GNOME 2.30 released

The GNOME Release Team has announced the availability of version 2.30 of their GNOME desktop environment for Linux and Unix. In addition to hundreds of bug fixes, the final major release in the 2.x series of GNOME includes some new features and a number of improvements based on user requests.

The GNOME 2.30 release features enhancements to the Empathy instant messaging and communication application, such as the ability to send files by dragging and dropping files into the contact list or a chat window, and updates to data syncing with Tomboy. The Nautilus file manager has received several user interface changes, including a new split view mode and spatial mode has been replaced by browser mode by default. The GNOME System Tools now work with PolicyKit for authentication.

The GNOME 2.30 desktop. According to the GNOME Project developers, partial support for iPod and iPod Touch devices has been added, GNOME Terminal now has unlimited scrollback support and the Epiphany web browser also includes numerous bug and regression fixes. Epiphany can now remember passwords using the gnome-keyring. Other changes include the addition of a new Time Tracker applet for tracking time and tasks, support for SSH tunnelling in the Vinagre remote desktop client and improved printing support in the Evince document viewer.

The Release Team also note that, to celebrate the 2.30 release, the GNOME Foundation has announced the opening of the GNOME Store. The store will help support GNOME by selling various t-shirts and mugs.

More details about the development release can be found in the release announcement, in the release notes, and in the NEWS file. The sources for GNOME 2.30 are available from the project's FTP page. The 2.30 release of GNOME will be included in, for example, Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and Fedora 13. The next major release of GNOME, version 3.0, is scheduled for September of this year.

See also:

• GNOME and KDE to co-locate 2011 Desktop Summit, a report from The H.
• GNOME Accessibility: Another Sun/Oracle casualty, a report from The H.
• September 2010 for GNOME 3.0, official, a report from The H.

(crve)