"The GNOME 2.8 Desktop is the latest release of the ever popular, multi-platform free desktop environment.

Every new version of the GNOME 2.8 desktop arrives on schedule, with interesting new features and hundreds of bug fixes. This time GNOME makes it easier to work with removable devices and network servers, and provides valuable new tools for system administrators. We have also adopted the popular Evolution email and workgroup client. You can learn more in the following sections.

GNOME provides a user-friendly environment that "just works" for everyday users, without excess complexity or obscure features. At the same time we provide the rich flexibility experienced developers demand.

GNOME runs on a variety of platforms, including GNU/Linux (commonly called Linux), Solaris, HP-UX, BSD and Apple's Darwin. GNOME includes powerful features such as world-class smooth text rendering, a first-class accessibility infrastructure, and a complete internationalization infrastructure that includes support for bi-directional text.

Of course GNOME 2.8 includes all of the improvements made in GNOME 2.6, which you can learn about in the GNOME 2.6 release notes.

The Desktop release contains all the applications needed to provide basic user functionality. Major applications such as Gnumeric and OpenOffice.org are also available, but are developed in parallel on their own release cycle rather than being included in the core GNOME release."

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