GNOME 51 Release Candidate is Available for Testing

GNOME 51, the Linux desktop expected to be default in Ubuntu 26.10 and Fedora Workstation 45, now is available for RC testing!

The developer team announced this RC release last night. While, the GNOME 51 Final release is scheduled for September 16th in next week.

With the last Alpha and Beta releases, GNOME 51 introduced many exciting new features, including:

Add “New Document” context menu.
Add standard API for apps to apply background blur effect.
Option to set touchpad disable while typing timeout.
Initial support for reduced-motion setting.
New fingerprint management interface.
SVG-based cursor implementation.
Support changing touchpad scroll speed.
Option to disable a touchpad when a mouse is plugged in.
Remove the code for legacy NVIDIA drivers support.

The new RC release includes primarily bug-fixes, translation updates, as well as some minor new features.

The GNOME Remote Desktop now supports Kerberos multi-user remote login, meaning multiple users can remotely establish their own GNOME sessions on a Linux machine, with their identities authenticated through Kerberos.

And, it can now handle remote graphical logins for users who have already authenticated using Kerberos.

The remote desktop feature also added support for smartcard redirection, meaning a smartcard connected to the client computer can be made available to the remote GNOME session.

As you may know, GNOME is moving away from the legacy gnome-keyring toward a modern new Rust-based alternative called oo7-daemon. The RC release updated Fedora’s PAM rules makes the login process work with that newer infrastructure.

gnome login screen handled by gdm

GNOME Calendar now supports drag’n’dropping events on top of other events. When an event is focused, pressing Ctrl+Tab focuses the month cell behind it. And, when a month cell is focused, pressing Shift+Tab now focuses the first event in front of it.

The Night Light feature now supports hardware with CTM but no GAMMA_LUT, meaning it now works on Apple Silicon and certain other ARM-based devices.

Nautilus, aka GNOME Files, added a new keyboard shortcut to focus file chooser filename entry. It also added rename, trash and folder opening functionality to previewer.

Other changes in GNOME 51 RC include:

Add zstd format support.
Use glycin to load and cache background images.
Option to set custom pointer acceleration profile.
New GDM_AUTH_SESSION_ID variable for remote sessions and smartcard redirection.
More actions and shortcuts in Gnome Sushi file previewer.