Honestly, not much changed since GNOME 40.
Is it a bad thing? No
Do I want more changes? Also no
The only thing missing from GNOME for me is proper dynamic tiling. I'm trying Forge extension, but it feels clunky
this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2026
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Dropping X11 seems huge.
How many people were using X11 on GNOME?
Yes, it's technically a huge change, but regular user won't see a difference
Removing technical debts cannot be overestimated.
Yeah forge is what I use too and it’s definitely a little clunky. PaperWM was decent last time I tried it too (but still a little clunky)
not much changed
Except for removing 40% of the code base in this release.
Is that % real? That’s impressive. Was it the removal of X11? That should make the DE feel lighter, hopefully.
GNOME has a bunch of legacy code… it’s only of the things that has me interested in Cosmic OS. That and Rust, lol.
Yes, that 40% comes from the removal of X11 support.
I don't know if any of that code even ran in a Wayland session, and makes a difference.
But what it does is take 40% load of the maintainers who can invest their time elsewhere now.
Fair, I just find that number super high, 40%. Is that official, or an estimate from you?
I think they just disabled the session since the last version of GNOME and now they removing the code completely, but you’re absolutely right, it is good that the devs can now move on from maintaining that old code to focusing exclusively on Wayland. I’m more excited about this update now, thank you!
I remember reading it's 40% in an article, but now I can't find it anymore, so take it with a grain of salt.
From a non techical user perspective.
I used unmodified GNOME 40 and 49 for a week. There were few changes, I could absolutely see myself using the older version and not missing much.
In my opinion GNOME 4X is as good as linux DEs get. I would like to see some popular extensions getting official support and native dynamic tiling, but besides that it's hard to see room for improvement.
Removing X11 is a big deal, but most users won't see it as such.
Mosaicwm is great, even if still on early development.
I must check it out, thanks
Did you ever use Material Shell?
That is likely to come now that they have removed all support for X11. Apparently the legacy code was preventing properly integrating a tiling system.
du
du hast
du hast mich
😂
I can't for the life of me get used to Gnome on my desktop. I tried so many times, but I always get the feeling of using a tablet.
I like the concept, but it's simply a laptop or tablet centered DE, at best.
Do you use any extensions? I hated Gnome when I first started using Linux but now I prefer it over alternatives.
My extensions
The reason why Gnome doesn't feel at home with a mouse is because it's keyboard-centric which also works for touch gestures as a result of their convergence efforts.
It is a change in workflow for sure (mouse-centric > keyboard-centric), but once understood it is, I’m, much faster than the alternative.
I especially waited for the Parental control features to land in GNOME 50. Great to see they made it into the release. Now I don't need aditional tools to enforce bedtime for my son.
Document annotations in the Document viewer is also a nice thing. But I would rather have proper Signing support via certificates for professional use cases.
It would be nice to see web filtering as part of it. A DNS like 1.1.1.3 can easily be bypassed.
I think that this should be done on the network level by providing a DNS Server via DHCP or include filtering in your router if you are afraid of users changing the DNS Server (but maybe it's better to lock the network settings in this case).
But I see that not every User has the possibility or ability to do it this way. therefor having the option to do it in the OS is feasible for these users.
That becomes useless as soon as the child discovers the hotspot feature on their phone.
As soon as the kids get smart enough to circumvent such measures, they hopefully know their way arround the Internet
Most other circumventions require the child to know what they're doing, while a mobile hotspot is something they would naturally use when outside of the house.
I fucking love Gnome over any other DE. I do hate how they try to fucking block using flameshot, otherwise, best distro in the linux world.
unfortunately flameshot uses some wlroots extensions that no DEs seem to use , I have a ton of window rules attempting to work around it on plasma
The KDE screenshot application is super nice though, what does flameshot have that it doesn't?
I really liked the built in light editing tools, they were a bit more advanced than the ones KDE provides. But I seem to be fine with KDE spectacle at the moment.
just personal preference, I like imgur upload because I use a social site or two that do not host any content in a cdn of their own. I've scripted my own upload in the past but it was unsatisfying
Yeah, going around with that hackaton to make it work is a real PITA. Unfortunately, that's the most enticing screen shot app in existence, in my opinion. I ended up just using the Gnome SC app and making it open satty to edit and then decide to copy or save. It does the job, requires very little tweaking, but it's certainly not flameshot.
Isn’t flameshot deprecated?
In any case it is not surprising since GNOME is moving towards full Wayland on this update too, the project expects all devs to focus exclusively on Wayland now.
I’ve been very happy with Gradia for screenshots.
Oh my God, thank you so much. That looks awesome. I'll certainly take it for a spin.
As for flameshot, I'm not sure, but last I heard it was still being developed and maintained.
Headless remote desktop is nice as well
Are windows full circles now? /s
It's funny to me how enormous the radius is on window corners. It's kind of hard for me to take it seriously.
And the padding. Legit when the corner of a terminal makes the bottom line of text difficult to read, they have gone too far
The Kerberos Auth for RDP sounds really nice. I cant wait to try that out
Oh no.