The Fedora Project, a community-driven, open-source Linux distribution sponsored primarily by Red Hat, Inc., today announced the general availability of Fedora 42. This latest release continues Fedora’s tradition of delivering cutting-edge free and open-source software, providing developers, enthusiasts, and users with the newest technologies and a robust, reliable platform.

Fedora 42 incorporates a wealth of updates and new features, focusing on enhanced user experience, developer tools, and the latest advancements in desktop environments and core system components.

Key highlights of Fedora 42

Enhanced Installation Experience

The Anaconda installer now operates as a native Wayland application, offering improved keyboard control and a new web-based user interface (UI) for guided partitioning. This UI simplifies the installation process with options for automatic partitioning, dual-boot support, and a “reinstall Fedora” feature for seamless recovery.

KDE Plasma Desktop Edition

Promoted to flagship status, this edition includes KDE Plasma 6.3.4, KDE Frameworks 6.12.0, and a suite of KDE applications. It is now supported on OpenPOWER systems, providing a robust alternative to GNOME.

Fedora COSMIC Spin

A modern Rust-based desktop environment developed by System76, featuring hybrid per-workspace window/tiling management, window stacks with tabs, and extensive customization options integrated with GTK and (soon) Qt.

Accessibility and Performance Improvements

GNOME 48 powers Fedora Workstation 42, introducing dynamic triple buffering for smoother animations, Orca screen reader support on Wayland, and well-being tools like screen time tracking and break reminders.

IBus Speech-to-Text

A new input method enabling offline voice dictation in multiple languages, preserving user privacy and integrating seamlessly with IBus infrastructure. It enables voice dictation in any application that supports IBus input methods. Here are some examples of how you can use this feature:

• Dictating Text in a Document: Open a text editor like GNOME Text Editor or LibreOffice Writer. Activate the Speech-to-Text input method and start speaking. Your words will be transcribed into text in real-time.
• Composing Emails: Use the Speech-to-Text feature to dictate emails directly in your email client, such as Thunderbird or Evolution. This can save time and improve accessibility.
• Programming: Developers can use Speech-to-Text to dictate code snippets or comments in IDEs like Visual Studio Code or GNOME Builder. While it may not be ideal for complex coding, it can be helpful for quick notes or simple tasks.
• Multilingual Communication: The feature supports multiple languages through downloadable voice recognition models. You can switch between languages seamlessly for multilingual dictation.
• Accessibility: Users with physical disabilities can leverage this feature to interact with their systems more easily, enhancing productivity and inclusivity.

Fedora WSL

Fedora Linux images are now available for Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), allowing users to explore Fedora in a Windows environment before committing to a full installation.

Matthew Miller, Fedora Project Leader, expressed gratitude to the global community of contributors: “Fedora Linux 42 is a testament to the dedication and collaboration of open-source developers worldwide. Together, we’ve created an operating system that embodies innovation and inclusivity.”

Fedora Linux 42 is now available for download. Users can upgrade their existing systems or start fresh with install media for flagship editions like Workstation, KDE Plasma Desktop, Cloud, Server, CoreOS, IoT, and more.

For more information, visit the Fedora Project website.

Fedora 38 is now out of beta. It introduces two new spins, one with the Budgie desktop environment and one with the Sway tiling window manager. Its GNOME spin moves to GNOME 44. Fedora 38 also removes restrictions and whitelisting from its flatpak implementation.

Fedora 38 comes with Linux Kernel 6.2 which brings full Intel Arc graphics support and an enhancement for the Nvidia Nouveau driver. The new release also includes updates to the following programming languages: Python 3.11, Ruby 3.1, and Node.js 17.

The popular Budgie Desktop environment, first packaged for Fedora in F37, now has its own Spin. The Fedora Budgie Spin aims to provide the premiere Budgie Desktop experience on top of Fedora Linux, the leading edge platform for developers and users alike. For fans of tiling window managers, Fedora 38 now offers the Sway window manager in a Spin and in an rpm-ostree version we call “Sericea”. Sway uses the modern Wayland protocol and aims to be a drop-in replacement for the i3 window manager.

This release shortens the shutdown times, enables Wayland by default for the SDDM login manager, adds stricter SSH host keys permissions, offers support for persistent overlays for the live media when flashed to USB sticks, and brings you an unfiltered Flathub repository for a better Flatpak app experience.

“This change would remove the filtering from our Flathub offering so that users can enable a complete version of Flathub using the third-party repositories feature. In the graphical software manager app, Flathub packages will only be selected by default when no Fedora package is available,” said the Fedora Project.

Simply go ahead to the Fedora Project to download and try out Fedora 38!

To start with RedHat is most known for its association with RedHat Enterprise Linux and is the primary sponsor of Fedora Project and CentOS Stream along with many other open source projects. Redhat Inc. was acquired by IBM in 2019 and is now operated as an independent subsidiary of IBM.

Why would the same company want to maintain 3 Linux operating systems?

To start with, all the 3 of these Linux distributions use the RPM (Redhat Package Manager) packages. Most of the packages can be used interchangebly amongst these Linux distributions. So in order to understand the basic difference between them, we need to first understand the difference between a community distribution (commonly called as distro) and an enterprise distribution.

Community vs enterprise distro

Linux as we all know is a free and open source operating system. Which means anybody who understands it well enough can develop features into a distro and add it to the repository for it to become a part of the upcoming release. This ensures that you always have the bleeding edge features in community based distro. However, it does come with a drawback, that the new features may not have been tested well, so an updated would be soon on its way. This causes stability issues from an enterprise perspective. Enterprises prefer to have fixed periodic update cycles with a long term support (LTS). This is where comes the enterprise Linux distro. Enterprise Linux distros are tested with wider audience, features are stabilised and only then are added to the final release.

Fedora release cycle

Fedora Linux falls under the category of community Linux distro. They have a release cycle of around 6 months with the support for the current version being valid till a month after the release of the next version.

CentOS Stream release cycle

CentOS release cycle matches with that of Redhat releases. The major version number matches that of the major release of Redhat, while the minor version number being the actual release update. Starting with CentOS Stream, it is now an upstream Linux distro to Redhat.

Redhat release cycle

Redhat is a commercial enterprise linux distro with fixed release and support cycles. Red Hat releases a new point version of a particular series every year and a major version after approximately 5 years. It offers 10-year life cycle support so you can better support long-term apps.

Upstream vs Downstream distro

The development and release cycle of a Linux distro can be compared also whether it is upstream to Redhat or downstream to Redhat.

The bleeding edge upstream is Fedora. Fedora matures into CentOS stream. CentOS Stream is a “continuously delivered distro that tracks just ahead of Red Hat Enterprise Linux development, positioned as a midstream between Fedora and Redhat distros. With CentOS only recently moving to upstream releases to Redhat, it will be worth keeping a watch on how often do the releases happen in CentOS Stream.

Since in upstream, CentOS Stream lies between Fedora and Redhat, it is expected to have releases more often than Redhat, however lesser often as compared to Fedora. CentOS Stream 9 releases will give a better picture towards this.

And then there are downstream distros which were launched after Redhat announced the change in the stance of CentOS from the earlier downstream distro to upstream, from its CentOS Stream. These distros are Rocky Linux (by the founder of CentOS Project) and Alma Linux (from the house of CloudLinux). They are also gaining wide spread popularity, as they track close to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, are as stable as Red Hat Enterprise Linux and are free to use.

You can read more about whether to opt for CentOS Stream, Rocky Linux or AlmaLinux before making up your mind for your next installation.