14 DAY TRIAL // The GNOME development team announced today, April 10, that the first point release of the GNOME 3.16 desktop environment will be published on April 15, 2015. GNOME 3.16.1 is the first maintenance release of the acclaimed desktop interface, bringing several improvements and updated translations.
While the GNOME 3.16 desktop environment has been unveiled on March 25, 2015, numerous distributions of GNU/Linux still use the GNOME 3.14 version. Arch Linux is among the first operating systems to include the final GNOME 3.16 packages in their software repositories.
Each time a major version of the GNOME desktop environment is released, it takes approximately 2-3 weeks for distribution developers to compile all the GNOME core components and applications for their Linux kernel-based operating systems, supporting both 64- and 32-bit platforms.
In the coming days, we should see an abundance of GNOME 3.16.1 packages, as many of its components will be updated. Most probably, the Arch Linux developers will make the GNOME 3.16.1 packages available in the default software repositories of the distribution by the end of the month.
GNOME 3.16 will have a second maintenance release, GNOME 3.16.2, which will be made available to users worldwide in May 2015. Until then, the development cycle of the GNOME 3.18 desktop environment will begin, so make sure that you watch this space for regular updates.