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submitted 3 days ago by KarnaSubarna@lemmy.ml to c/linux@lemmy.ml

GNOME Boxes lead developer Felipe Borges has been overhauling the application with a major rewrite and today announced the new beta release. GNOME Boxes has migrated to using the GTK4 toolkit and libadwaita. The new GNOME Boxes code can also handle installing Microsoft Windows 11 now without needing any manual workarounds for Secure Boot or TPM requirements.

The new GNOME Boxes code also introduces a VSOCK device for accessing VM contexts and other improvements. With the revamped GNOME Boxes, it's also shifting to a Flatpak-first and only model for distributing of new GNOME Boxes releases.

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I had read a blog post about this conflict a week or two ago (and I just pulled up an article by a gnome maintainer to refresh on details).

People are of course allowed to use older versions, but if a distribution, by policy, lags significantly (2-4 years) behind the normal release schedule of a piece of software it distributes, while at the same time leaving feedback pointed towards the original devs, it creates a completely unnecessary burden on the developers.

And regarding the “modifications”, it appears like mint had used the GTK4 library libAdapta instead of libAdwaita now several versions ahead of libAdapta. I don’t know how extensively this effects that app but the point is the user facing experience of the software is being modified by mint. I don’t believe it’s unreasonable for the maintainers to take the responsibility of handling bug reports and such, even if it just acts as a filter for relevant bugs to be reported upstream.

this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2026
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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