The release of the beta version of Fedora 35, which marks the transition to the final testing stage, in which only critical bug fixes are allowed.
This version covers Fedora Workstation, Fedora Server, Fedora Silverblue, Fedora IoT, and Live builds Delivered with the different desktop environments (spins).
Fedora 35 Beta Key New Features
Among the changes that stand out the most, we can find that the first version of a new edition of the distribution: Kinoite Fedora, based on Fedora Silverblue technologies, but using KDE instead of GNOME. The Fedora Kinoite image is not divided into separate packages, is atomically updated and builds from official RPMs Fedora using the rpm-ostree toolkit. The base environment (/ and / usr) is mounted read-only. The data available for modification is in the / var directory. To install and update additional applications, the flatpak standalone package system is used, whereby applications are separated from the main system and run in a separate container.
Regarding internal changes, in the desktop has been updated to GNOME 41 with a redesign of the application installation management interface. New sections have been added to the configurator to configure window / desktop management and connection through cellular operators.
Besides that added a new client for remote desktop connection Using VNC and RDP protocols, the design of the music player has been changed, in addition to GTK 4 uses a new rendering engine OpenGL-based to reduce power consumption and speed up rendering.
We can also find kiosk mode, which allows a GNOME session without running, the limited performance of a single preselected app. The mode is suitable for organizing the work of various information desks and self-service terminals.
Another change that stands out is that the ability to use a protocol-based session Wayland on systems with proprietary NVIDIA drivers.
The media server PipeWire, which has been the default since the last version, has been moved to use the WirePlumber audio session manager. WirePlumber allows you to manage the graph of the media nodes in PipeWire, configure audio devices, and control the routing of audio streams. Added support for S / PDIF protocol forwarding for digital audio transmission via optical S / PDIF and HDMI connectors.
Additionally, Fedora Cloud images use the Btrfs file system by default and a hybrid boot loader that supports booting into BIOS and UEFI systems.
The mechanism to activate third-party repositories has been modified, Since before enabling the "Third-party software repositories" setting led to the installation of the fedora-workstation-repositories package, but the repositories remained disabled, now the fedora-workstation-repositories package is installed by default and the configuration enables the repositories .
Of the other changes that stand out:
- The inclusion of third-party repositories now covers the featured peer-reviewed apps from the Flathub directory, meaning similar apps will be available in the GNOME software without installing FlatHab.
- The default use of the DNS over TLS (DoT) protocol has been implemented when supported by the selected DNS server.
- Added support for mice with high precision scroll wheel positioning (up to 120 events per rotation).
- Compiler selection rules changed when building packages. Until now, the rules required to build a package using GCC, unless the package can only be compiled using Clang.
- The new rules allow package maintainers to select Clang even if the upstream project supports GCC, and vice versa, to select GCC if the upstream project does not support GCC.
- When configuring disk encryption with LUKS, automatic selection of the optimal sector size is provided, that is, for disks with 4k physical sectors, the sector size will be 4096 in LUKS.
Finally, if you are interested in knowing more about it, you can try the image of this beta version of Fedora 35 which you can obtain on its official website. The link is this.