Gnome 47 sets accents and makes X11 optional

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Six months after the last edition, version 47 of the Gnome desktop environment has been released according to the usual schedule. Two functions of the interface that were previously marked as experimental are now activated by default. In the settings there is a scaling of the desktop elements with odd factors (fractional scaling) as well as a color selector for nine accent colors. Ubuntu 22.04 already presented a selection of color nuances in Gnome 42, but implemented these via a specially modified Gnome shell and icon sets. Now this works in Gnome 47 via an API of the libadwaita library and thus also in the other Linux distributions.

This release marks the completion of two years of work on the code of the "Mutter" compositor and the Gnome shell, which makes all dependencies on the X11 protocol of Xorg optional. To this end, the functionality of some X11 libraries for keyboard input and cursor display was first migrated to the Gnome source code. The conversion allows Gnome 47 to be compiled without X11 and Xwayland, with smaller binaries and less memory requirements – but then only as a desktop for Wayland programs. This does not seem practical at present, but the slimmed-down shell could also make Gnome attractive for selected niche applications.

Another improvement of the Gnome compositor for special cases is the use of a GPU for hardware-accelerated output of the desktop, even if no screen is connected. This helps the internal RDP server for remote access, which since the last Gnome version can become active even before logging on to the desktop and thus enables complete operation in headless mode. The screen recorder can also make use of hardware-accelerated encoding if suitable drivers with VA-API support are installed, thus reducing the load on the CPU, especially at high resolutions.

Resolutions: Gnome follows suit

Gnome now also offers scaling of the display from 100 percent to 125 to 150 percent in the settings for lower resolutions. These factors for Gnome with Wayland were previously considered experimental and were still waiting to be activated in the terminal with the command:

gsettings set org.gnome.mother experimental-features "['scale-monitor-framebuffer']"

The results were not always good. Even with Xwayland, the compatibility layer between X11 programs and Wayland, the scaling only now works perfectly. A prerequisite for this is that GTK programs, which may not have been made specifically for Gnome, must also adopt the default style of libadwaita. When displaying program windows and dialogs, Gnome 47 is able to make better use of the limited space on the monitor. This is because modal dialogs that are permanently attached to a window no longer have a predefined minimum size.

New features in Gnome applications

Among the programs that are part of the Gnome desktop repertoire and are therefore usually pre-installed, the file manager "Gnome-Files" and the partition management "Gnome-Disks" have undergone the most significant changes. In the file manager, the default locations of the home directories have been moved to the bottom of the left sidebar and are also bookmarks. Right-clicking on these can edit all these entries or remove unwanted ones. For those programs that already use the GTK4 toolkit, Gnome-Files now provides a fully-fledged file browser that allows a few more file operations as well as zoom factors for preview images. Online accounts are now also available as storage locations, if already set up via Gnome settings.

The Gnome Disks partition management has now completed a port to GTK4 and presents itself in a modern guise. The program is the first Gnome application to receive a component programmed in Rust: The image mounter, a client for Udisks mounts IMG files and ISO-9660 images as a searchable file system in read-only mode. The small addition was also used by the developers to update the template for GTK projects in Rust for the Meson build system.

Linux distributions with Gnome 47

Both the upcoming Fedora 41 and Ubuntu 24.10 will ship Gnome 47 as the primary desktop in October, with Ubuntu expected to forgo some of the new Gnome features for the time being and deliver a version mix. Fedora 41 is already available for download as a beta version. Gnome OS from the Gnome Foundation itself is not a regular Linux distribution, but a system for demonstrating the new desktop. This Linux system is built with Ostree, providing an unchangeable base system in the style of Fedora Silverblue, into which applications are then installed as a flatpack. Gnome OS not only runs well in Gnome Boxes, but also with Libvirt under KVM if Virtio emulates the virtual graphics card.

Gnome 46 was released in March, in which the developers implemented variable refresh rates and improved RDP support.

(emw)