GNOME

GNOME (/ɡəˈnoʊm/, /ˈnoʊm/) is a free and open-source desktop environment for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems.

Many major Linux distributions, including Debian, Fedora Linux, Ubuntu, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and SUSE Linux Enterprise distribute GNOME as their default desktop environment; it is also the default in Oracle Solaris, a Unix operating system.

GNOME is developed by the GNOME Project, which is composed of both volunteers and paid contributors, the largest corporate contributor being Red Hat. It is an international project that aims to develop frameworks for software development, to program end-user applications based on these frameworks, and to coordinate efforts for the internationalization, localization, and accessibility of that software.

In 2023/2024, GNOME received 1 million Euros from Germany's Sovereign Tech Fund.

Since GNOME 2, productivity has been a key focus for GNOME. To meet this end, the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) were created. All GNOME programs share a coherent style of interfaces but are not limited to the employment of the same GUI widgets. Rather, the design of the GNOME's interface is guided by concepts described in the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines, itself relying on insights from cognitive ergonomics. Following the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines, developers can create high-quality, consistent, and usable GUI programs, as it addresses everything from interface design to the recommended pixel-based layout of widgets.

During the GNOME 2 rewrite, many settings deemed of little value to the majority of users were removed. The guiding principle was outlined by Havoc Pennington – a software developer involved in the project – who emphasized the idea that it is better to make software behave correctly by default than to add a UI preference to get the desired behavior:

GNOME aims to make and keep the desktop environment physically and cognitively ergonomic for people with disabilities. The GNOME Human Interface Guidelines try to take this into account as far as possible but specific issues are solved by special software.

GNOME addresses computer accessibility issues by using the Accessibility Toolkit (ATK) application programming interface, which allows enhancing user experience by using special input methods and speech synthesis and speech recognition software. Particular utilities are registered with ATK using Assistive Technology Service Provider Interface (AT-SPI), and become globally used throughout the desktop. Several assistive technology providers, including Orca screen reader and Dasher input method, were developed specifically for use with GNOME.

The internationalization and localization of GNOME software relies on locale, and supports 197 languages with varying levels of completion, with some not being translated at all.

GNOME Shell is the main graphical shell of GNOME. It features a top bar holding (from left to right) an Activities button, an application menu, a clock and an integrated system status menu. The application menu displays the name of the application in focus and provides access to functions such as accessing the application's preferences, closing the application, or creating a new application window. The status menu holds various system status indicators, shortcuts to system settings, and session actions including logging out, switching users, locking the screen, and suspending the computer.

Clicking on the Activities button, moving the mouse to the top-left hot corner or pressing the Super key brings up the Overview. The Overview gives users an overview of current activities and provides a way to switch between windows and workspaces and to launch applications. The Dash on the bottom houses shortcuts to favorite applications, currently open windows, and an application picker button to show a list of all installed applications. A search bar appears at the top and a workspace list for viewing and switching between workspaces is directly above it. Notifications appear from the top of the shell.

Beginning with GNOME 3.8, GNOME provides a suite of officially supported GNOME Shell extensions that provide an Applications menu (a basic start menu) and a "Places menu" on the top bar and a panel with a windows list at the bottom of the screen that lets users quickly minimize and restore open windows, a "Show Desktop" button in the bottom left corner, and virtual desktops in the bottom right corner. GNOME Classic also adds the minimize and maximize buttons to window headers.

GNOME Classic 3.36 (March 2020)

GNOME Classic 3.12 with GNOME Files (March 2014)

GNOME Flashback is an official session for GNOME 3. Based on GNOME Panel and Metacity, it is lightweight, has lower hardware requirements, and uses less system resources than GNOME Shell. It provides a traditional and highly customizable taskbar (panel) with many plug-ins bundled in one package (gnome-applets), including a customizable start menu. It provides a similar user experience to the GNOME 2.x series and has customization capacities built in.

