Fedora 29 got released today! This version of Fedora features a lot of new features and systemwide improvements.
If you love the GNOME desktop environment, Fedora is the obvious choice because you can experience the cleanest form of GNOME. Fedora 29 features GNOME 3.30, which on itself is one of the most significant updates.
10 Best Features in Fedora 29
Here are the best features you will notice in Fedora 29.
1. GNOME 3.30
GNOME 3.30 brings a new lock screen, automatic updates for Flatpaks, and other performance improvements. Check our detailed article on what’s new in GNOME 3.30.
2. TLS 1.3
Fedora 29 comes with TLS 1.3 (draft28) enabled by default and supports on the GnuTLS crypto library. TLS 1.3 is the newest version approved by the Internet Engineering Task Force as the protocol for making HTTPS secure web connections. It also brings security and performance improvements, lower-latency, and also can handle long sessions better than TLS 1.2.
3. Fedora Silverblue
Fedora Atomic Workstation is being renamed to Fedora Silverblue in this release of Fedora. For those not aware, Fedora Silverblue is one of the several official spins of Fedora Workstation. This modern Linux OS spin is more secure as desktop applications are shipped and run as flatpaks, and development mostly happens inside containers. Therefore, you will see transactional updates, increased Isolation, and easier change tracking. Fedora Silverblue is expected to be fully mature for Fedora 30 release.
4. Fedora Xfce
Xfce desktop environment has always been on 4.12.x package, which uses GTK2 and is almost stale. Fedora 29 will utilize GTK3. Significant work has been completed to migrate the DE to GTK-3 completely. The obvious benefit of this migration is the use of a modern and actively maintained toolkit.
5. Liberation Fonts 2
Liberation fonts in Fedora 29 will be upgraded to Liberation 2.00.3 version from current Liberation fonts 1.07.4. If you still love the current one for some reason, they would always be available in the form of a Copr repository. Liberation Fonts 2 is already six years old font that’s popular due to being a fork of Chrome OS’s “Croscore” fonts.
6. Python 3.7
The latest version of Python, which is version 3.7, will be included in this new release.
7. Hidden GRUB
Finally, it’s happening in Fedora. On systems with only a single OS installed, the grub menu will be hidden by default settings as it doesn’t make any sense. Hence, you should see a smoother and faster boot experience making for better user experience.
8. Modules for Everyone
Modular repositories are enabled by default, which was previously limited to only the Server Edition. Therefore, Fedora users will have access to a broader range of software choices than they had already. This also will provide an additional advantage of no more prolonged need to duplicate that work for both the modular and non-modular repositories.
9. ZRAM support for ARM images
ZRAM for the swap on ARMv7 and aarch64 will be enabled in the pre-generated images to improve performance and reliability on ARM Single Board Computers such a the Raspberry Pi.
10. Perl 5.28
Perl 5.28 version brings several new features applied over a year of development.
Getting Fedora 29
Download Fedora 29 Workstation ISO image
