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As we enter May, we’re excited to announce that Endless OS 6 is available now as a free upgrade for existing users and a free download for new installations! Let’s take a look at what’s new and improved in the latest release of our completely free, user-friendly operating system packed with educational tools, games, and more.
New Features On Endless OS 6
Endless OS 6 remains both familiar to existing users and easy to learn for new users while sporting a few new features and refinements to the experience.
Dark Style & Refined Look
My favorite new feature is the new dark style preference that switches the system into a dark, night-friendly look that’s easier on the eyes in dark environments. Whether you use your computer at night or just prefer the look of a dark style, give it a try from Settings → Appearance or the refreshed system menu at the top-right of the screen.
The new dark style is made possible by a refined look and feel across all the core apps like Files, App Center, Settings, and more that sport a new, flatter design that adapts to both light and dark styles. You’ll notice improved contrast and a more consistent feel across apps.
Since it’s based on established standards, the dark style also works in web browsers including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, GNOME Web, and Chromium, and applies to many third-party apps downloaded from App Center.
Improved Screenshots & Screen Recording
Endless OS 6 comes with a redesigned, easier to use, and more interactive screenshot and screen recording experience. Tapping the PrintScr key or the new icon in the system menu brings up an interactive menu to select an area, app, or screen to take a screenshot or recording of. It even remembers the area you select between uses, making it even easier to take several screenshots for comparison.
It might seem like a niche thing, but we think you’ll like it the next time you want to share a screenshot or recording of something on your screen.
New & Updated Apps
Rounding out the new features in Endless OS 6 are a few new and updated apps. For new installs of Endless OS 6, you’ll now get the clean and simple Music app for listening to a local library plus the new Decibels app to listen to one-off audio files, e.g. to preview a downloaded voicemail or other recording.
Meanwhile, Image Viewer has been updated with a cleaner look, wider image format support including modern formats like HEIC/HEIF and WebP, improved performance, and better support for multi-touch gestures like pinch-to-zoom on touchpads and touchscreens.
Users upgrading from Endless OS 5 will get the new Image Viewer automatically, while the Music and Decibels apps can be installed from App Center.
Under-the-Hood
Endless OS 6 brings substantial underlying updates to the OS. Without getting too nerdy (see the release notes if that’s your thing), updates to the core of Endless OS 6 bring:
improved hardware support
improved audio handling, especially for Bluetooth devices
many security updates and bug fixes
We’ve also improved how Endless OS 6 handles low-memory situations. As a result, you’ll be able to multi-task quite a bit more now before the OS starts closing apps when running on older hardware or less powerful systems.
Game Making
Learning by gaming and making video games has long been a passion of Endless, and with Endless OS 6 we're doubling down on that passion. Endless OS 6 comes with a vast collection of game-making apps and tools right with the full download—tools that work right out of the box, offline, and for a wide range of experience levels.
You get all the creative tools you need to create assets for games from backgrounds and sprites to 3D models and a soundtrack. For example, you can jump right into Blender, the 3D creation suite for modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing, motion tracking, and video editing, plus:
Audacity: the world's most popular audio editing and recording app
Blender Tutorials: learn fundamental tools and concepts in Blender
GNU Image Manipulation Program: full-featured photo editing, image manipulation, and digital painting
Inkscape: rich vector graphics editor for illustration, sprite creation, and more
Pixelorama: 2D sprite editor with animation support
On the coding and development side, Endless OS comes with everything from intro-level block coding to a professional engine. We’re proud to include Godot Engine, the professional-level game engine to easily create 2D and 3D games, plus:
GDevelop: no-code game development software for fast and easy game-making
Scratch: create stories, games, and animations with block-based coding
TurtleBlocks: draw colorful pictures with snap-together visual programming blocks
Endless OS 6 continues to come with educational games, as well. They’re not just time-wasters; these games are explicitly designed to help teach concepts of coding and game development:
Aqueducts: immersive puzzle adventure game where you hack your way to saving the day, learning and practicing variables, conditionals, loops, debugging, JavaScript, math, step by step, booleans, logical sequencing, and more
Dragon's Apprentice: RPG-like puzzle-solving dungeon-crawling game that teaches code blocks, loops, conditionals, and more
Fablemaker: interactive stories where you can customize characters, text, and sounds, hacking into its code in this absorbing and educational app
Frog Squash: help animals survive dangerous obstacles by designing your own AI, learning loops, and controlling conditionals
The Passage: Hack your way through this side scrolling action adventure shooting game
Tank Warriors: Driving, shooting, explosions, and programming all in one game
Get Endless OS 6
Endless OS 6 is a free upgrade for existing users; if you’re already on Endless OS, head to App Center and check for updates to get the latest version. For everyone else, you can download Endless OS 6 for free, or read the release notes to learn more.
Thank you to the free and open source projects and communities of Linux, Debian, and GNOME for many of the improvements we’re shipping in Endless OS 6. We strongly believe in open source, and would not be able to have the impact we do without standing on the shoulders of the projects we build upon.
Cassidy is passionate about helping design and build useful, usable, and delightful products using open technologies. In the past he co-founded elementary OS and served as the chief experience architect, and he's worked as a UX architect, web developer, and writer—and worn many, many other hats. He contributes to GNOME and Flatpak.
Outside of work and open source he enjoys mobile photography, playing video games, watching and reading almost everything Star Wars, and being a dad.