Released earlier this month were various [1]GNOME 49 Alpha 0 packages including for GNOME Shell and the Mutter compositor while out this weekend are the "Alpha 1" releases.

On top of the changes found in the Alpha 0 releases a few weeks ago, GNOME Mutter 49 Alpha 1 adds a speed limit on visual alerts, makes logical monitors more persistent, increasing the bias toward smaller scaling factors, adding support for 10/12/16 bit software decoder YUV formats, a fix around high resolution scroll wheel events, applying touchpad acceleration profiles on startup, and various crash fixes and other general bug fixes.

More details on the GNOME Mutter 49 Alpha 1 changes via [2]GNOME GitLab .

GNOME Shell 49 Alpha 1 meanwhile adds support for pad dials, showing the workspace switcher on-screen display across all monitors, adding the "gnome-extensions upload" command for easily uploading GNOME extensions, adding do-not-disturb to quick settings, and adding a dedicated accessibility menu to the login screen. Plus various other bug fixes as outlined on [3]this Git commit .

GNOME 49 Alpha should be officially announced in the coming days followed by the GNOME 49 Beta in early August and the 49 release candidate at the end of August. GNOME 49.0 is expected to be released on 17 September.



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNOME-49-Alpha-0-Packages

[2] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/commit/869722fb197f3e7dc0feae1e190d933df88f8211

[3] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/commit/41c41f9c8930619968b1611334b04f2f4b4b3e6a