GNOME 48, codenamed “Bengaluru” in tribute to the GNOME Asia 2024 organizers, arrived on March 19, 2025, marking the culmination of six months of dedicated community effort. This release brings a host of new features, performance improvements, and refinements across the desktop environment. This review provides a deep dive into the key changes and enhancements that GNOME 48 has to offer.
What’s New in GNOME 48
GNOME 48 delivers a range of enhancements, focusing on user experience, performance, and new functionalities. Key areas of improvement include notifications, fonts, image viewing, digital wellbeing, and battery management.
Notification Improvements
GNOME 48 introduces notification stacking, a feature that groups notifications from the same application, preventing the notification list from becoming unwieldy. These stacks can be expanded to reveal individual messages. This enhancement builds on previous notification improvements introduced in GNOME 47, streamlining the user experience.
Appearance and Fonts
The visual landscape of GNOME 48 receives a refresh with the introduction of two new fonts: Adwaita Sans and Adwaita Mono. Adwaita Sans, a customized version of the Inter typeface by Rasmus Andersson, is optimized for clarity on high-density displays. Adwaita Mono, a custom build of the Iosevka typeface family, is designed for terminal use and plain text editing, boasting extensive language coverage and support for modern font features.
Image Viewer Enhancements
The Image Viewer in GNOME 48 gains significant functionality with the addition of basic image editing features, including cropping, rotating, and flipping. Zoom controls have been redesigned, offering single-click default zoom, predefined zoom levels, and manual zoom level entry. Experimental features include support for RAW image formats and additional metadata formats like XMP.
Digital Wellbeing
GNOME 48 incorporates Digital Wellbeing features within the Settings app, promoting healthier computing habits. These include:
- Screen Time Usage: Tracks and compares daily screen time.
- Screen Limits: Allows setting daily screen time limits, with an option to switch to a black and white screen when the limit is reached.
- Break Reminders: Provides reminders for eyesight and movement breaks.
Power Management
A new battery health preservation option is introduced in GNOME 48, allowing users to limit battery charging to 80% when plugged in. This feature, accessible in the Power settings under “Battery Charging,” aims to extend the lifespan of the device’s battery and is available on supported hardware.
Performance Improvements
GNOME 48 emphasizes performance enhancements, leading to a smoother and more responsive user experience.
- Dynamic Triple Buffering: Implemented to improve on-screen smoothness, reducing skipped frames and creating more fluid animations. This is achieved by enhancing the concurrency capabilities of Mutter, GNOME’s window manager, particularly during sudden activity bursts.
- JavaScript Engine Optimization: The GNOME JavaScript engine has been optimized, resulting in reduced CPU and memory usage.
- File Indexing Efficiency: File indexing now uses less memory and features faster multimedia metadata extraction.
- Discrete Graphics Card Improvements: Users with monitors directly attached to a discrete graphics card will experience improved performance and stability.
- Files (Nautilus) Speed Boost: The Files application receives a significant speed boost, with a ×5 increase in loading folder contents and a ×10 increase in rendering speed when scrolling with thumbnails.
- GTK Optimizations: Optimizations in the latest GTK version result in faster performance when application interfaces are created and resized.
New Applications
GNOME 48 introduces a new minimalist Audio Player app designed for playing individual audio files. It features a waveform display and playback speed control, focusing on simplicity and ease of use without library or playlist functionality.
Display Technology
GNOME 48 introduces initial system-level HDR support. HDR can be enabled on supported hardware via the new “High Dynamic Range” switch in display settings. A software-emulated brightness control is also included.
Application Updates
The Text Editor has been refreshed with a cleaner, more focused interface. The updated design includes a streamlined header bar, enhanced document properties, and a relocated cursor position indicator for code editing.
Miscellaneous Updates
GNOME 48 includes numerous other enhancements:
- Applications can now create global shortcuts, subject to user permission.
- New windows are centered by default.
- Enhanced support for special function keys (Copy, Paste, Cut, Undo, Redo, Find).
- Improvements to the Contacts application UI.
- Refinements to the Settings application.
- Improvements to the Orca screen reader on Wayland.
- Modernization of the Maps application.
- Accessibility support in the Web browser.
- Calendar application refinements.
Ecosystem
The GNOME ecosystem continues to grow, with Drum Machine, Iotas, Keypunch, and Exercise Timer joining the GNOME Circle.
Developer Resources
GNOME 48 brings new features and enhancements for developers. Detailed insights are available in the developer section (link not provided).
Installation
GNOME’s software is Free Software, and all code is available for download and modification. Installation is recommended via official packages from vendors or distributions. The GNOME OS image can be used as a virtual machine using the Boxes app.
Conclusion
GNOME 48 “Bengaluru” represents a significant step forward for the GNOME desktop environment. With its focus on enhanced performance, user experience improvements, and introduction of new features like digital wellbeing tools and a minimalist audio player, GNOME 48 provides a polished and modern computing experience. The performance optimizations, especially in file management and JavaScript execution, contribute to a more responsive system. The enhancements to core applications and the growing ecosystem solidify GNOME’s position as a leading open-source desktop environment.