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elementary released today elementary OS 6 “Odin” as the latest and greatest version of this beautiful and modern Ubuntu-based operating system for personal computers.
It’s been more than one and half years since elementary OS 5.1 “Hera” arrived, and now we finally get a new major release that brings lots of goodies, updated components, new features, performance improvements, better hardware support, new apps, and much more.
One of the biggest new features of elementary OS 6 “Odin” is the highly and long-anticipated Dark Style or Dark Mode, finally allowing you to turn down the lights on your elementary OS desktop. And, the devs made it super easy to enable, right from the Welcome screen (on new installations) or from System Settings > Desktop > Appearance.
If you though elementary OS was beautiful before, wait until you enable the Dark Style, which can be complemented with 10 (ten) new accent colors that are applied to the entire system. Of course, the Light Style is also there, and you can control whether Dark Style is permanent or only from sunset to sunrise.
The Panel has been enhanced as well in this new release to make it easier for users to use the middle mouse click shortcut for muting the sound, snooze the Night Light, toggle Bluetooth, prompt to shut down, as well as to enable the Do Not Disturb mode, and provide more accessibility features with the new Universal Access indicator.
On top of all that, new desktop features like window titles in the Multitasking View, a new desktop context menu to make it easier to access Display and System settings, as well as to change to wallpaper, and an improved window context menu promise to speed up your workflow.
“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,” says Cassidy James Blaede, Co-founder and CXO at elementary.
Another big change in elementary OS 6 is the fact that all the apps available in AppCenter are now packaged and distributed in the popular Flatpak sandboxing binary format, which makes your desktop more secure. In addition, some of the default elementary OS apps are also distributed as Flatpak apps and you can easily install third-party apps in the Flatpak format, including Flatpak bundles.
Other noteworthy highlights include support for multi-touch gestures for touch screen and touchpad users that work both on the desktop and in apps, as well as redesigned notification system and Notification Center with support for notification bubbles for richer information from apps, urgent notifications, and Dark Style support.
Moreover, elementary OS 6 comes built in with support for firmware updates powered by LVFS (Linux Vendor Firmware Service), allowing users to easily update hardware from manufacturers like 8bitdo, Dell, HP, Intel, Lenovo, Logitech, Star Labs, Wacom, and many others.
As expected, most of the default apps have been updated with new features and improvements, and there’s also a new app called Tasks, which acts as a to-do list app to increase your productivity. You can read more about these app improvements in the official release announcement.
Under the hood, elementary OS 6 is based on Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS (Focal Fossa) and uses the Linux 5.11 kernel series. There’s also a brand new installer designed to be simpler, more straightforward, and much faster, along with a new Initial Setup utility that makes it easier to configure your new elementary OS installation, and a brand new boot splash screen that shows the device manufacturer’s logo (if supported).
elementary OS 6 “Odin” is available for download right now from the official website as an ISO image that you can use to install the operating system on your personal computer, and it will also be available soon on various Linux-powered laptops from Laptop With Linux, Slimbook, and Star Labs.
Images courtesy of elementary
Last updated 3 years ago
