GNOME Project unveils latest version of Linux and Unix desktop

September 9, 2005 The GNOME Project announced today the release of the latest version of its free desktop environment for Linux and Unix operating systems. Version 2.12 of the GNOME Desktop has several new features including an updated look and feel, an improved file manager, a new "About Me" panel to keep a user's personal information and Evince, a new PDF and PostScript document viewer. Several components comprising the GNOME Desktop, including its Web browser, e-mail client, and multimedia applications, have also undergone significant changes.

Owen Taylor, chairman of the GNOME Foundation's board, explained that "GNOME 2.12 looks better than ever before and brings greater consistency." He added that "[t]here are useful new features throughout the desktop, carefully implemented to increase usability while keeping GNOME simple and intuitive."

The GNOME Desktop, which is available in 43 languages, has received some attention over the past few years with large deployments, affecting hundreds of thousands of users, reported in Spain and Brazil and several more on the way in Ireland, the United Kingdom, and China. The Italian South Tyrol province of Bolzano reported only a few days ago that 16,000 students would now be using the GNOME Desktop in private and public schools. Software vendors such as Real Networks, Mozilla (responsible for the Firefox browser), the Eclipse Project, and VMWare have adopted elements of its developer platform for software development.

More than 500 people, both volunteers and employees of sponsoring companies, make up the GNOME Project, which releases a new version of the GNOME Desktop every six months. The GNOME Foundation provides organizational support to the project.