GNOME has been evolving at a breakneck pace. And no recent release proved that more than 40, where the entire workflow was reconfigured and reworked. For those that have experienced the shift that was brought about by that major release, every update since has been nothing more than minor tweaks.

And although GNOME 41 isn’t bringing into the picture a similar overhaul, it still adds some important improvements to the desktop.

Such improvements include a revamped GNOME Software that brings to life a much livelier landing page and updated app categories. New-to-Linux users should find GNOME Software much easier to locate the software they need to install. Another feature is the ability to adjust power profiles directly from the Status Menu. Enable the Power Saver when you’re running on battery, or the Balanced profile when you need more juice for games or recourse-intensive applications.

All of the default GNOME apps (Calendar, Calls, Connections, Files, and Music) have received some much-needed tweaking (either in functionality or appearance) and the GNOME Settings tool now has a new Multitasking section, where you can configure Hot Corners, Active Screen, and Workspaces.

Although GNOME 41 has yet to hit the repositories for the majority of Linux distributions that use the desktop, you can always use a rolling release distribution like Arch Linux. The first major distribution that will ship with GNOME 41 will most likely be Fedora 35. For those that can’t wait, you can always download the GNOME OS 41 ISO or a Fedora Rawhide image.