Gnome 48 delivers HDR support and saves battery power

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As planned in the well-established development cycle, Gnome 48 will be released half a year after the previous version. The new version marks one of the more important releases of the free desktop environment for Linux and Unix-oid systems. This is because Gnome 48 will not only be included in the upcoming versions of Ubuntu and Fedora, but is also on the list of desktops as the standard environment of the next stable Debian "Trixie", which is scheduled for release in the second half of 2025. Debian users will therefore have Gnome 48 with them for a while longer.

High-contrast colors and color profiles

And the new features are quite literally impressive: For the first time, Gnome with Wayland can display the wider contrast spectrum of HDR (High Dynamic Range) on suitable monitors. Until now, this display mode for modern screens was still experimental and required manual activation in Gnome 47. For this to work under Linux, an AMD graphics chip with the AMDGPU driver or an Nvidia card with the proprietary manufacturer driver from version 550.54.14 is required. The command line tool "gdctl" has been added to check whether a connected screen supports HDR. HDR output affects GTK4 programs in Gnome 48, but applications in general are still lagging behind. For example, even after six years, HDR for the Firefox browser is still a work in progress. So far, the video player "mpv" and the Wine-based "Proton" in Valve's Steam offer HDR support for some game titles via their own compositor "Gamescope".

Another new feature under Wayland that can improve the color display is color management for output devices and printers, now that the Gnome compositor has received the necessary Wayland protocol as an addition. The setting for color profiles can now be found in the Gnome system settings under "Color management", which can also load additional profiles from manufacturers in order to display colors as faithfully as possible.

Triple buffering: Triple is better

Gnome 48 now uses triple buffering for velvety animations, which particularly benefits desktops with high resolutions, as fewer frames are lost. Ubuntu had already maintained its own patches for triple buffering via the graphics library, but these did not yet work with the Nvidia drivers. Gnome 48 now implements this buffer for frames itself via its Wayland compositor, which works independently of the graphics chips used. Gnome now manages up to 60 frames per second on a 4K screen without stuttering.

The new "Wellbeing" reminder function in the Gnome settings also ensures fatigue-free working. To protect the eyes during long periods of work, Gnome can remind you to take breaks at intervals in the style of Apple's Screentime and, if desired, immerse the screen in neutral gray tones. To improve the font appearance in GTK applications, Gnome now uses the added font family "Adwaita" as the new default font.

The power management now includes the ability of the "upower" tool in its menu item to charge a laptop battery to less than 100 percent capacity when connected to a power supply. This allows batteries to age a little more slowly. Among the Gnome applications, there is the audio player "Decibels", which is intended to send the venerable Rhythmbox into a well-deserved retirement and presents a simple, reduced interface in the style of Gnome. For the installation of applications as flatpaks, the package management of "Gnome Software" has now been given a link for flatpak descriptions in flatpakref files as a registered file type. Manual installation of these flatpaks in the shell is therefore no longer necessary.

Test the new Gnome now

As always, the release notes systematically list all major and numerous minor changes. In the recently released beta of Fedora Linux 42, Gnome 48 is already available for an uncomplicated evaluation in VMs or on bare hardware. The screenshots in this message are from the fairly stable pre-release version. The installable live system from the Gnome developers also invites you to try it out, although it is not designed for productive use as a full-blown Linux distribution.

(dahe)