Groton, MA – March 27, 2013.
The GNOME Community is proud to announce the release of GNOME 3.8, the latest update of the free software desktop environment and developer platform, which continues to refine and redefine the concept of the user experience. Easy to use and incredibly powerful, GNOME delivers amazing performance, stunning graphics and enhanced privacy. GNOME comes with software that’s easy to learn and a pleasure to use.
GNOME 3.8 is the outcome of six months of effort by GNOME developers and their partners and contains 35,936 contributions by approximately 960 people. It provides new features, fixes, and improvements that include a range of applications to satisfy users’ needs and new designs that continue to provide the very best in user interaction.
GNOME 3.8 is welcomed by the volunteers and companies who contribute to its success.
“Intel is happy to join the celebration of the GNOME 3.8 release. Many of our engineers are part of the strong community that has once again come together to drive innovation and deliver constant improvement for the Linux desktop.” said Imad Sousou, director of Open Source Technology Center, Intel.
“As a principled distribution, Debian‘s main goal is to provide our users with the greatest free software out there, bundled as a coherent whole. Thanks to GNOME, our default desktop for many many years,” said Stefano Zacchiroli, Debian Project Leader, “we have been able to offer to our users a free productivity environment which is both visually appealing and easy to use. I wish the GNOME community all the best of luck for GNOME 3.8, which we are looking forward to have in our development release.”
In this release, privacy has become one of GNOME’s primary focuses. GNOME 3.8 includes new privacy and sharing settings to allow you to be in control of information on your computer. Additionally, this is the first release to support OwnCloud integration. These new changes will allow you to easily track your activities and protect your personal information, making GNOME more secure than ever.
GNOME’s web browser has also seen significant changes, providing a faster and more fluid web experience.
“We’re really excited about the 3.8 release,” said a statement issued by Igalia, “in part because Web, the GNOME browser, debuts its WebKit2 backend, something we at Igalia have been working hard on for years. WebKit2 delivers a state-of-the-art web runtime to our platform, with increased responsiveness, security and stability, making Web 3.8 and all the applications using WebKit much more pleasant and exciting to use.”
Other new features presented in GNOME 3.8 include revamped search functionality from the Activities Overview, an updated Application launching view, and a new pressure-activated notification bar.
GNOME 3.8 also includes a large number of bug fixes and enhancements. Many usability details have been addressed that provide a more polished experience, including improvements to the notifications system, lock screen, and overview. Many of these changes were made as part of the second round of the Every Detail Matters initiative, which fixed nearly 60 usability bugs during the 3.8 development cycle.
GNOME 3.8 for the first time comes with GNOME Classic for those who prefer a traditional desktop experience. GNOME Classic configures the desktop to include popular GNOME 2 features but with the underlying power of GNOME 3 technologies. The GNOME Classic experience is further enhanced by GNOME’s growing library of community created extensions.
“GNOME 3 is elegant by default and extremely configurable by design,” said Karen Sandler, Executive Director of the GNOME Foundation. “The release of GNOME Classic is evidence of the ability to customize GNOME through extensions and demonstrates how our developers have listened and responded to feedback from the community.”
These changes and many others in GNOME 3.8 are detailed in the 3.8 release notes.
A screenshot pack for GNOME 3.8 is available to download.
About GNOME
GNOME was started in 1997 by two then-university students, Miguel de Icaza and Federico Mena Quintero. Their aim: to produce a free (as in freedom) desktop environment. Since then, GNOME has grown into a hugely successful enterprise. Used by millions of people around the world, it is the most popular environment for GNU/Linux and UNIX-type operating systems. GNOME’s software has been utilized in successful, large-scale enterprise and public deployments.
The GNOME community is made up of hundreds of contributors from all over the world, many of whom are volunteers. This community is supported by the GNOME Foundation, an independent non-profit organization that provides financial, organizational and legal assistance. The Foundation is a democratic institution that is directed by its members, who are all active GNOME contributors. GNOME and its Foundation works to promote software freedom through the creation of innovative, accessible, and beautiful user experiences.