GNOME Flashback consists of the following components:

• Metacity (window manager)
• GNOME Panel – a highly configurable taskbar
• gnome-applets – a collection of useful applets for the GNOME Panel

GNOME Mobile is an initiative within the GNOME project to adapt the GNOME desktop environment, shell, app ecosystem and other related components for use on mobile and touch-based devices such as smartphones and tablets.

GNOME Mobile running on PostmarketOS

Mockups of mobile GNOME Shell views (overview, app grid, system status area)

A mockup of Phosh, the mobile shell developed by Purism and GNOME (May 2018)

There are a large number of GTK-based programs written by various authors. Since the release of GNOME 3.0, GNOME Project concentrates on developing a set of programs that accounts for the GNOME Core Applications. The commonalities of the GNOME Core Applications are the adherence to the current GNOME Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) as well as the tight integration with underlying GNOME layers like e.g. GVfs (GNOME virtual filesystem) and also with one another e.g. GOA (gnome-online-accounts) settings and GNOME Files with Google Drive and GNOME Photos with Google Photos. Some programs are simply existing programs with a new name and revamped user interface, while others have been written from scratch.

The GNOME project provides a suite of software development tools to facilitate the creation of GNOME software. These tools are designed to streamline the development process for the GNOME ecosystem.

1. Integrated Development Environments (IDEs):
   • GNOME Builder: The official IDE developed by the GNOME project, replacing the older Anjuta IDE.
2. User interface design:
   • Cambalache Interface Designer: A Rapid Application Development (RAD) IDE for GTK 3 and GTK 4, serving as the successor to the Glade Interface Designer.
3. Debugging and Documentation Tools:
   • GTK Inspector: Shipped with GTK, this tool allows developers to inspect the widget tree of an application for debugging purposes.
   • Devhelp: A GNOME utility for browsing and searching API documentation.
4. Libraries and Frameworks:
   • libsoup: A library that enables GNOME applications to access HTTP servers.
   • BuildStream: A flexible, extensible framework written in Python for modeling build and CI pipelines using a declarative YAML format.
5. Third-Party Integration:
   • The GNOME ecosystem supports integration options for third-party development tools, expanding the possibilities for developers.

These tools collectively provide a comprehensive development environment for creating software that aligns with the GNOME desktop and its design principles.

GNOME Circle is a collection of applications which have been built to extend the GNOME platform, utilize GNOME technologies, and follow the GNOME human interface guidelines.

GNOME was started on 15 August 1997 by Miguel de Icaza and Federico Mena [es] as a free software project to develop a desktop environment and applications for it. It was founded in part because the K Desktop Environment, which was growing in popularity, relied on the Qt widget toolkit which used a proprietary software license until version 2.0 (June 1999). In place of Qt, GTK (formerly called GIMP Toolkit) was chosen as the base of GNOME. GTK is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), a free software license that allows software linking to it to use a much wider set of licenses, including proprietary software licenses. GNOME itself is licensed under the LGPL for its libraries and the GNU General Public License (GPL) for its applications.

GNOME was formerly a part of the GNU Project, but that is no longer the case. In 2021, GNOME Executive Director Neil McGovern publicly tweeted that GNOME was not a GNU project and that he had been asking GNU to remove GNOME from their list of packages since 2019. In 2021, GNOME was removed from the list. GNOME proceeded to remove mentions of any link to GNU from their code and documentation. The name "GNOME" was initially an acronym for GNU Network Object Model Environment, referring to the original intention of creating a distributed object framework similar to Microsoft's OLE, but the acronym was eventually dropped because it no longer reflected the vision of the GNOME project.

The California startup Eazel developed the Nautilus file manager from 1999 to 2001. De Icaza and Nat Friedman founded Helix Code (later Ximian) in 1999 in Massachusetts; this company developed GNOME's infrastructure and applications and was purchased by Novell in 2003.

