Being the beginning of the month, it was time to write an article about the news that has occurred in some projects. He Linux Mint October newsletter It was short, and basically stopped at announcing the launch of the Edge ISO with the new kernel. The project led by Danielle Foré has been somewhat (quite) longer, although the core information is a bit the same: a new version of the operating system is available, in this case elementary OS 7.1.
The summary of what was published this October, which also includes the news of the month, is that they have launched that elementary OS 7.1 with improvements that mainly reach the sections of customization, privacy and error correction based on community comments . In total there have been 200+ fixes, design changes and new features.
New in elementary OS 7.1
As for the Privacy, to prevent some applications from starting and starting to do whatever they want when we start the operating system, they have launched the Background & Autostart Portal that will warn when applications are running in the background and will make sure that they ask us for permission before they can Start automatically when you turn on the device. This portal will be used by applications such as Calendar, Mail and the tasks app.
The behavior can be controlled along with that of other applications from the applications/startup settings.
AppCenter and the "sideload"
In elementary OS 7.1, what is known as "sideload" is better supported, a word that can be translated in many ways, but whose meaning is basically installing software from a source other than the official one. AppCenter It supports its own Flatpak packages from the outset, but now it is easier to also install them from Flathub.
Danielle explains that "Our goal with Sideload is to keep you informed and in control when installing apps provided outside of AppCenter. We also want to make sure we balance this with any existing trust relationship you may have with the apps you like. So we've made some changes to the way apps are presented in Sideload and instead of assuming that a sideloaded app is untrusted, we simply ask you to validate your trust.«.
Additionally, they show basic information about the permissions that an application installed from outside AppCenter may request. With all the information, we can now make an informed decision about whether we want to install one of these programs or not.
Housekeeping and temporary accounts
Hosekeeping is an application that has been designed to free up space and protect privacy by automatically deleting old files. In elementary OS 7 you could already choose to automatically clean the trash, downloads and temporary system files at a time that we could program. In 7.1 screenshots have been added to the list.
La guest account of 7.1, its integration process provides information about the operation of this account, making its functions and limitations much clearer.
In a section called Inclusivity and Personalization, Foré talks to us about personalization, but focuses on a question about how different people see colors. Elementary OS 7.1 features options that will improve accessibility Let's see how we see the colors.
Other news from elementary OS 7.1
Among the rest of the new features, the following stand out:
- Multi-touch gestures have been improved.
- Keyboard navigation is another point in which it has improved.
- Login and lock screens now retain mouse, keyboard, and touchpad customization.
- Many fixes throughout feedback of the users.
- Linux 6.2, which supports more modern hardware.
- Improvements in applications and updated software packages such as GNOME Web, Mail, Files, Code, Music and Videos.
- Missed notifications can now have buttons and apps can replace old notifications with new ones instead of adding more and more notifications.
- Tweaks and improvements to the top panel.
- General design improvements.
- More information, in release note.
elementary OS 7.1 can now be downloaded from this link.