.
So I will gladly not use addons because I don’t use Gnome I use KDE Plasma.
Maintaining an extensions API requires time and attention that can't be spent anywhere else. That's why the GIMP Team almost deprecated their extensions feature recently until somebody offered to maintain it. I can't begrudge the GNOME Team for focusing on what they believe is important at the expense of what they don't.
GNOME being opinionated is a good thing, as well. It means their small team only needs to focus on specific use cases they want to support, and most features work very reliably. More features are being moved from GNOME Tweaks to the general settings application over time, though I think the only feature that doesn't belong in Tweaks right now is Startup Applications.
There are things about GNOME that I wish were different, of course:
- I wish that I didn't have to go through dconf-editor to add keyboard shortcuts for workspaces 5-10 (and I wish that I didn't have to spend far too much time figuring out the keysyms to get this done, even working around a bug that prevents the "correct" keysym from being used)
- I wish that there was an option that dismissed notifications after 3 seconds.
- I wish GNOME Books wasn't useless.
I'm actually using Sway right now, but I've always been fond of GNOME. I think it takes all the good things from macOS, combines that with solid window management and workspace management, and doesn't ship a terrible file manager. I've always treated it as a WM with far less time investment required from the user.
I really don't think GNOME is particularly restrictive...it just doesn't have some of the features you want, and if you want them, you can rely on an extension at your peril. If GNOME were really adamant about their way being the only way, they wouldn't bother maintaining their extensions feature at all, and they wouldn't ship GNOME Tweaks. Instead, they nudge their users into considering an alternative to the traditional desktop metaphor because they think it's better.
Or I’ll continue using KDE which is stable and has many ways to extend the desktop. Why would I sacrifice usability for opinionated desktop? Especially if I can get that opinionated style with greater flexibility elsewhere.
1 Likes, Who?
pleasereadthemanual Sep 24, 2022
Quoting: itscalledrealityYou'll notice that I never suggested you use GNOME.Quoting: pleasereadthemanualQuoting: itscalledrealityI'm not making any assumptions about what you want with your desktop. I'm simply saying that if you want GNOME to be reliable, don't rely on extensions. If you can't use GNOME without extensions, it almost certainly isn't for you, and you'll have a bad time with it.Quoting: pleasereadthemanualQuoting: itscalledrealitySo don't use addons. The only one that's necessary in some instances is AppIndicators. Can you name some of these forceful restrictions?Quoting: slaapliedjeAnyone figure out how to get it onto the SteamDeck yet? Still maintain that Gnome would have been a better interface on it...
Gnome would be a worse interface due to it’s forceful restrictions and constant desire to break it’s addons.
Plasma is looser but less likely to decide things like “the global file menu isn’t necessary” or “the calendar and clock should be centered”.
Yikes, that’s the whole issue with Gnome is telling it’s users what they do and don’t need. I don’t use Gnome at all because it’s very restrictive. To the point where you have to install a separate config utility to tweak certain options on the desktop.
So I will gladly not use addons because I don’t use Gnome I use KDE Plasma.
Maintaining an extensions API requires time and attention that can't be spent anywhere else. That's why the GIMP Team almost deprecated their extensions feature recently until somebody offered to maintain it. I can't begrudge the GNOME Team for focusing on what they believe is important at the expense of what they don't.
GNOME being opinionated is a good thing, as well. It means their small team only needs to focus on specific use cases they want to support, and most features work very reliably. More features are being moved from GNOME Tweaks to the general settings application over time, though I think the only feature that doesn't belong in Tweaks right now is Startup Applications.
There are things about GNOME that I wish were different, of course:
- I wish that I didn't have to go through dconf-editor to add keyboard shortcuts for workspaces 5-10 (and I wish that I didn't have to spend far too much time figuring out the keysyms to get this done, even working around a bug that prevents the "correct" keysym from being used)
- I wish that there was an option that dismissed notifications after 3 seconds.
- I wish GNOME Books wasn't useless.
I'm actually using Sway right now, but I've always been fond of GNOME. I think it takes all the good things from macOS, combines that with solid window management and workspace management, and doesn't ship a terrible file manager. I've always treated it as a WM with far less time investment required from the user.
