The GNOME project today announced the release of GNOME 49 “Brescia”, a major new version of this popular open-source desktop environment. GNOME 49: Best New FeaturesGNOME 49 features new default apps, new lock screen features, smoother interface animations and a glut of usability and accessibility improvements. GNOME 49 is the first version of the desktop to not support running on Xorg/X11 by default. Distro makers and packagers can choose to re-enable X11 support in GNOME 49 at build-time, but the ‘official’ release has disabled it. Getting GNOME 49Linux users will find GNOME 49 shipped out-of-the-box in upcoming Linux distribution releases like Fedora Workstation 43 and Ubuntu 25.10.