The Red Hat sponsored Linux distribution, Fedora, has a brand new release today with Fedora 32 showing off some of the latest of what open source has to offer. Fedora 32 comes shortly after they announced a teaming up with Lenovo to provide Fedora on some ThinkPad laptops.
Much like the recent Ubuntu 20.04 release it includes a ton of major packaging upgrades, such as the recent GNOME 3.36 desktop which is in their main Fedora Workstation edition. This includes all the goodies like a new lock screen, an easy to use desktop Extensions application, a better notification system, a do not disturb mode and more UI revamps. You can get other desktop environments too with their various "Spins" like KDE with Plasma, Xfce and more.
Pictured: Fedora 32 from our testing.
Fedora is also now including "EarlyOOM" by default, which helps to deal with low-memory situations with heavy swap usage. With all the packaging updates and Python 2 being past end-of-life, most Python 2 packages have been removed but there's a legacy python27 package available if you really need it. Also, if you've got an SSD you will be pleased to know they've also enabled the TRIM timer, which can help improve performance and wear levelling—something other distributions had on by default for some time.
See the release announcement here and head here to download.
Using their rapid-release cycle, Fedora usually has two releases every year. Usually around May 1st and October 31st, although they're never an exact date as they move it around to ensure a stable release. Each release is supported for around 13 months.
Many years ago, Fedora was one of my first major Linux distributions back when it was known as Fedora Core back around 2003/2004. It was one of the distributions that truly helped me really get interested and stick with Linux when the desktop started getting more focus on ease of use and a better out of the box experience. Great to see it doing so well so many years later.
Though I still consider going back when I build my next machine later this year, I don't have too many reasons to. Fedora has been "rolling enough" for me in most ways and not far behind if at all, stable, and has everything I've needed in the repos. My biggest complaint is how slow DNF can be compared to other package managers, but that's nothing in the grand scheme.
I'm eager to get the time to update for the new changes, esp the new Gnome. Yeah, I'm one of them. Fight me :)
Otherwise, a good distro for those who don't mind constant bug-stream and half-broken system utilities. Dnfdragora (current repository GUI, at least as of 30 release) is an atrocity and a crime against humanity, not only it is ugly and counter-intuitive as hell, but it constantly crashes (leaving root-level "dnf-daemon" running in an inaccessible state, still awaiting commands from long gone GUI) and leaks memory like there is no tomorrow (~150MiB for every package list re-build/refresh attempt).
Verily, the RHEL's test site in its finest. :D
Fedora has been "rolling enough" for me in most ways and not far behind if at all, stable, and has everything I've needed in the repos.Seriously? Wow! I thought RPMFusion is a must, one can not even watch a video (due to proprietary codecs) with only the base "fedora" and "updates" repos.
Last edited by Alm888 on 28 April 2020 at 4:30 pm UTC
Fedora has been "rolling enough" for me in most ways and not far behind if at all, stable, and has everything I've needed in the repos.Seriously? Wow! I thought RPMFusion is a must, one can not even watch a video (due to proprietary codecs) with only the base "fedora" and "updates" repos.
Well, I definitely do use RPMFusion. I guess it's fair to call that a 3rd party repo, but especially considering its maintainers also work on Fedora I kinda consider it a part of it at this point.
Fedora has been "rolling enough" for me in most ways and not far behind if at all, stable, and has everything I've needed in the repos.Seriously? Wow! I thought RPMFusion is a must, one can not even watch a video (due to proprietary codecs) with only the base "fedora" and "updates" repos.
Well, I definitely do use RPMFusion. I guess it's fair to call that a 3rd party repo, but especially considering its maintainers also work on Fedora I kinda consider it a part of it at this point.
In the past, rpmfusion sometimes lagged behind distro updates; though for the past several years, upgrades have been perfectly smooth.
Otherwise, a good distro for those who don't mind constant bug-stream and half-broken system utilities. Dnfdragora (current repository GUI, at least as of 30 release) is an atrocity and a crime against humanity, not only it is ugly and counter-intuitive as hell, but it constantly crashes (leaving root-level "dnf-daemon" running in an inaccessible state, still awaiting commands from long gone GUI) and leaks memory like there is no tomorrow (~150MiB for every package list re-build/refresh attempt).
dnfdragora is an abomination; but you don't have to use it. Same with any other annoying feature (for me, firewalld is pretty annoying also, since I prefer plain nfstables).
I'm upgrading right now.
dnfdragora is an abomination; but you don't have to use it. Same with any other annoying feature (for me, firewalld is pretty annoying also, since I prefer plain nfstables).Oh yeah, I definitely can. But as for those buyers of Lenovo ThinkPads… I am not so sure.:S:
I'm upgrading right now.Good luck and happy upgrade to you!
dnfdragora is an abomination; but you don't have to use it. Same with any other annoying feature (for me, firewalld is pretty annoying also, since I prefer plain nfstables).Oh yeah, I definitely can. But as for those buyers of Lenovo ThinkPads… I am not so sure.:S:
I'm upgrading right now.Good luck and happy upgrade to you!
Thanks; nothing seems to be broken yet.
Last edited by elmapul on 29 April 2020 at 2:13 am UTC
gimp uses python 2, so... can you use python scripts on gimp on fedora and ubuntu 20?
you can install python 2.7.
Really cool to have an updated system! The updated Gnome Desktop feels again a bit faster.
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