I really don't think GNOME is particularly restrictive...it just doesn't have some of the features you want, and if you want them, you can rely on an extension at your peril. If GNOME were really adamant about their way being the only way, they wouldn't bother maintaining their extensions feature at all, and they wouldn't ship GNOME Tweaks. Instead, they nudge their users into considering an alternative to the traditional desktop metaphor because they think it's better.
Or I’ll continue using KDE which is stable and has many ways to extend the desktop. Why would I sacrifice usability for opinionated desktop? Especially if I can get that opinionated style with greater flexibility elsewhere.
1 Likes, Who?
Quoting: pleasereadthemanualQuoting: itscalledrealityYou'll notice that I never suggested you use GNOME.Quoting: pleasereadthemanualQuoting: itscalledrealityI'm not making any assumptions about what you want with your desktop. I'm simply saying that if you want GNOME to be reliable, don't rely on extensions. If you can't use GNOME without extensions, it almost certainly isn't for you, and you'll have a bad time with it.Quoting: pleasereadthemanualQuoting: itscalledrealitySo don't use addons. The only one that's necessary in some instances is AppIndicators. Can you name some of these forceful restrictions?Quoting: slaapliedjeAnyone figure out how to get it onto the SteamDeck yet? Still maintain that Gnome would have been a better interface on it...
Gnome would be a worse interface due to it’s forceful restrictions and constant desire to break it’s addons.
Plasma is looser but less likely to decide things like “the global file menu isn’t necessary” or “the calendar and clock should be centered”.
Yikes, that’s the whole issue with Gnome is telling it’s users what they do and don’t need. I don’t use Gnome at all because it’s very restrictive. To the point where you have to install a separate config utility to tweak certain options on the desktop.
So I will gladly not use addons because I don’t use Gnome I use KDE Plasma.
Maintaining an extensions API requires time and attention that can't be spent anywhere else. That's why the GIMP Team almost deprecated their extensions feature recently until somebody offered to maintain it. I can't begrudge the GNOME Team for focusing on what they believe is important at the expense of what they don't.
GNOME being opinionated is a good thing, as well. It means their small team only needs to focus on specific use cases they want to support, and most features work very reliably. More features are being moved from GNOME Tweaks to the general settings application over time, though I think the only feature that doesn't belong in Tweaks right now is Startup Applications.
There are things about GNOME that I wish were different, of course:
- I wish that I didn't have to go through dconf-editor to add keyboard shortcuts for workspaces 5-10 (and I wish that I didn't have to spend far too much time figuring out the keysyms to get this done, even working around a bug that prevents the "correct" keysym from being used)
- I wish that there was an option that dismissed notifications after 3 seconds.
- I wish GNOME Books wasn't useless.
I'm actually using Sway right now, but I've always been fond of GNOME. I think it takes all the good things from macOS, combines that with solid window management and workspace management, and doesn't ship a terrible file manager. I've always treated it as a WM with far less time investment required from the user.
I really don't think GNOME is particularly restrictive...it just doesn't have some of the features you want, and if you want them, you can rely on an extension at your peril. If GNOME were really adamant about their way being the only way, they wouldn't bother maintaining their extensions feature at all, and they wouldn't ship GNOME Tweaks. Instead, they nudge their users into considering an alternative to the traditional desktop metaphor because they think it's better.
Or I’ll continue using KDE which is stable and has many ways to extend the desktop. Why would I sacrifice usability for opinionated desktop? Especially if I can get that opinionated style with greater flexibility elsewhere.
But you did suggest using Gnome without extensions. Which I wouldn’t ever do. A lot of extensions are things like “system tray shortcut for X app”. Those break all the time and it’s often weeks before it is working again. I don’t know how Gnome fans can continue to ignore it but I literally changed distros from Pop_OS to Manjaro because of Gnome and it’s extension breakage.
Maybe they think it’s better to restrict the desktop but I have a strong disagree.
As for terrible things in Gnome, the file manager might be one of the biggest.