During the transition to GNOME 2 and shortly thereafter, there were brief talks about creating a GNOME Office suite. On 15 September 2003 GNOME-Office 1.0, consisting of AbiWord 2.0, GNOME-DB 1.0, and Gnumeric 1.2.0, was released. Although some release planning for GNOME Office 1.2 was happening on the gnome-office mailing list, and Gnumeric 1.4 was announced as a part of it, the 1.2 release of the suite itself never materialized. As of 4 May 2014^[update], the GNOME wiki only mentions "GNOME/GTK applications that are useful in an office environment".

GNOME 2 was released in June 2002 and was very similar to a conventional desktop interface, featuring a simple desktop in which users could interact with virtual objects such as windows, icons, and files. GNOME 2 started out with Sawfish as its default window manager, but later switched to Metacity in GNOME 2.2. The handling of windows, applications, and files in GNOME 2 is similar to that of contemporary desktop operating systems. In the default configuration of GNOME 2, the desktop has a launcher menu for quick access to installed programs and file locations; open windows may be accessed by a taskbar along the bottom of the screen; and the top-right corner features a notification area for programs to display notices while running in the background. However, these features can be moved to almost any position or orientation the user desires, replaced with other functions, or removed altogether.

As of 2009, GNOME 2 was the default desktop for OpenSolaris. The MATE desktop environment is a fork of the GNOME 2 codebase (see Criticism, below.)

In 2008, an increasing discontent among the community and developers about the lack of project direction and technical progress prompted the announcement of GNOME 3.0. Originally, the plan was to make only incremental changes and avoid disruption for users. This changed when efforts led to the creation of the GNOME Shell.

GNOME 3 was released in 2011. While GNOME 1 and 2 interfaces followed the traditional desktop metaphor, the GNOME Shell adopted a more abstract metaphor with a minimalistic window management workflow, where switching between different tasks and virtual desktops occurs in a separate area called the overview. The Minimize and maximize buttons were hidden by default, leaving only the close button and application name in the window decoration.

GNOME 3 brought many enhancements to core software. Many GNOME Core Applications also went through redesigns to provide a better user experience. Mutter replaced Metacity as the default window manager, and Adwaita replaced Clearlooks as the default theme.

The release of GNOME 3 caused considerable controversy in the GNU and Linux communities. Aiming to provide an easy-to-use and uncluttered user experience has led to some criticized design decisions, like the removal of minimize and maximize buttons, the simplification of configuration options, and visual clues that could lead to confusion.

Several projects have been initiated to either continue development of GNOME 2.x, modify GNOME 3.x to be more like the 2.x releases, or create a desktop environment with a traditional design metaphor entirely from scratch due to the negative reception of GNOME 3:

• The MATE desktop environment was forked in August 2011 from the GNOME 2 code-base with the intent of preserving the traditional desktop metaphor associated with GNOME 2 while keeping compatibility with modern Linux-related technologies, such as Wayland, Systemd, PipeWire, and GTK3.
• The Linux Mint team addressed the issue by developing "Mint GNOME Shell Extensions" that ran on top of GNOME Shell and allowed it to be used via the traditional desktop metaphor. This eventually led to the creation of the Cinnamon desktop environment in 2011, which was forked from the GNOME 3 codebase. Cinnamon became a completely independent desktop environment from GNOME Shell with Cinnamon 2.0 on October 9, 2013.
• The LXDE Project, which was experimenting with a Qt port at the time, merged with the Razor-qt project to form LXQt in 2013. The main developer of LXDE, Hong Jen Lee, cited that the reason he wanted to port LXDE to Qt was due to dissatification with the memory and CPU consumption of GTK3 and GNOME libraries when testing a GTK3 version of LXDE. Hong eventually posted a blog post about how an early build of LXQt used less memory than GTK3-based XFCE.
• Canonical, the company developing Ubuntu, ceased working with the GNOME Shell developers during the GNOME 3 planning phases and released their own desktop environment, Unity, replacing GNOME as the default desktop shell in Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" released in April 2011. Previously, Unity had only been intended for use with the Ubuntu Netbook Edition starting with version 10.10 and a now-canceled edition of Ubuntu called Ubuntu Light. However, Ubuntu has since switched to a modified version of GNOME as of Ubuntu 17.10.
• The Solus Project developed the Budgie desktop environment in response to GNOME 3 in 2014, aiming to provide a simpler and more modern interface. Budgie is built using GTK and GNOME technologies, but offers a different user experience, focusing on providing a lightweight, simple, and elegant user experience.
• The elementaryOS team created the Pantheon desktop environment as a new GTK-based desktop environment distinct from GNOME. Built from scratch, Pantheon aims to provide a user-friendly and visually appealing aesthetic, focusing on a cohesive and minimal design, and integrating tightly with the elementaryOS ecosystem.
• System76, an American computer manufacturer selling computer hardware with Linux preinstalled and the creators of a set of GNOME extensions for their own Linux distribution Pop!_OS known collectively as COSMIC, built a new desktop environment of the same name in Rust. The reasons cited by System76 for building a new desktop environment from scratch included limitations with GNOME extensions as well as disagreements with GNOME developers on the desktop experience, such as with supporting server-side decorations in addition to client-side decorations on Wayland. COSMIC will support both client-side and server-side window decorations, unlike GNOME, which only supports the former.

