GNOME 3.2 Release Candidate Is Here, 'Final' Landing in One Week

GNOME 3.2 is almost here, the team has made available the release candidate version for testing and the final build is expected to land in a week.

If you can't wait for that long or want to help some of the remaining bugs, if any, you can grab the sources and see what the second update to the third major iteration of the GNOME desktop environment looks like.

The GNOME team is done with major revamps for a while, GNOME 3.2 is all about polish, adding new features and improving existing ones.

"It's the last step, it's the release candidate, it's shining gold, it's 3.1.92, it's out! So, what are you waiting for? Download it! Build it! Test it! Try to break it!," the release announcement read.

"The more you are, the more you do, the best we can make GNOME 3.2. Coming next week," it added.

Apart from stability and usability fixes, to be expected after the major GNOME 3 release, there are several new things in GNOME 3.2 as well.

GNOME 3.2 will come with an integrated chat feature enabling users to chat with friends, share files and even take calls from the GNOME shell without the need of any additional apps.

The upcoming release also boasts an integrated login dialog, so GDM 3 will follow the style of your GNOME 3 desktop.

Another useful small tweak is notification counters. This way, you'll know exactly how many new emails or chat messages are waiting for you when you come back to your computer.

Other improvements include a persistent workspace switcher, a better looking window picker, an on-screen keyboard and several others.

GNOME 3.2 (3.1.9x) release schedule:

- August 31st, 2011 - GNOME 3.1.90 Beta
- September 10th, 2011 - GNOME 3.1.91 Beta 2
- Septmeber 21st, 2011 -  GNOME 3.1.92 RC
- September 28th, 2011 - GNOME 3.2.0 stable release

GNOME is available for download here.