14 DAY TRIAL // The elementary team proudly announced today the official availability of the elementary OS 5.1 "Hera" operating system, a major update that adds many improvements and new features, as well as updated components and fresh new artwork.
elementary OS 5.1 "Hera" is the culmination of one year of hard work, during which the development team implemented out-of-the-box Flatpak support to make it easier and secure for users to install third-party apps that are not available in the AppCenter, but are essential for their everyday tasks.
For this, elementary OS 5.1 comes with Sideload, a new, in-house built graphical utility that lets you install Flatpak apps with single click. In addition, elementary OS 5.1 adds Flatpak support to the AppCenter so that users can manage Flatpak apps alongside regular applications from the official repositories.
"Rather than encouraging users to drop to a Terminal, add inherently insecure PPAs, or install packages that end up getting root access to the system, we’ve created a new core elementary OS utility called Sideload to make it extremely easy to sideload Flatpak apps," said Cassidy James Blaede, co-founder and CXO of elementary.
On top of that, the AppCenter received numerous under-the-hood updates that will make more performant when running multiple tasks and 10 times faster than in elementary OS 5.0 "Juno". The AppCenter also gained a loading animation for screenshots on app listings, which now support different app sources, improved offline support, and new forward/back navigation buttons.
Major updates to System Settings, new first-run experience, and more
One of the first things users will notice in elementary OS 5.1 "Hera" is the brand new first-run experience as the development team redesigned the login and lock screens to make them look sharper, work better on HiDPI displays, notify of Caps or Num Lock enablement, make "Log In as Guest" more distinct, and provide a more intuitive user switcher.
On top of that, there's also a new Onboarding app that makes it easier for newcomers to set up their brand-new elementary OS 5.1 machines. This will allow you to manage privacy settings, enable Night Light, set the system to automatically clean temporary or deleted files, or install all of your favorite apps. Onboarding also works for existing Juno users who will upgrade to Hera.
Among noteworthy changes introduced in the elementary OS 5.1 "Hera" release, we can mention major improvements around the System Settings panels, including Sound settings, Mouse & Touchpad settings, Desktop Appearance settings, Displays settings, Bluetooth settings, Date & Time settings, Language & Region settings, Network settings, Power settings, as well as Security & Privacy settings.
Almost all the default elementary OS apps received various improvements as well in this major update, such as a redesigned Calendar app, faster and more compatible Camera app, and NextCloud integration in the Files app, . Last but not least elementary OS 5.1 "Hera" brings better hardware support, updated artwork, and all the latest security updates. You can download elementary OS 5.1 right now from the official website.