Among those critical of the early releases of GNOME 3 is Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel. Torvalds abandoned GNOME for a while after the release of GNOME 3.0, saying, "The developers have apparently decided that it's 'too complicated' to actually do real work on your desktop, and have decided to make it really annoying to do". He promptly switched to Xfce.

Over time, critical reception has grown more positive. In 2013, Torvalds resumed using GNOME, noting that "they have extensions now that are still much too hard to find; but with extensions you can make your desktop look almost as good as it used to look two years ago". Debian, a Linux distribution that had historically used GNOME 2, switched to Xfce when GNOME 3 was released, but re-adopted GNOME 3 in time for the release of Debian 8 "Jessie". Ubuntu switched from Unity to GNOME 3 with several extensions to resemble Unity, such as a persistent left application panel instead of a hidden dock and re-enabling desktop icons, with Ubuntu 17.10 Artful Aardvark in 2017. This release also saw the Ubuntu GNOME edition merge with the mainline release. However, Ubuntu Unity was then released, keeping the Unity desktop and continuing to update it.

GNOME 40 was released on 24 March 2021. It immediately follows version 3, but adopts a new versioning scheme and a schedule of future major releases on a fixed six-month cycle (see Release Cycle). With this quicker release cadence, major releases became somewhat leaner, because full rewrites of major packages were not occurring as often as they were in the jumps between GNOME 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 versions.

GNOME 40 organizes the activities overview in a horizontal fashion, instead of using a vertical design like its predecessors. The release also brings new touchpad gestures.

GNOME 40

GNOME 41

GNOME 41 was released on 22 September 2021 and introduced a rewritten and redesigned GNOME Software application manager, a multitasking panel and a mobile network (for WWAN) panel in settings, a new remote desktop app called Connections, updates to GNOME Music app, and improvements to the power mode settings.

GNOME 42 was released on 23 March 2022 and introduced the option to screen record and switch light/dark themes using a new GTK API called Libadwaita. Several default apps were replaced with more modern versions such as Text Editor instead of Gedit and Console instead of Terminal.

GNOME 43 (Guadalajara) was released on 21 September 2022 and introduced a new quick settings menu, a GNOME Files update to GTK4, and a new 'Device Security' panel in settings, among many other changes. GNOME Web was updated, bringing in support for web apps and experimental Firefox and Chrome extension support.

GNOME 44 (Kuala Lumpur) was released on 22 March 2023. Named after Kuala Lumpur in recognition of work done by the GNOME.Asia community, GNOME 44 introduced a new file chooser grid view, updated settings panels, and redesigned accessibility settings. The new quick settings menu introduced in GNOME 43 was updated, alongside the addition of several new apps and improvements to existing apps.

