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The Gnome development team today released version 2.24, the latest release of the popular desktop environment. Version 2.24 is the interface that will be included in the upcoming Intrepid Ibex release in October this year as well as a number of other Linux distributions being released in the last quarter of this year. More on upcoming releases
Gnome 2.24 has a number of new features and changes over previous releases. Among these are:
A new instant messenger
Gnome 2.24 now includes the Empathy instant messaging tool which supports multiple protocols as well as XMPP/SIP audio and video conferencing.
Based on the Telepathy communications network, Empathy includes support for Jabber/XMPP, Google Talk, MSN Messenger and Apple’s Bonjour/Rendezvous local network chat.
Built-in time tracking
Gnome 2.24 also includes a new panel application for tracking time spent on projects. Embedded in the panel, the tool is meant to make it easy to switch between multiple projects and record the time spent on each.
Ekiga 3.0
The latest version of the Ekiga SIP audio and video conferencing client is now included in Gnome 2.24. Ekiga 3.0 features SIP presence support, PBX line monitoring, better video codecs support (H.264, H.263+, MPEG-4 and Theora), accelerated video and optional fullscreen and many SIP-related improvements for robust conferencing.
Better file management
As well as icon and list views, Gnome 2.24 now offers the compact list view, popular in several other desktop environments. Choose the view by selecting View->Compact from the menu (or keyboard shortcut Control+3).
The browser mode also includes tabs which make it easier to switch between open directories.
Deskbar on steroids
The Deskbar in Gnome 2.24 also has a number of new features including a calculator, Google Search and code search, Yahoo! and Wikipedia suggestions plus updating of Twitter and identi.ca.
Deskbar can also no download new plugins from the Deskbar repository.
Screen resolution
As multiple monitors become increasingly popular, Gnome 2.24 has improvements that make it easier to set up multi-headed setups. Gnome 2.24 uses the new XRandR 1.2 specification from X.Org which makes it easy to set up individual monitors in a number of configurations. Changes are applied immediately so no restart of Gnome is needed.
Digital TV
Powered by the GStreamer multimedia framework, Gnome 2.22 introduced digital television (DVB) capabilities into its Movie Player. Determined to make things even better, developers have worked to enhance this support by adding support for multiple DVB tuners (watch multiple channels at once) and better troubleshooting diagnostics.
They have also worked to improve out-of-the-box (zero configuration) support for the majority of infrared remote controls (using the LIRC framework).
Also featuring in Gnome 2.24 is support for high-resolution YouTube videos and support for remote (non-local) text subtitling.
Details on downloading Gnome 2.24 can be found on the announcement page.
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