If you've ever tried to test something that was experimental, then you know how dicey it can be. A simple alpha feature can take down your entire desktop. Fortunately, in the realm of Linux, that's a rarity, but it can happen. That's why the Gnome developers are working on an app called Test Center.

The app is just in the prototyping phase, so it's not ready for real-world testing (maybe a bit of irony there). When Test Center is complete, it will allow users to install, run, and remove anything experimental on the Gnome desktop. Even better, Test Center doesn't care if the experiment is an app or something built into the system.

Test Center "...allows installing experimental apps from a sharing link provided by the app developer," the official announcement reads. It continues, "These testing apps will be clearly marked as experimental across the system, and can be set to expire after a certain test period."

As far as system features, the announcement states, "Our idea here is to use the same Test Center.” As far as how it works on this level, the announcement continues, "we generate system extension images (sysext) for every merge request. You can install experiments from a sharing link, and they will apply as a sysext over your existing system. Because those images are non-destructive overlays, you can always go back to the original system."

As of this moment, there are only mockups of what the Test Center GUI looks like, so it's safe to say that it could be a while before we see this new feature in the wild.