GNOME 45 (Rīga) was released on 20 September 2023. It introduced redesigned app styles alongside a new activities button, which replaced both the previous "Activities" label and the app menu with a graphical workspace indicator. Other updates to the system bar included a new camera usage indicator and a keyboard shortcut to open and close the quick settings menu. GNOME 45 also introduced two new image viewer and camera apps, keyboard backlight controls, and numerous enhancements to existing apps.

GNOME 46 (Kathmandu) was released on 20 March 2024 and featured an enhanced files app with global search, support for headless remote login via GDM, and a refreshed settings app, amongst many other app changes. Other system changes included accessibility improvements and experimental support for variable refresh rates.

GNOME 47 (Denver) was released on 18 September 2024 and featured user-chosen accent color support in Libadwaita applications as well as many other smaller improvements.

GNOME 48 (Bengaluru) was released on March 19 2025, and is included in Fedora 42 and Ubuntu 25.04.

GNOME Panel was a highly configurable taskbar for GNOME. It formed a core part of the desktop in GNOME 1 and GNOME 2. It has been replaced in GNOME 3 by default with GNOME Shell, which only works with the Mutter window manager. GNOME Panel served as Fallback Mode until GNOME 3.8 when Mutter could not be executed, then it was replaced with a suite of officially supported GNOME Shell extensions named GNOME Classic. Now it is part of GNOME Flashback, an official session for GNOME 3 which provides a user experience similar to GNOME 2. In GNOME 3, customizing GNOME Panel is done by pressing the

By default, GNOME Flashback contains two panels (one on the top, and one to its opposite on the bottom) spanning the width of the screen. The top panel usually contains navigation menus labeled "Applications" and "Places" in that order, as the "System" menu from GNOME 2.x has been replaced by a control panel in GNOME 3.x. These menus hold links to common applications and areas of the file system, respectively. A user menu placed on the opposite side of the screen, which has been available since GNOME 2.14 but has become more prominent in GNOME 3.x, holds access to account and system settings as well as options to log out, switch user, and shut down the computer. The top panel usually contains a clock/calendar and a notification area, which can double as a sort of dock, as well. The bottom panel is commonly empty by default (other than a set of buttons to navigate between desktops) due to its use in the navigation between windows (windows minimize to the bottom panel by default).

Users can populate these panels with other completely customizable menus and buttons, including new menus, search boxes, and icons, with the icons in particular (called launchers) performing functions similar to the quick-launch feature found in the Microsoft Windows 98–Vista taskbar. Other applications can also be attached to the panels, and the panels are highly reconfigurable: anything on these panels can be moved, removed, or configured in other ways. For example, a migrating Microsoft Windows user might move the menus usually positioned in the top panel into a 'start' menu on the bottom panel as well as moving the notification area into the place normally positioned by the Windows notification area, then remove the top panel altogether, to interact with GNOME Panel similarly to the Windows taskbar. The version of GNOME Panel available in the repository for Ubuntu 12.04 offers a modified version of Fallback Mode with the addition of a custom theme and ports of Ubuntu's own Indicators from their old GNOME 2.x desktop. Trisquel uses Fallback Mode (Flashback) for its main desktop, because GNOME Shell requires 3D acceleration as it relies on graphics composition, while some free software drivers do not support 3D acceleration, among other reasons like more usability and more stability.

Each of the component software products in the GNOME project has its own version number and release schedule. However, individual module maintainers coordinate their efforts to create a full GNOME stable release on an approximately six-month schedule, alongside its underlying libraries such as GTK and GLib. Some experimental projects are excluded from these releases.

Before GNOME 40, GNOME version numbers followed the scheme v.xx.yy. Here, v is a major version, which can include large changes such as ABI breakage; these have no regular schedule and occur in response to requirements for large-scale changes. xx is a minor version, released on the above schedule of approximately every 6 months, in which the 1- or 2-digit number's parity indicates the type of release: if xx is even (e.g. 3.20) the release is considered stable, whereas if xx is odd, it represents a current development snapshot (e.g. 3.21) that will eventually evolve into the next stable release. yy indicates a point release, e.g. 3.20.6; these are made on a frequency of weeks in order to fix issues, add non-breaking enhancements, etc.

