First GNOME 3.0 Development Release Available

The much anticipated GNOME 3.0 release is coming in March, but the first development release (v2.29.1) for GNOME 3.0 (a.k.a. 2.30) is now available this week. For months now we have seen early development snapshots of the new Zeitgeist, GNOME Shell, and Mutter modules, but now that GNOME 2.28 was released, all of these free software developers have turned their attention towards the major 3.0 release.

Aside from the the Mutter, GNOME Shell, and Zeitgeist work, the modules common to the GNOME 2.xx desktop have not encountered too much in the way of major changes. GNOME's Totem web-browser plug-in now supports playing back MIDI files, Eye of GNOME now supports animated GIF files, and improved CD/DVD burning with Brasero, while a bulk of the packages found in GNOME 2.29.1 just contain bug-fixes and translation updates. Showing off some improvements in GNOME 2.29.1 though is GNOME Games, which brings the new "Lightsoff" game, more work in porting user-interfaces over to Seed/Clutter, and moving the games networking support to using GNOME's Telepathy for communication.

Those interested in downloading the GNOME 2.29.1 package set can do so from the 2.29.1 mailing list announcement. The next development release, GNOME 2.29.2, is set to be introduced on the 18th of November followed by two more development releases before year's end. The API/ABI and feature freezes for GNOME 2.30/3.0 is coming up in January, which by then we should see many more features showing for the GNOME 3.0 desktop.