Fedora 22 released almost on time
Great Expectations
![© Lead Image © Randy Hines, 123RF.com © Lead Image © Randy Hines, 123RF.com](/var/linux_magazin/storage/images/issues/2015/178/fedora-22/po-26046-123rf-randy_hines_123rf-ocean_sunset_resized.png/654860-1-eng-US/PO-26046-123RF-Randy_Hines_123RF-Ocean_Sunset_resized.png_medium.png)
© Lead Image © Randy Hines, 123RF.com
Fedora 22 was released a week late, but it is seriously impressive with Gnome 3.16 and the new DNF package manager. Only the installer, Anaconda, might cause beginners a headache.
Fedora serves as a test laboratory for Red Hat business distributions while constantly providing new ideas and developments for the Linux community as a whole; thus, it plays a special role in the Linux world. The wages for a number of Gnome developers come from Red Hat's petty cash, and the makers of systemd are financed from the same source.
Fedora is continuously reinventing itself; a whole year elapsed between versions 20 and 21, during which priorities with respect to the Fedora.next [1] project were reset and developers were put in a position to publish three editions in the future instead of just one. The distribution is now divided into Workstation, Cloud, and Server variants (where Workstation is the version for desktop users) in preparation for the future and to allow current developments to thrive in a native environment.
Gnome as Standard
Fedora 22 [2] sees the first release in the regular six-month cycle under the new scheme finally reach the mainstream. The basic components, kernel 4.0, GCC 5.0, systemd 219, the Anaconda installer, and the new DNF package manager (which replaces the proven Yum) form the common base for the three sections. The workstation version continues to use Gnome as its desktop environment; Fedora has opted for the latest version 3.16 (Figure 1).
![](/var/linux_magazin/storage/images/issues/2015/178/fedora-22/figure-1/654863-1-eng-US/Figure-1_large.png)
Additionally, several spins offer other desktop environments such as KDE, Xfce, LXDE, or Maté or are specifically aimed at particular users such as musicians, electronics enthusiasts, penetration testers, or other specialists [3]. As is to be expected from Fedora, the spins provide the most recent stable version of the corresponding desktop. However, this article concentrates on the standard desktop for the new Fedora issue.
Gnome 3.16 includes many changes that are visible to users and some that are not. More than 33,000 changes were introduced in the development period of six months. The Gnome Shell's new notification system stands out in particular as the most striking change (Figure 2). Instead of appearing in a separate bar at the bottom of the screen, the messages now appear in the calendar widget, which launches when you click the date displayed centrally in the header.
![](/var/linux_magazin/storage/images/issues/2015/178/fedora-22/figure-2/654866-1-eng-US/Figure-2_large.png)
As a further innovation, Gtk3 applications such as Gedit or Nautilus scrollbars only appear if you are actively using the mouse in the window. The icons for applications that are active in the background, such as Dropbox or Skype, have finally found a decent home in the self-collapsing status bar (Figure 3). All told, much went into cleaning up the desktop and polishing the Gnome applications, such as the weather app (Figure 4), to keep bugs and superfluous features well away from the user wherever possible.
![](/var/linux_magazin/storage/images/issues/2015/178/fedora-22/figure-3/654869-1-eng-US/Figure-3_large.png)
![](/var/linux_magazin/storage/images/issues/2015/178/fedora-22/figure-4/654872-1-eng-US/Figure-4_large.png)
The latest issue of the Gnome desktop also made room for some programs that are still in development as technical previews. This includes the Books e-book reader, the Characters character table, and a new Calendar app. The Gnome IDE Builder [4] financed through Indiegogo targets developers.
Fedora chose not to install preview applications out of the box, but you can change this via the Software Manager in just a few steps (Figure 5). The latest version of Cockpit – the server administration tool that comes from the server edition – can also be found here. The front end for package management, Gnome Software, has been given new functions and, for example, now supports the installation of codecs. LibreOffice 4.3.2 provides an office suite, and Firefox version 37.0.2 is on board, too.
![](/var/linux_magazin/storage/images/issues/2015/178/fedora-22/figure-5/654875-1-eng-US/Figure-5_large.png)
DNF Instead of Yum
For its package manager, Fedora 22 jumped from Yum to DNF, which stands for Dandified Yum and is said to work faster than the original; there are no changes, however, in terms of the RPM package format. DNF also provides a new resolver named Libsolf that resolves dependencies faster and better. DNF also provides an interface for feature add-ons.
Fedora aficionados will find themselves in familiar territory: You will typically only need to swap yum
for dnf
while keeping the same commands. The
sudo dnf install <package>
command installs a package, and
sudo dnf distro-sync
updates the whole system (Figure 6). A simple dnf
lists all options. A graphical interface is also available. To this end, the developers customized the previous Yum Extender for DNF. The result is named yumex-dnf
(Figure 7). A simple
sudo dnf install yumex-dnf
sets up the package.
![](/var/linux_magazin/storage/images/issues/2015/178/fedora-22/figure-6/654878-1-eng-US/Figure-6_large.png)
![](/var/linux_magazin/storage/images/issues/2015/178/fedora-22/figure-7/654881-1-eng-US/Figure-7_large.png)
Partitioning
The biggest criticism of Fedora was and remains the Anaconda installer. It uses DNF code by default, but this step does not help beginners trying to navigate the hard-to-understand program. Partitioning in particular is characterized by very obscure nesting of the available options, although some explanations were added here in recent versions.
The easiest approach is to let Fedora take over the whole disk. Another option, which only uses the available free disk space given a pre-installed Windows or overwrites existing Linux partitions, also impresses with elegant user guidance. The custom variant, however, requires an experienced user – or sufficient time to learn by trial and error. Fedora creates a boot partition and installs LVM by default in automatic mode.
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
![Learn More](https://www.linux-magazine.com/var/linux_magazin/storage/images/media/linux-magazine-eng-us/images/misc/learn-more/834592-1-eng-US/Learn-More_medium.png)
News
-
NVIDIA Released Driver for Upcoming NVIDIA 560 GPU for Linux
Not only has NVIDIA released the driver for its upcoming CPU series, it's the first release that defaults to using open-source GPU kernel modules.
-
OpenMandriva Lx 24.07 Released
If you’re into rolling release Linux distributions, OpenMandriva ROME has a new snapshot with a new kernel.
-
Kernel 6.10 Available for General Usage
Linus Torvalds has released the 6.10 kernel and it includes significant performance increases for Intel Core hybrid systems and more.
-
TUXEDO Computers Releases InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen9 Laptop
Sporting either AMD or Intel CPUs, the TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 is an extremely compact, lightweight, sturdy powerhouse.
-
Google Extends Support for Linux Kernels Used for Android
Because the LTS Linux kernel releases are so important to Android, Google has decided to extend the support period beyond that offered by the kernel development team.
-
Linux Mint 22 Stable Delayed
If you're anxious about getting your hands on the stable release of Linux Mint 22, it looks as if you're going to have to wait a bit longer.
-
Nitrux 3.5.1 Available for Install
The latest version of the immutable, systemd-free distribution includes an updated kernel and NVIDIA driver.
-
Debian 12.6 Released with Plenty of Bug Fixes and Updates
The sixth update to Debian "Bookworm" is all about security mitigations and making adjustments for some "serious problems."
-
Canonical Offers 12-Year LTS for Open Source Docker Images
Canonical is expanding its LTS offering to reach beyond the DEB packages with a new distro-less Docker image.
-
Plasma Desktop 6.1 Released with Several Enhancements
If you're a fan of Plasma Desktop, you should be excited about this new point release.