GNOME 50 released with much improved Parental Controls and lots more

GNOME 50 “Tokyo” is out now as the latest major update to the popular Linux desktop environment, and there's some big new goodies in this one.

For parents it's quite an important one too, modernising and expanding the parental controls that are available. You can now monitor screen time and set limits, allowing you to have the screen automatically lock when certain limits are reached - or extend their time if needed. This is integrated across various places in the GNOME desktop.

There's also some more focus on accessibility like a reduced motion setting plus:

• A brand new preferences window has an enhanced design and is more consistent with other GNOME apps.
• All settings are now global, eliminating the need to save settings on a per-application basis, such as for web browsers. Settings can, of course, still be saved on a per-application basis when doing so is desired.
• Automatic language switching has been added both for web content and app UI.
• Browse mode has been extended to all document content, and sticky mode has been adjust to automatically turn on for Electron apps. Braille support has also been enhanced.
• Mouse Review can now be used in Wayland sessions.

Lots more in this release like faster thumbnail loading in the file manager along with reduced memory usage, there's been significant improvements to the remote desktop capabilities, and perhaps even more exciting is their work on display handling improvements:

• Improved Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) and Fractional Scaling Support: VRR and fractional scaling have both been improved for GNOME 50, with bug fixes, stability, and user experience improvements. Some distributions enabled these features in previous releases, so many users will have used them already. However, for other distros, these features are now enabled by default in GNOME 50.
  • For users with compatible monitors, VRR provides a tear-free experience where the display’s refresh rate matches the application’s frame rate, resulting in significantly smoother motion.
  • Fractional scaling allows what is displayed on screen to be scaled in increments, to better suit a range of display densities. When it is enabled, users can natively select scales like 125% or 150% in the display settings.
• Low-Latency Cursor in VRR: The mouse cursor now operates independently of the application’s frame rate while VRR is active. This ensures the cursor remains fluid and responsive at the monitor’s maximum refresh rate (e.g., 144Hz) even if a game or professional app is running at a lower frame rate.
• NVIDIA Performance Boosts: Workarounds for NVIDIA driver quirks have been implemented, targeting stuttering and frame-timing issues. The result is noticeably smoother window animations and general desktop fluidity for users with NVIDIA GPUs.

• Next-Gen Color Management: Support for version 2 of the Wayland color management protocol has landed. This provides the technical foundation for creative professionals to achieve higher color accuracy across different apps and hardware.

• HDR Screen Sharing: Building on GNOME’s modern color pipeline, it’s now possible to screen share monitors displaying High Dynamic range (HDR) content. This allows screen recording software to record the screen content with the same vivid colors as displayed on the physical screen.

GNOME seems like it's in a really good place right now, lots of modernisations have been happening over the last few releases that really make it feel a lot better.

Lots more to see in the release notes.