GNOME 2.27.90 Is the First Beta of the Upcoming 2.28 Version

The GNOME developers, through Lucas Rocha, have announced early this morning that the first beta for version 2.28.0 of the popular desktop environment is available. Since the developers use odd minor version numbers to mark development releases, they tagged this one with 2.27.90.

"This is the sixth development release, and the first beta, towards our 2.28 release that will happen in September 2009. By now most things are in place, and your mission is easy: Go download it. Go compile it. Go test it. And go hack on it, document it, translate it, fix it." - Lucas Rocha said on GNOME's mailing list.

Highlights of GNOME 2.27.90:

· Cheese gained optimizations for small screens and netbook mode support;
· Gnome Bluetooth now uses newer Linux kernel APIs, has a cleaned-up interface and several bugfixes;
· GStreamer implements many enhancements, and the Base Plug-ins package features better streaming support;
· The Empathy instant messaging client gained desktop sharing support;
· GNOME Virtual File System can now handle large FTP transfers;

For a detailed list with all the bug fixes and improvements in GNOME 2.27.90, please take a look at the official changelog. Below is a list with all the updated packages and their respective versions:

ATK 1.27.90, Brasero 2.27.90, Cheese 2.27.90, Deskbar Applet 2.27.90, Empathy 2.27.5, Eye of Gnome 2.27.90, Epiphany 2.27.90, Evince 2.27.90, Evolution 2.27.90, Evolution Data Server 2.27.90, Evolution Exchange 2.27.90, Evolution Mapi 0.27.90, File Roller 2.27.90, gCalcTool-5.27.90, Gedit 2.27.4, Gnome Applets 2.27.4, Gnome Bluetooth 2.27.9, Gnome Control Center 2.27.5, Gnome Games 2.27.90, Gnome Keyring 2.27.90, Gnome Power Manager 2.27.5, Gnome Themes 2.27.90, GOK 2.27.90, GStreamer Base Plug-ins 0.10.24, GStreamer 0.10.24, GTK+ 2.17.7, GtkHTML 3.27.90, GNOME Virtual File System 1.3.4, Hamster Applet 2.27.90, libgnome 2.27.5, libsoup 2.27.90, Mouse Tweaks 2.27.90, Orca 2.27.90, Pango 1.25.2, Seahorse 2.27.90, Tomboy 0.15.5, Vinagre 2.27.90, Vino 2.27.90, Zenity 2.27.90

The GNOME developers are working hard these days to bring you the GNOME 2.28 release in late September. If you decide to try out this version, be aware that it is a snapshot of development code. Although it is buildable and usable, it is primarily intended for testing and hacking purposes. With that in mind, you can get GNOME 2.27.90 (or the stable 2.26.3 version) right now from Softpedia.