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It’s been a long road to elementary OS 6—what with a whole global pandemic dropped on us in the middle of development—but it’s finally here. elementary OS 6 Odin is available to download now. And it’s the biggest update to the platform yet! With OS 6, we’ve focused in on:
Empowering you to be in control and express yourself, Continuing to innovate with new features, and Making elementary OS easier to get and more inclusive
Be in Control & Express Yourself elementary OS is designed to be easy to use, get out of your way, and not leave the hard decisions to you. At the same time, it exists to empower you to take control of your own devices and data. That’s why we’ve always had an unmatched commitment to privacy:
Your data always belongs to you, and only you. We don’t make advertising deals or collect sensitive personal data. We’re funded directly by our users paying what they want for elementary OS and apps on AppCenter. And that’s how it should be.
With OS 6, we’re empowering you further with new ways to stay in control of your experience—plus new ways to express your own unique style and preferences.
Dark Style & Accent Color Get ready to turn down the lights, because Dark Style is here for elementary OS 6. The new visual style is available right from the Welcome screen or at any time from System Settings ? Desktop ? Appearance. Choose the classic Default style or a new Dark style, and the system and default apps will follow suit. Third-party apps are encouraged to follow this new preference, though we avoid breakage by not forcing it; if your favorite app doesn’t follow along, be sure to report that to its developer. Dark style can also be scheduled to follow sunset and sunrise for your location, or based on your own schedule.
We’ve also added 10 new accent colors to elementary OS, affecting everything from suggested action buttons and switches to text selection focus styles—and the new automatic accent color preference picks an accent color from your current wallpaper. elementary OS 6 is the most customizable version to date, enabling you to completely change the look by playing with different wallpapers, visual styles, and accent colors.
elementary OS 6 is the most customizable version to date, enabling you to completely change the look.
These new features are made possible by a complete redesign and rewrite of the elementary OS system stylesheet. We revisited every detail from contextual shading and contrast to shadows, strokes, and border radii. The end result ensures much better contrast throughout the whole OS while enabling unprecedented customization.
Sandboxing & Portals elementary OS 6 leverages cutting-edge sandboxing technology to enforce privacy and security protections at a technical level. In OS 6, all AppCenter apps are now packaged and distributed as Flatpaks, a modern container format that keeps apps siloed away from each other—and your sensitive data. Several default elementary OS apps are now being distributed as Flatpaks as well.
In addition, elementary OS 6 utilizes Portals to keep you in control of how apps interact with each other and your data. Apps must explicitly request permission in a well-defined way e.g. to get access to files or launch other apps. A new Permissions view in System Settings ? Applications exposes all the permissions apps have requested and gives you control to override or revoke them.
These protections are in place for apps installed from AppCenter, but importantly also apply to all apps installed via the built-in Sideload utility—including all third-party Flatpak apps from external sources like Flathub or a developer’s own website. With these protections built in and elementary OS 6 being Flatpak-first, it’s easier and safer than ever to get and use the apps you need.
New Features It wouldn’t be a new OS release without exciting new features to improve your experience, and OS 6 delivers on that front.
Multi-touch One of the most pervasive new features for touch screen and touchpad users is the new multi-touch support throughout elementary OS 6. A three-finger swipe up smoothly opens the Multitasking View, exposing open apps and workspaces. A three-finger swipe left or right smoothly switches between the dynamic workspaces, making it even faster to jump between tasks.
But it’s not just the desktop that has multi-touch support; we’ve worked to bring smooth and intuitive two-finger multi-touch gestures into apps as well. Swipe through paged layouts like screenshots in AppCenter, months in the Date & Time indicator, or steps in the Initial Setup and Welcome screens. Swipe to dismiss notification bubbles on screen or in the Notification Center. Swipe to go back in Web, System Settings, and several other apps. And smoothly swipe between users on the login/lock screen greeter.
These new multi-touch gestures make elementary OS 6 faster and smoother to navigate on a touch screen or touchpad—all while ensuring each interaction is just as easy with a traditional mouse and keyboard as before. Multi-touch gestures can be customized from System Settings ? Mouse & Touchpad ? Gestures.
Notifications elementary OS has always provided desktop notifications, but OS 6 brings a redesign and under-the-hood rewrite with richer, more capable notifications than ever.
Notification bubbles now feature badge capability, enabling apps to send richer information like a visual status indicator while ensuring you always know which app a notification is coming from. Apps can also now send actions along with notifications, which are displayed as buttons right within the notification bubble—it’s easier than ever to not only be informed by apps, but to take quick actions without ever needing to open the app.
Many more features and updates to this latest release of elementary OS!
