I have spent the last two years rebuilding GNOME Boxes from the ground up, driven by three main factors. I spoke extensively about this effort in my recent Linux App Summit, GUADEC 2025 and 2026 talks, but today I am excited to share the result for general testing.
First, shifting to a Flatpak-first (and only) model. As a solo developer, maintaining code paths for countless distributions isn’t sustainable. Since Boxes acts as a frontend for libvirt/qemu, its functionality relies heavily on the backend configuration. Flatpak lets me bundle the entire virtualization stack, giving me the control I need to fine-tune it for our specific use cases.
Second, migrating Boxes to GTK4 and Libadwaita. Beyond the obvious benefits (a modern UI, better responsiveness, and tighter desktop integration) this makes the codebase significantly easier to maintain. This transition required moving away from the GTK3-based SPICE display widget, which was too tightly coupled to older input and drawing methods. We’ve replaced it with Libmks, which has proven to be a solid alternative.
Lastly, modernizing the codebase to make it sustainable for new contributors. That meant adopting modern GNOME app design patterns and rethinking our underlying architecture.
I am now ready to share this work with a wider audience. However, please keep in mind that this is a Beta release meant for testing, not for production environments. If you plan to try it out, make sure to back up any important data in your virtual machines first.
If you want to test this new implementation of GNOME Boxes, you can set up the GNOME Nightly Flatpak Repository and install it with:
flatpak install org.gnome.Boxes.DevelThis new version already covers most of what the classic Boxes could do: creating virtual machines from ISO media and disk images (qcow2), configuring VM resources, sharing clipboard content, sending files to the guest, and more.
It can install Windows 11 without any manual workarounds. Boxes configures Secure Boot and a virtual TPM device automatically. Everything required to pass the Windows 11 hardware compatibility checks out of the box. This was the most requested feature for the classic version, so I am particularly glad it is fully functional in this rewrite.
As distributions shift toward image-based OSes, this Flatpak-only approach becomes even more valuable. Most other virtual machine managers rely on host services or privileged daemons that are difficult to configure on immutable systems. While hardware and host combinations vary, bundling the backend stack directly inside the Flatpak gives us a controlled baseline that we can actively support, configure, and refine over time.
Accessing VM contents used to be tricky due to Flatpak sandboxing. This version addresses that by introducing a VSOCK device to the box, allowing guests with systemd v256 or newer to be accessed directly over SSH. It also adds initial support for port forwarding, letting you reach services running inside the VM from your host.
All of this and more is detailed on our new website, nightly.gnomeboxes.org, where you can also learn how to help by testing and reporting issues.
Please keep in mind that I am working on this in my free time alongside maintaining GNOME Settings and my day-job responsibilities at Red Hat. I ask for your patience with issue responses, but I will do my best to address bugs and keep pushing feature development forward as time allows.
I love building GNOME Boxes, and I am constantly motivated by the positive feedback from our community. People appreciate Boxes because it lets them set up a VM quickly and get straight to work without needing deep knowledge of virtualization or operating system internals. That remains the core mission, and that is the user experience I want to continue building for.
A lot of this implementation will still change as I gather feedback and it matures. I have also drafted a series of follow-up blog posts to this one, which will describe and elaborate a bit more on the new features, explaining how to use them and how they have been implemented. Stay tuned!