GNOME Shell 43 beta is now available in the Ubuntu 22.10 daily builds.
If you read this blog regularly — you’re certifiably awesome if you do — you’ll have a good idea on the new features GNOME 43 has to offer. The big one for me is the new version of GNOME Shell and its Quick Toggles system menu.
GNOME devs have radically redesigned the system menu to be more useful, more modern, and more versatile. The utilitarianism of the ‘masonry layout’ previous builds used gives way to interactive pills. You can click on a pill to enable/disable its function instantly, and if more menus are available you can access those too.
I’ve tweeted about this menu a lot cos, simple: I love it. I can now switch Wi-Fi networks from the system menu (no more full-screen network picker). I can change audio device ad-hoc without needing to open the Settings app. The menu also lets me change input device as well, though the input slider only appears if a mic is in use.
Don’t mind the gap on the left of the quick toggles menu, though. This isn’t empty on laptops; battery status (icon plus percentage) is displayed in the the quick toggle menu (I guess I should stop referring to it as quick toggles but old habits).
Ubuntu’s Yaru uses a light GNOME Shell theme by default so the overall visual impression the new system menu makes a little diluted.
Upstream GNOME Shell uses a dark shell theme and it just looks a bit better over all, to my eyes at least. Ubuntu’s gauche orange compliments dark backgrounds but is a bit intense against light (though we can change accent colour now, so easily fixable).
As for the rest of GNOME 43 beta, most of it’s in place in the daily builds with proposed enabled. Though, as discussed, GNOME’s “Device Security” panel isn’t enabled, and To Do is no longer included.
The newly adaptive Nautilus is present though, is the latest version of the new Text Editor application, and an updated version of the default Calendar app with a neat new sidebar,.
And that’s basically it for now. The remaining parts of GNOME 43 will (I hope) filter on in over the coming days to round off what looks to be an excellent upgrade. A number of performance improvements will also ship as part of GNOME 43 (and Mutter) to deliver a smoother experience for all.
If you run Ubuntu 22.10 daily you’ll get these updates in the next few days, or you can get them earlier by enabling the proposed repository but, be aware, that’s not currently advised (see comments).