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Abderrahim Kitouni has announced the beta version of GNOME 49, signaling the commencement of the Freeze UI, along with feature and API freezes. This is an opportune moment to begin testing applications or shell extensions on the GNOME 49 platform. The 49 beta branch of Flatpak runtimes can now be accessed on Flathub beta, and a live image is provided for testing and porting extensions. Two new applications, Showtime and Papers, have been incorporated into the core suite of GNOME applications.



GNOME 49.beta released!

Hello everyone,

GNOME 49.beta is now available. It also marks the start of the UI, feature and API freezes (collectively known as The Freeze). If you’d like to target the GNOME 49 platform, this is the best time to start testing your apps or shell extensions.

This live image can be used to test the upcoming version of GNOME without installing it. You can try it on bare metal, or in a virtual machine with EFI support (such as the GNOME Boxes version available on Flathub).

For this release, two new apps have been added to the core set of GNOME apps: Showtime (replacing Totem as the Video Player) and Papers (replacing Evince as the Document Viewer). Please note however that the image does not include patent-encumbered codecs, so you will not be able to play videos that use them.

WARNING! This is beta quality software. This release is intended for GNOME developers and beta testers. For more information about the 49 release, including the full schedule, please see our  schedule page.

Cheers,
GNOME Release Team

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GNOME 49.beta released!