GNOME 42.beta released

[Abderrahim Kitouni <akitouni gnome org>]

Hello,

GNOME 42.beta is now available. It also marks the start of the UI,
feature and API freezes (collectively known as The Freeze). String
freeze is also in effect now. If you'd like to target the GNOME 42
platform, this is the best time to start testing your apps or
extensions.

You can use the 42beta branch of the flatpak runtimes, which is now
available on Flathub beta.

This release adds libadwaita, which contains building blocks for
modern GNOME applications. It also adds gtksourceview version 5 and
libsoup version 3.

Clutter libraries,  which were deprecated in GNOME 41, have been
removed. gtksourceview version 4 (for use with gtk 3) and libsoup
version 2.4 are still in the runtimes but they are deprecated and will
be removed in a future release.

An installer image is also available for testing and porting extensions

https://os.gnome.org/download/42.beta/gnome_os_installer_42.beta.iso

This is meant to be installed in a virtual machine with EFI support
(such as the GNOME Boxes version available on Flathub). You can also
try to install it on bare metal but be warned that hardware support is
very limited.

If you want to compile GNOME 42.beta yourself, you can use the
official BuildStream project snapshot:

https://download.gnome.org/teams/releng/42.beta/gnome-42.beta.tar.xz

The list of updated modules and changes is available here:

https://download.gnome.org/core/42/42.beta/NEWS

The source packages are available here:

https://download.gnome.org/core/42/42.beta/sources/

WARNING!
--------
This is beta quality software. This release is intended for GNOME
developers and beta testers. For more information about GNOME 41,
including the full schedule, please see our wiki page:

https://www.gnome.org/start/unstable


Cheers,

Abderrahim Kitouni
GNOME Release Team