The release of Fedora Linux 35 has been announced. Products prepared for download include Fedora Workstation, Fedora Server, CoreOS, Fedora IoT Edition, as well as a set of spins with live builds of desktop environments KDE Plasma 5, Xfce, i3, MATE, Cinnamon, LXDE, and LXQt. The builds have been created for x86_64, Power64, ARM64 (AArch64), and various devices with 32-bit ARM processors. The publication of Fedora Silverblue builds has been delayed.
The most notable improvements in Fedora Linux 35 include:
- The Fedora Workstation desktop has been updated to GNOME 41, which features a redesigned application installation management interface. New sections have been added to the configurator for managing windows/desktops and connecting via cellular operators. A new client for remote desktop connections using VNC and RDP protocols has been added. The music player interface has been updated. A new rendering engine based on OpenGL has been introduced in GTK 4, reducing energy consumption and speeding up rendering.
- The ability to use a session based on the Wayland protocol has been implemented on systems with proprietary NVIDIA drivers.
- A kiosk mode has been implemented, allowing the launch of a simplified GNOME session restricted to running a single pre-selected application. This mode is suitable for organizing various information stands and self-service terminals.
- The first version of a new edition of the distribution — Fedora Kinoite — has been proposed, based on Fedora Silverblue technologies but using KDE instead of GNOME. The monolithic Fedora Kinoite image is not split into separate packages, is updated atomically, and is built from official Fedora RPM packages using the rpm-ostree tool. The base environment ( / and /usr) is mounted in read-only mode. Modifiable data is stored in the /var directory. The flatpak self-contained package system is used for installing and updating additional applications, allowing them to be separated from the main system and run in a separate container.
- Multimedia server PipeWire, which has been used by default since the last release, has been transitioned to using the WirePlumber session manager. WirePlumber allows for managing the multimedia node graph in PipeWire, configuring audio devices, and controlling the routing of audio streams. Support has been added for the S/PDF protocol to transmit digital audio through optical S/PDF and HDMI ports. Bluetooth support has been expanded, and the FastStream and AptX codecs have been added.
- Package versions have been updated, including GCC 11, LLVM 13, Python 3.10, Perl 5.34, PHP 8.0, Binutils 2.36, Boost 1.76, glibc 2.34, binutils 2.37, gdb 10.2, Node.js 16, RPM 4.17, Erlang 24, and firewalld 1.0.
- The transition to the yescrypt password hashing scheme for new users has been made. Support for older hashes created with the previously used sha512crypt algorithm is maintained and available as an option. Yescrypt enhances the capabilities of classic scrypt with support for schemes that require more memory and reduces the effectiveness of attacks using GPUs, FPGAs, and specialized chips. The security of Yescrypt is ensured through the use of proven cryptographic primitives SHA-256, HMAC, and PBKDF2.
- In the file /etc/os-release, the parameter ‘NAME=Fedora’ has been changed to ‘NAME="Fedora Linux"’ (the name Fedora is now used for the entire project and its community, while the distribution is named Fedora Linux). The parameter ‘ID=fedora’ remains unchanged, meaning there will be no need to modify scripts and conditional blocks in spec files. Specialized editions will also continue to be distributed under the old names, such as Fedora Workstation, Fedora CoreOS, and Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop.
- In Fedora Cloud images, the Btrfs file system and a hybrid bootloader supporting booting on BIOS and UEFI systems are enabled by default.
- A power-profiles-daemon handler has been added, allowing for on-the-fly switching between power-saving mode, balanced power consumption mode, and maximum performance mode.
- User systemd services will now be restarted after executing 'rpm upgrade' (previously, only system services were restarted).
- The mechanism for activating third-party repositories has been changed. Previously, enabling the 'Third-party Software Repositories' setting caused 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 setting activates the repositories.
- Enabling third-party repositories now encompasses reviewed selected applications from the Flathub catalog, meaning these applications will be available in GNOME Software without needing to install FlatHub. Currently approved applications include Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Skype, Bitwarden, Postman, and Minecraft. Applications awaiting review include Discord, Anydesk, WPS Office, OnlyOffice, MasterPDFEditor, Slack, UngoogledChromium, Flatseal, WhatsAppQT, and GreenWithEnvy.
- The default application of the DNS over TLS (DoT) protocol has been implemented, provided that it is supported by the chosen DNS server.
- Support for high-precision wheel scrolling mice has been added (up to 120 events per rotation).
- The rules for selecting the compiler when building packages have been changed. Previously, the rules mandated using GCC for package builds, except in cases where the package could only be built using Clang. The new rules allow package maintainers to choose Clang, even if the upstream project supports GCC, and conversely, to choose GCC if the upstream project does not support GCC.
- When setting up disk encryption using LUKS, the optimal sector size is now automatically selected. For disks with physical 4k sectors, a sector size of 4096 will be chosen in LUKS.
The 'free' and 'nonfree' repositories of the RPM Fusion project have been officially launched for Fedora 35, providing packages with additional multimedia applications (MPlayer, VLC, Xine), audio/video codecs, DVD support, proprietary AMD and NVIDIA drivers, game software, and emulators.
Source: opennet.ru
