Since its launch last year, elementary OS 8.0 has picked up a steady stream of updates, fixes and refinements, all of which are bundled up and baked in to the an updated installer image.
Elementary OS 8.0.2 is based on the Ubuntu 24.04.3 release, powered by a newer Linux kernel and GPU driver set. Linux 6.14 delivers lots of improvements, not least in gaming performance by way of a new ntsync subsystem and support for more gamepads.
Beyond those underpinnings, this minor release adds major accessibility improvements to the OS installer. “Before Installing”, “Try or Install”, “Choose a Disk,” and “Encryption” views all improve their labels for screen reader support, and password quality is read aloud.
The default Music app improves queue management, handles large playlists with less stress, gains new context menu actions, makes it possible to search by track name, and now saves and restores queue playback position between session.
As a fan of gawping at album art on my desktop, I’m stoked to see cover art now appears in media controls in the sound applet, as one would expect.
The Terminal app includes a bunch of bug fixes, including an issue that caused keyboard focus to not be inside the first tab when opening a new window, incorrect line breaks when pasting or dropping text with a process running, and window sizes looking “odd” on certain display sizes.
A variety of other small changes, improvements and fixes come zipped up inside of the new image, detail on which can be found in the official announcement blog post from distro lead Danielle Fore.
This is the final minor release for the 8.0 series as efforts turn to getting the next major update, elementary 8.1 ready for release before year’s end
Download elementary OS 8.0.2
Those who already use elementary OS 8.0 should have all of the changes in the 8.0.2 release already installed (including the new kernel) as they’ve been released bit-by-bit over the past few months.
This release is more like an Ubuntu point release: the draw is in rolling up all of the updates issued since the last ISO (to reduce the amount of updates that need to be installed after installation) and providing a newer Linux kernel for new devices to boot from.
Unlike most Linux distros, users download elementary OS on a pay-what-you-want basis. It can be downloaded for free by entering zero in the ‘custom price’ box, but the idea is you pay something for the time and effort that goes into making it.
Elementary OS 8.0.2 is available for Intel/AMD devices, with minimum system specs requiring a 64-bit dual-core processor, 4GB RAM, and 32GB of disk space. The greater your laptop, PC, or SBC specs, the better the end-user experience should be.