People claim that there are many (distros) that can well replace Windows or macOS. But apart from the basic operating system, few people have this clear goal, , its sixth major version “Odin” was on August 10, 2021.
The point of Odin is to give people control. Including additional privacy controls, updates related to ease of use and inclusivity, and other minor new features. If you have been considering switching to Linux or looking for a new distribution, then here are the highlights of elementary OS 6.
Obviously, elementary OS 6 has made a “significant” fundamental change to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. As a result, there are a lot of underlying changes, such as Linux Kernel 5.11, showing the OEM logo at startup and a stack of updates with available software.
You may not be interested in understanding the similarities to other Ubuntu distributions; you want to know the differences. The Pantheon desktop environment is the core of the basic user experience, and its changes and the related ecosystem will pique the interest of most people.
So then what’s new?
Introducing Dark Mode
Well, there is now a dark mode option in the appearance settings. You can enable dark mode in elemental OS 6 at any time, or set it to automatically change based on sunset/sunrise or a custom schedule.
elemental OS 6 may be late, but they seem to have gone to great lengths to provide a consistent dark mode across the system.
You will notice dark style theme preferences that match the preloaded apps and the supported apps in .
After installing elementary OS 6, the dark theme preference is right available on the welcome screen.
Notification Improvements
Notifications now support action buttons and icon badges. This is pleasingly convenient.
App Center and Flatpak Support Enhanced
For added privacy and security, elementary OS 6 quickly brings the Flatpak application. Not only pre-installed applications, but also all applications listed as Flatpak packages on AppCenter.
Application Permissions can be managed on a per-app basis from the Settings app.
User cannot use the AppCenter to search/install apps from upstream Ubuntu repositories (software like VLC, GIMP, Blender, Lollypop, etc), however, you will retain full command line access to the repositories.
elementary OS 6 uses Flatpak by default, but Flathub doesn’t work out of the box. Fortunately, App Center can handle *.flatpakref* files .
Multi-Touch Gestures
multi-touch support in elementary OS 6 is available. A three-finger swipe up opens the multitasking view, and a three-finger swipe left or right will seamlessly switch between workspaces.
Touch screen users also get to use gesture interactions, which you can totally navigate through the system.
Task app (compatible with CalDav provider); Mail client rewritten (using open source Evolution Data Server to connect accounts that currently only support IMAP). Meanwhile, the Camera app gets a UI redesign
… and Other Significant Improvements !
However, here are the top-level overview of the major changes in elementary OS 6 :
-
(including schedule support)
-
Accent colours (including auto-derived)
-
Multi-touch gesture support
-
New *Universal Access* indicator
-
Improved notifications and notification centre
-
Rewritten *Mail* app
-
New *Tasks* app
-
Flatpak is default format in App Center
-
Sideload utility to install .flatpakref files
-
New app Permissions pane in *System Settings*
-
Support for installing firmware updates from LVFS
-
Download elementary OS 6
You can get the latest version from their website.
Note that, you can’t upgrade to elementary 6 from 5.1 directly, which means a fresh install is necessary if you want to use it.
