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Fedora Magazine

What’s New for Fedora Atomic Desktops in Fedora Linux 45

fedoramagazine.org

Key points

Fedora Linux 45 is out, and the Fedora Atomic Desktops (Silverblue, Kinoite, Sway Atomic, Budgie Atomic and COSMIC Atomic) move to it with a new installer, installer images produced by Image Builder, preview disk images for two variants and updated desktops across the board. The post also lays out the work planned toward bootable containers and asks for help with several open bugs.

Changes across all variants

  • The Atomic Desktops have finished moving to the new Fedora forge, and all related material now sits in the atomic-desktops organization there.
  • One repository remains on GitLab.com: gitlab.com/fedora/ostree/ci-test, which builds the unofficial bootable container images. It is due to be moved later.
  • The installer ISOs now use the Anaconda WebUI, as Fedora Workstation 42 and the Fedora 43 Spins already do.
  • The WebUI also lets a system be installed remotely from a web browser on another machine over HTTPS.
  • Image Builder now produces the installer ISOs. Users should see no immediate difference, but the change prepares the move to bootable container images.
  • Image Builder also makes pre-installed disk images possible for Silverblue and Kinoite. These are in preview and limited to those two variants, the only ones with a first boot experience from a disk image.

General Fedora 45 changes relevant here

  • Podman is updated to 6.0 and 6.1, and the post links release notes on configuration file changes, volume renaming and machine restarts.
  • Podman 6 drops support for slirp4netns and for the BoltDB backend.
  • oo7 is a new secrets service provider, enabled on every variant except Kinoite.
  • DRM Panic Frontend provides a web interface for reporting kernel crashes.

Desktop versions

  • Silverblue ships GNOME 51. Details are in the separate Fedora Magazine article on Fedora Workstation 45.
  • Kinoite ships Plasma 6.7, Frameworks 6.31 and Gear 26.08. Plasma 6.8 is expected shortly after the release, and a separate article covers Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop 45.
  • Sway Atomic ships Sway 1.12.
  • Budgie Atomic ships Budgie Desktop 10.10.3. It adds Favorites in the Budgie Menu, brings back the Keyboard applet with Wayland support, improves the desktop view and adds primary monitor selection.
  • COSMIC Atomic ships COSMIC desktop 1.10.0.

Related projects

  • Universal Blue (Bazzite, Bluefin, Aurora) has prepared its move to Fedora 45, and announcements will follow on its Discourse.
  • The author points to these projects for users who need things the official images lack, such as NVIDIA drivers, extra media codecs or out-of-tree kernel drivers.
  • secureblue is suggested for users who want a variant focused on security.

What comes next

  • The transition to bootable containers is tracked in atomic-desktops#26. In this cycle, most of the work again went into getting the bootable container images ready for general use, including building them reliably in Fedora infrastructure.
  • A new Atomic SIG brings together the people working on bootc, CoreOS and the other Atomic variants. Its work is tracked in atomic#137 and on a project board.
  • Work is under way to make it simpler to build derived images from the Atomic Desktops images while respecting Fedora's logo and branding policy.
  • Once that work is done, "Fedora Remix" container images without official Fedora branding may be published as a base for projects that layer their own changes on top. This is tracked in atomic-desktops#125 and atomic-desktops#132.

Help wanted

  • atomic-desktops#72 concerns incorrect root mount options. It is an old bug that is mostly invisible to users but costs performance.
  • atomic-desktops#108 concerns moving away from nss-altfiles, a long-standing source of problems for new users.
  • Both issues are on the project's ticket tracker, and the team is asking contributors to help fix them soon.

Contact (Matrix)

  • Atomic Desktops SIG: #atomic-desktops:fedoraproject.org
  • Silverblue (Workstation Working Group): #silverblue:fedoraproject.org
  • Kinoite (KDE SIG): #kinoite:fedoraproject.org
  • Sway Atomic (Sway SIG): #sway:fedoraproject.org
  • Budgie Atomic (Budgie SIG): #budgie:fedoraproject.org
  • COSMIC Atomic (COSMIC SIG): #cosmic:fedoraproject.org

Summary by DistroNews, based on the original post.

Fedora 45 is now available! So let’s see what this new release for the Fedora Atomic Desktops variants includes for Silverblue, Kinoite, Sway Atomic, Budgie Atomic and COSMIC Atomic.

