The second beta of the next GNOME release has arrived full of bug fixes and updates. Many of the standard packages have been updated for GNOME 2.32 Beta 2 (2.31.91) and more translation work has been done.

"This is 2.31.91, and it's out! It's the second beta of what will be GNOME 2.32, enjoy every moment of it, the next beta (2.31.92) will arrive in two weeks," GNOME said in an email announcement.

"With this release we are now string frozen : No string changes may be made without confirmation from the i18n team and notification to release team, translation team, and documentation team," the announcement added.

While the announcement mentions another beta, the official plan is still to have a release candidate version in two weeks and a final release by the end of the month.

GNOME 2.32 is slated to be the last release in the venerable 2.x line. GNOME 3.0 was initially slated to be release this month, but was pushed back for another six months to ensure that it is up to par.

Highlights of GNOME 2.31.91 (2.32 Beta 2):

· GConf 2.31.91;
· GLib 2.25.15;
· GTK+ 2.21.7;
· Libbonobo 2.31.91;
· Brasero 2.31.91;
· Cheese 2.31.91;
· Empathy-2.31.91;
· Eog 2.31.91;
· Epiphany 2.30.5;
· GNOME Terminal 2.31.91;
· Rygel 0.7.7;
· Vino 2.31.91;
· Various internal GNOME packages have also been updated.

The GNOME 2.32 Release Schedule:

August 18th, 2010 - Beta 1 release;
September 1st, 2010 - Beta 2 release;
September 15th, 2010 - Release Candidate;
September 29th, 2010 - Final release.

GNOME 2.32 Beta 2 (2.31.91) is available for download here on Softpedia. Note that this is a beta release and should only be used for testing purposes.