Last edited by itscalledreality on 24 September 2022 at 3:40 pm UTC
1 Likes, Who?
slaapliedje Sep 24, 2022
Quoting: itscalledrealityCurious what you think makes the file manager so terrible. It has always just 'worked' for me. The update to GTK4 makes it a bit nicer as well.Quoting: pleasereadthemanualQuoting: itscalledrealityYou'll notice that I never suggested you use GNOME.Quoting: pleasereadthemanualQuoting: itscalledrealityI'm not making any assumptions about what you want with your desktop. I'm simply saying that if you want GNOME to be reliable, don't rely on extensions. If you can't use GNOME without extensions, it almost certainly isn't for you, and you'll have a bad time with it.Quoting: pleasereadthemanualQuoting: itscalledrealitySo don't use addons. The only one that's necessary in some instances is AppIndicators. Can you name some of these forceful restrictions?Quoting: slaapliedjeAnyone figure out how to get it onto the SteamDeck yet? Still maintain that Gnome would have been a better interface on it...
Gnome would be a worse interface due to it’s forceful restrictions and constant desire to break it’s addons.
Plasma is looser but less likely to decide things like “the global file menu isn’t necessary” or “the calendar and clock should be centered”.
Yikes, that’s the whole issue with Gnome is telling it’s users what they do and don’t need. I don’t use Gnome at all because it’s very restrictive. To the point where you have to install a separate config utility to tweak certain options on the desktop.
So I will gladly not use addons because I don’t use Gnome I use KDE Plasma.
Maintaining an extensions API requires time and attention that can't be spent anywhere else. That's why the GIMP Team almost deprecated their extensions feature recently until somebody offered to maintain it. I can't begrudge the GNOME Team for focusing on what they believe is important at the expense of what they don't.
GNOME being opinionated is a good thing, as well. It means their small team only needs to focus on specific use cases they want to support, and most features work very reliably. More features are being moved from GNOME Tweaks to the general settings application over time, though I think the only feature that doesn't belong in Tweaks right now is Startup Applications.
There are things about GNOME that I wish were different, of course:
- I wish that I didn't have to go through dconf-editor to add keyboard shortcuts for workspaces 5-10 (and I wish that I didn't have to spend far too much time figuring out the keysyms to get this done, even working around a bug that prevents the "correct" keysym from being used)
- I wish that there was an option that dismissed notifications after 3 seconds.
- I wish GNOME Books wasn't useless.
I'm actually using Sway right now, but I've always been fond of GNOME. I think it takes all the good things from macOS, combines that with solid window management and workspace management, and doesn't ship a terrible file manager. I've always treated it as a WM with far less time investment required from the user.
I really don't think GNOME is particularly restrictive...it just doesn't have some of the features you want, and if you want them, you can rely on an extension at your peril. If GNOME were really adamant about their way being the only way, they wouldn't bother maintaining their extensions feature at all, and they wouldn't ship GNOME Tweaks. Instead, they nudge their users into considering an alternative to the traditional desktop metaphor because they think it's better.
Or I’ll continue using KDE which is stable and has many ways to extend the desktop. Why would I sacrifice usability for opinionated desktop? Especially if I can get that opinionated style with greater flexibility elsewhere.
But you did suggest using Gnome without extensions. Which I wouldn’t ever do. A lot of extensions are things like “system tray shortcut for X app”. Those break all the time and it’s often weeks before it is working again. I don’t know how Gnome fans can continue to ignore it but I literally changed distros from Pop_OS to Manjaro because of Gnome and it’s extension breakage.
Maybe they think it’s better to restrict the desktop but I have a strong disagree.
As for terrible things in Gnome, the file manager might be one of the biggest.
Ha, I've never heard of an extension that gives a shortcut for the system tray. The only ones I ever use is the Vertical Overlay (because I think with the activities being up in the corner, then putting the dash on the bottom is kind of dumb... and then the AppIndicator (systray) because some apps refuse to stop using it...
