Now the Gnome Foundation has released the final version this popular desktop environment. Gnome 2.22 is is expected to be incorporated into Ubuntu Linux 8.04 (Hardy Heron), Mandriva’s 2008.1 and in forthcoming distributions such as Red Hat’s Enterprise Linux 6 as well as Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Destop 11, according to ZDNet.

According to a DesktopLinux.com survey, Gnome is the most popular desktop environment among Linux users, holding a 45 percent share of the desktop and followed by rival KDE with 35 percent.

Worth noting in this final release is the emphasis the Gnome Foundation has put on accessibility. These improvements include enhanced screenreading and magnification and better mouse accessibility. The foundation is also collaborating with Mozilla.org to include the Orca screen reading technology. Orca offers better support for rich internet applications and live regions. The update also features new support for level 3 braille, enhanced screen magnification for smother scrolling and support for colourblind filters.

Gnome 2.24

Of course work doesn’t stop here and the Gnome team has already highlighted some of the planned feaures for Gnome 2.24, due out in six months time. These include:

- a new version of GNOME’s Ekiga VoIP client featuring a revamped user interface and SIP presence support;
- the Empathy instant messaging client utilising the Telepathy communications framework;
- the often requested column and list views in GNOME’s File Manager;
- the completion of the port from GNOME-VFS to GVFS; and
- bug fixes, performance improvements, and memory improvements throughout the desktop.