GNOME 40 started a new versioning scheme in which a single number is incremented with each biannual release. The number is followed by a dot and then "alpha", "beta", or "rc" for a development release, or a decimal for a minor stable release (much like the yy mentioned previously).

GNOME releases are made to the main FTP server in the form of source code with configure scripts, which are compiled by operating system vendors and integrated with the rest of their systems before distribution. Most vendors only use stable and tested versions of GNOME and provide it in the form of easily installed, pre-compiled packages. The source code of every stable and development version of GNOME is stored in the GNOME git source code repository.

A number of build scripts (such as JHBuild or formerly GARNOME) are available to help automate the process of compiling the source code.

GNOME is developed by GNOME Project. GNOME development is loosely managed. Since the introduction of Discourse forum in 2019, the discussion moved from mailing lists and in October 2022, the project announced the plan to close all its public mailing lists.

GNOME developers and users gather at an annual GUADEC meeting to discuss the current state and the future direction of GNOME. GNOME incorporates standards and programs from freedesktop.org to better support interoperability with other desktops.

GNOME is mainly written in C, XML, C++, C#, HTML, Vala, Python, JavaScript, CSS, and more. A number of language bindings are available.

The GLib data structures and utilities library, GObject object and type system and GTK widget toolkit comprise the central part of GNOME development platform. This foundation is further extended with D-Bus IPC framework, Cairo 2D vector-based drawing library, Cogl accelerated graphics library, Pango international text rendering library, PulseAudio and PipeWire low-level audio APIs, GStreamer multimedia framework, and several specialized libraries including NetworkManager, PackageKit, Telepathy (instant messaging), and WebKit.

• GNOME Display Manager (GDM), which manages user sessions, X and Wayland alike.
• Tracker automatically searches the specified directories for files and keeps an index of them to provide fast search; heavily integrated into GNOME Shell and GNOME Files
• GVfs, an abstraction layer framework for file systems augmenting GIO; well integrated into GNOME Files and GNOME Disks
• dconf a backend for GSettings
• Mutter, the Wayland compositor and X Window Manager
• Linux color management, udev, etc.
• Evolution Data Server, responsible for managing mail, calendar, address book, tasks and memo information
• Meson is replacing GNU Build System (autotools) as build automation tools of choice
• BuildStream, a distribution agnostic build and integration tool

The GNOME desktop environment does not consist solely of the graphical control element library GTK and the core applications that make use of it. There are quite a few additional software packages that make up the GNOME desktop environment, such as the above.

GNOME runs on Wayland and the X Window System (specifically X.Org). Wayland support was introduced in GNOME 3.10 and deemed "for the majority of users […] a usable day to day experience" by 3.20, at which point Wayland became the default user session. With GNOME 3.24, Wayland compatibility was extended to Nvidia drivers. In GNOME 3.30 or later, it is possible to run GNOME without X running at startup, using only Wayland.

In May 2011 Lennart Poettering proposed systemd as a GNOME dependency. As systemd is available only on Linux, the proposal led to a discussion of possibly dropping support for other platforms in future GNOME releases. Since GNOME 3.2, multiseat support has only been available on systems using systemd. In November 2012 the GNOME release team concluded there will be no compile time dependency on systemd for basic functionality, like session tracking. For non-basic functionality, like power management, compile time dependency is possible. For example, there is no concept of systemd inhibitors in alternatives like consolekit. A package manager may want to ensure that the system is not turned off while the upgrade is taking place.

GNOME OS is an operating system designed to provide a streamlined, container-centric platform that serves as both an experimental testbed and a showcase for GNOME’s user interface and application ecosystem.

• GNOME Foundation
• Adwaita (design language)
• KDE
• Comparison of X Window System desktop environments

• Official website
• GNOME Panel changelog