0 Likes
pleasereadthemanual Sep 24, 2022
Quoting: itscalledrealityI suggested that if you can't use GNOME without extensions, GNOME is not the desktop for you. It's very common for users to complain about GNOME being unstable due to running any number of extensions in an effort to introduce a lot of new and differing functionality they want out of GNOME, which I generally view as uninformed criticism. These users would be far better off giving GNOME a chance on its own merits or using another desktop environment. Distributions like Ubuntu can afford to load up GNOME with extensions because they hold back newer versions of GNOME when their extensions stop working.Quoting: pleasereadthemanualQuoting: itscalledrealityYou'll notice that I never suggested you use GNOME.Quoting: pleasereadthemanualQuoting: itscalledrealityI'm not making any assumptions about what you want with your desktop. I'm simply saying that if you want GNOME to be reliable, don't rely on extensions. If you can't use GNOME without extensions, it almost certainly isn't for you, and you'll have a bad time with it.Quoting: pleasereadthemanualQuoting: itscalledrealitySo don't use addons. The only one that's necessary in some instances is AppIndicators. Can you name some of these forceful restrictions?Quoting: slaapliedjeAnyone figure out how to get it onto the SteamDeck yet? Still maintain that Gnome would have been a better interface on it...
Gnome would be a worse interface due to it’s forceful restrictions and constant desire to break it’s addons.
Plasma is looser but less likely to decide things like “the global file menu isn’t necessary” or “the calendar and clock should be centered”.
Yikes, that’s the whole issue with Gnome is telling it’s users what they do and don’t need. I don’t use Gnome at all because it’s very restrictive. To the point where you have to install a separate config utility to tweak certain options on the desktop.
So I will gladly not use addons because I don’t use Gnome I use KDE Plasma.
Maintaining an extensions API requires time and attention that can't be spent anywhere else. That's why the GIMP Team almost deprecated their extensions feature recently until somebody offered to maintain it. I can't begrudge the GNOME Team for focusing on what they believe is important at the expense of what they don't.
GNOME being opinionated is a good thing, as well. It means their small team only needs to focus on specific use cases they want to support, and most features work very reliably. More features are being moved from GNOME Tweaks to the general settings application over time, though I think the only feature that doesn't belong in Tweaks right now is Startup Applications.
There are things about GNOME that I wish were different, of course:
- I wish that I didn't have to go through dconf-editor to add keyboard shortcuts for workspaces 5-10 (and I wish that I didn't have to spend far too much time figuring out the keysyms to get this done, even working around a bug that prevents the "correct" keysym from being used)
- I wish that there was an option that dismissed notifications after 3 seconds.
- I wish GNOME Books wasn't useless.
I'm actually using Sway right now, but I've always been fond of GNOME. I think it takes all the good things from macOS, combines that with solid window management and workspace management, and doesn't ship a terrible file manager. I've always treated it as a WM with far less time investment required from the user.
I really don't think GNOME is particularly restrictive...it just doesn't have some of the features you want, and if you want them, you can rely on an extension at your peril. If GNOME were really adamant about their way being the only way, they wouldn't bother maintaining their extensions feature at all, and they wouldn't ship GNOME Tweaks. Instead, they nudge their users into considering an alternative to the traditional desktop metaphor because they think it's better.
Or I’ll continue using KDE which is stable and has many ways to extend the desktop. Why would I sacrifice usability for opinionated desktop? Especially if I can get that opinionated style with greater flexibility elsewhere.
But you did suggest using Gnome without extensions. Which I wouldn’t ever do. A lot of extensions are things like “system tray shortcut for X app”. Those break all the time and it’s often weeks before it is working again. I don’t know how Gnome fans can continue to ignore it but I literally changed distros from Pop_OS to Manjaro because of Gnome and it’s extension breakage.
Maybe they think it’s better to restrict the desktop but I have a strong disagree.
As for terrible things in Gnome, the file manager might be one of the biggest.
I have only ever used the AppIndicators extension because I have never needed anything else. I have never experienced any issues with it. Part of why I used GNOME was that it was a far more reliable experience than KDE.
While I think Dolphin is better by virtue of having a clickable path and handles on folders/files in one-click mode, I quite like Nautilus. I'm also curious what it is about Nautilus you think makes it terrible. I've used Finder—that's the bottom of the barrel of file managers as far as I'm concerned.
4 Likes, Who?
TheRiddick Sep 26, 2022
Been using Gnome43 lately, many extensions don't work or have issues but it seems over time that will be fixed. I do notice that gnome wayland works better then KDE Wayland and gaming is even functional with multi display setup whereas I was getting skipping and other issues under KDE Plasma...
Still not a fan of needing extensions to extend the desktop functionality.
Still not a fan of needing extensions to extend the desktop functionality.
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