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GNOME 2.22 is the latest version of the GNOME Desktop: a popular, multi-platform desktop environment for your computer. GNOME’s focus is ease of use, stability, and first class internationalization and accessibility support. GNOME is Free and Open Source Software and provides all of the common tools computer users expect of a modern computing environment, such as email, groupware, web browsing, file management, multimedia, and games. Furthermore, GNOME provides a flexible and powerful platform for software developers, both on the desktop and in mobile applications.

The GNOME Desktop is released every six months and contains many new features, improvements, bug fixes, and translations. GNOME 2.22 continues this tradition. To learn more about GNOME and the qualities that distinguish it from other computer desktop environments (such as usability, accessibility, internationalization, and freedom) visit the About GNOME page on our website.

The GNOME Project’s focus on users and usability continues in GNOME 2.22 with its hundreds of bug fixes and user-requested improvements.

What’s News?

GNOME 2.22 introduces a new application, Cheese. Cheese lets you take photos and make videos using your computer’s webcam. You can apply a range of different effects like mauve, noir/blanc, shagadelic, and warp. You can share these photos and videos with your friends, load them into F-Spot, or set them as your account photo.

GNOME 2.22 introduces window compositing on capable platforms. Fitting with GNOME’s “keeping it simple” policy, the features are very low key. The most noticeable changes are drop shadows on windows, live previews when switching windows with Alt+Tab, and transparency effects.

GNOME 2.22 introduces GVFS: a new network-transparent virtual filesystem layer for GTK+. GVFS is designed to overcome the shortcomings of the older GNOME-VFS system. Improvements over GNOME-VFS include remembering login credentials for the entire session and being more resilient to failures. Many GNOME applications are already using GVFS, including all of the core applications.

GNOME’s Movie Player now offers improved support for DVD playback as well as support for digital television (DVB). Also appearing in 2.22 is a selection of new plugins, including support for MythTV, Youtube, and Tracker-based searching. This release also features playlist sharing and the ability to select subtitles for files.

Evolution continues to be improved with new support for Google Calendars and custom message labels (tagging) for your email.

New in GNOME 2.22 is the Remote Desktop Viewer. This application complements the existing remote desktop server support in GNOME. It features the ability to discover machines on the local network and bookmark your favorites.

The keyboard layout and keyboard accessibility preferences have been merged into one dialog, putting every keyboard setting you need in one place. Desktop Keyboard Shortcuts remain separate.

GNOME 2.22 also features many bug fixes and user-required enhancements from the last six months of development, including:

• directly open Evolution contacts in Deskbar;
• improved printing in Text Editor;
• network multiplayer in Chess;
• download notifications in Epiphany;
• LZMA (7-zip) support in Archive Manager;
• inhibit automatic suspend and hibernation while burning CDs;
• Document Viewer is now faster and uses less memory;
• Document Viewer can also now support page transitions in PDF Slideshows;
• Tomboy can now organize your notes into notebooks;
• Sound Juicer now supports more metadata, including disc number and year;
• extensive improvements to Calculator’s precision and usability;
• Keyring Manager has been completely replaced by Seahorse;
• much, much more that you’ll have to install or upgrade to see!

Please feel free to check Gnome 2.22 Official Release Notes for more informations.