The GNOME Project has released GNOME 49.2, the second point update for the GNOME 49 desktop environment. This version arrives one and a half months after GNOME 49.1 and includes enhancements for sticky keys, tiled monitors, and various bug fixes. It aims to improve stability and usability across multiple components.
GNOME 49.2 marks the latest maintenance release for the GNOME 49 “Brescia” series, focusing on refinements to user interface and system behaviors. Key improvements include better handling of sticky keys and tiled monitors, which should enhance accessibility and multi-display setups. Developers also added support for ignored modifiers during key and button grabs on X11, alongside extended layouts in the on-screen keyboard tailored for German and Austrian users.
The update introduces practical tweaks, such as sorting the login screen's session list by display name and reducing memory consumption from thumbnails in the Nautilus file manager. Loopback devices now sort correctly in Nautilus, and the Loupe image viewer's Ctrl + 3, 3 shortcut now zooms precisely to 300%, fixing a prior mismatch to 200%.
Numerous bugs have been addressed to boost reliability. These fixes cover issues like lock screen notifications for MPRIS clients, incorrect network icons during connectivity loss, and zombie processes from the VPN authentication helper. Other resolutions tackle freezes on modifier-only layout switches, glitches in list search results, erroneous swipe gestures in right-to-left locales, and delays in applying KMS property changes. Global shortcut keys no longer get stuck in Xwayland windows, and a misplaced separator in the dash after unpinning apps has been corrected.
GNOME Software sees enhancements too, including visible version history for Flatpak apps, proper handling of offline updates to convert shutdowns to reboots, and redirection of GNOME Boxes temporary files to /var/tmp. Epiphany browser updates ensure the action bar appears in narrow mode and URLs decode consistently in the UI. Additional fixes improve GDM's X11 fallback on autologin failures, refine the Wi-Fi QR code dialog in Settings, handle unset XDG directories in Nautilus, and resolve a regression in Orca's table navigation switching to focus mode.
This release will soon appear in repositories of major GNU/Linux distributions, providing users with a more polished desktop experience.