GNOME Shell & Mutter 3.16.0 Released

The final v3.16.0 releases of the GNOME Shell and Mutter window manager are available this Monday afternoon.

The Mutter 3.16.0 and GNOME Shell 3.16.0 releases don't explicitly bring any big changes over the earlier 3.15.x releases, but for these updated key GNOME 3 components there are some big changes compared to GNOME 3.14.

Among the GNOME Shell / Mutter changes made during the 3.16.0 cycle over the past half-year were:

- GNOME Shell improvements to the classic theme.

- VP9 screencasting support.

- Better support for high contrast themes.

- Python 3 support for the GNOME Shell.

- Wayland nested compositor improvements for Mutter.

- Mutter input device configuration work.

- Mutter now uses GTK+ directly for drawing all window decorations.

- Native monitor hot-plugging with Mutter.

- Numerous Wayland support improvements.

- Various other improvements.

With these changes and other improvements throughout the GNOME component stack, GNOME 3.16.0 is shaping up to be a particularly exciting update and will be officially released on Wednesday.