Changes for all Atomic Desktops

Completed the migration to the new Fedora forge

Everything related to the Atomic Desktops now resides in the atomic-desktops organization.

The only remaining repo on GitLab.com/fedora is the one used to build the unofficial bootable container images (gitlab.com/fedora/ostree/ci-test). The migration of this repo will occur in the future, as well.

Anaconda Web UI

The Atomic Desktops installer ISOs now use the new Anaconda WebUI. This follows the same change that occurred for Fedora Workstation 42 and Fedora 43 Spins.

This also enables remote installation of a system using a Web browser on another machine over HTTPS.

See the Fedora Change pages for the switch to the WebUI and for Web based remote installations.

Installer images (ISO) and disk images built by Image Builder

The installer images (ISO) are now built by Image Builder. While there should not be any immediate visible changes, this will help us move to the bootable container images in the future.

This also enables us to offer pre-installed disk images for Silverblue and Kinoite. Those images are currently in preview and only those variants are covered for now. They are the only ones with a first boot experience from a disk image.

See the Fedora Change page for further information.

General Fedora changes worth noting

The following changes are part of the general set of changes that come with Fedora Linux 45 and are worth noting for Atomic Desktops users:

What’s new in Silverblue

Fedora Silverblue comes with the latest GNOME 51 release.

For more details about the changes alongside GNOME 51, see What’s new in Fedora Workstation 45 on the Fedora Magazine.

What’s new in Kinoite

Fedora Kinoite ships with Plasma 6.7, Frameworks 6.31 and Gear 26.08.

Plasma 6.8 is expected to land right after the release.

See also What’s new in Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop 45 on the Fedora Magazine.

What’s new in Sway Atomic

Fedora Sway Atomic comes with the latest 1.12 Sway release.

What’s new in Budgie Atomic

Fedora Budgie Atomic comes with the brand new version 10.10.3 of Budgie Desktop: New Favorites in Budgie Menu, re-introduced Keyboard applet with Wayland support, massive improvements to our desktop view, primary monitor selection, and more! See the 10.10.3 Budgie release announcement.

What’s new in COSMIC Atomic

Fedora COSMIC Atomic comes with the 1.10.0 release of the COSMIC desktop.

Universal Blue, Bluefin, Bazzite, Aurora and secureblue

Our friends in the Universal Blue project (Bazzite, Bluefin, Aurora) have prepared the update to Fedora 45. Look for upcoming announcements in their Discourse.

As always, I heavily recommend checking them out, especially if you feel like some things are missing from the Fedora Atomic Desktops and you depend on them (NVIDIA drivers, extra media codec, out of tree kernel drivers, etc.).

If you have an interest in more security focused variants, I recommend taking a look at the secureblue project.

What’s next

Roadmap to Bootable Containers and bootc / CoreOS / Atomic unification

A lot of work is happening to make the transition to Bootable Containers as smooth as possible for our existing users. You can look at the roadmap for this transition at atomic-desktops#26.

Most of the progress in this release cycle was (again) focused on getting our bootable container images ready for general consumption in Fedora. A part of this work is being able to build them reliably in the Fedora Infra.

The people involved in the bootc, CoreOS and other Atomic variants are working on this effort as part of the new Atomic SIG. See atomic#137 and the project board.

Making it easier to derive images into Fedora Remix images

Work is in progress to make it easier to create derived container images from the Fedora Atomic Desktops images, notably in order to comply with the logo and branding policy.

Once this is ready, we may start publishing “Fedora Remix” branded container images of the Fedora Atomic Desktops. Those images will not include official Fedora branding and will thus be better suited for projects that want to layer their changes on top.

See atomic-desktops#125 and atomic-desktops#132.

Helping us with a few nasty bugs

If you have an interest in contributing to Fedora Atomic Desktops, here are some bugs that we will have to fix in the short term. We would greatly appreciate help with the following issues from the ticket tracker:

  • Fixing root mount options (atomic-desktops#72): This is a long standing and mostly invisible bug that impacts performance.
  • Moving away from nss-altfiles (atomic-desktops#108): This is another long standing source of issues that new users regularly face.

Where to reach us

We are looking for contributors to help us make the Fedora Atomic Desktops the best experience for Fedora users. The following are Matrix rooms that may be of interest to potential contributors:

By Timothée Ravier, from Fedora Magazine, reproduced under CC BY-SA 4.0. Formatting is simplified and images in the text are omitted.

Read the original at fedoramagazine.org