For those wondering whether Debian 13 would see the upcoming GNOME 48 desktop packages given the upcoming Debian 13 “Trixie” development freezes, it looks like this updated GNOME release will be squeezed in.
Debian Developer and Ubuntu Core Developer Jeremy Bicha shared a status update where he confirmed plans for getting GNOME 48 into Debian 13:
“After discussion with the rest of the Debian GNOME team, we decided to target GNOME 48 for Debian 13 “Trixie”. Our goal is to get GNOME 48 RC in before Debian’s Transition Freeze and 48.1 in before Debian’s Hard Freeze.”
So barring any unforeseen problems from coming up, Debian 13.0 when it ships later this calendar year will be using GNOME 48.
Jeremy Bicha also noted that GNOME Papers has been accepted into the Debian repository and in turn the Ubuntu 25.04 repository:
“The Papers app was accepted into Debian Unstable and Ubuntu 25.04. Papers is expected to replace Evince as GNOME’s default PDF viewer app, perhaps later this year.”
GNOME Papers will be available in the Ubuntu 25.04 repository while it sounds like for the Ubuntu 25.10 release is where it could potentially end up replacing GNOME Evince as the default document viewer.
Besides being in Debian Unstable and Ubuntu 25.04 repositories, GNOME Papers is also available in Flatpak form on Flathub for those wanting to try out this new document viewer.
