Fedora 29 Beta is the first distribution used two weeks ago Gnome 3.30 «Almería» as the default desktop.
This includes, among other things, Flatpak 1.0 and automatically updates Flatpaks installed through the Gnome package management software.
Thunderbolt was better integrated and a new application was introduced with Podcast. With Fedora 29, developers are beginning to see an update on the ARM platform.
This is demonstrated in the beta by the improved ZRAM support in ARMv7 and aarch64, which can improve the performance of on-board computers, such as the Raspberry Pi.
Wayland, which continues to serve as the standard display server, continues to integrate with Fedora 29, providing initial support for Remote Desktop.
The new twist is Fedora Silverblue, previously called Atomic Workstation. It uses modern techniques like Flatpak and RPM OSTree for atomic upgrade.
The Xfce environment offers users carefully selected version 4.13 developer packages.
The Fedora Anaconda installer can now handle LUKS 2.
In this new beta we can find that the GRUB bootloader menu will be hidden in systems with a single distribution installed in the future, since it does not offer useful information there.
Also, the package inventory has been updated to include Python 3.7, Perl 5.28. glibc 2.28, Gloang 1.11 and MySQL 8.
The stable version will be available at the end of October. This beta release offers features like modularity for everyone, compatibility with GNOME 3.30, and a few other changes.
Modularity
Modular repositories were introduced in Fedora 28 for Fedora Server Edition. In Fedora 29 beta, modularity is available in all editions, twists, and labs.
Modularity makes multiple versions of major packages available in parallel. It will work with Dandified YUM Family Pack (DNF).
With modularity, users can update their operating system to the latest version while maintaining the required version of an application for proper functionality.
Therefore, a user no longer needs to generally specify the desired timeliness of their packages via the operating system version, but you can do it in the case of package-level applications provided for this purpose.
For example, developers have access to multiple versions of libraries and frameworks.
GNOME 3.30
Fedora 29 Workstation Beta ships with the latest version of GNOME. GNOME 3.30 optimizes performance and adds a new application for Podcasts. It also automatically updates Flatpaks in the Software Center.
Other changes
There are also many other updates included in Fedora 29.
- Fedora Atomic Workstation is now renamed Fedora Silverblue.
- The GRUB menu will be hidden where only a single operating system is installed, as it does not provide any useful functionality in those cases.
- The latest version of Fedora also brings updates to many popular packages, including MySQL, the GNU C Library, Python, and Perl.
- Some architecture changes include removal as an alternate architecture, initial support for the Field Programming Gate Array (FPGA), and packages are now built with SSE2 support.
- Many projects, including Eclipse, have removed support for the big endian ppc64 architecture. So now Fedora will have to stop producing any ppc64 content.
- Fedora Scientific will now ship as errant boxes that were previously delivered as ISO files. The Vagrant charts will offer potential users a friendlier option to try Fedora Scientific while keeping the current operating system.
Download Fedora 29 Beta
Version Fedora 29 beta is now available for download and tested by those who want to contribute in this new release in the detection of errors. So it is important to emphasize that this version is not recommended for daily use.
The beta version of Fedora 29 Workstation Beta is also available to download as well as the different versions of it (spins).
ARM variants can also be downloaded for testing. The stable release of Fedora 29 is scheduled for October 23rd.
This is the next big step towards a stable version of Linux.