El The Fedora project has announced the official availability of the new version of "Fedora 44", which comes with the latest version of "GNOME 50" for its Workstation version, as well as "KDE Plasma 6.6", Budgie 10.10, the Linux kernel 6.19 and more.
This release not only updates the overall technology base, but also unifies the initial setup experience, radically optimizes the boot architecture, and fully embraces modern graphics protocols for x86_64, Power64, and ARM64 architectures.
Fedora 44 Key New Features
In the edition Workstation desktop environment advances towards GNOME 50, marking a definitive change to completely remove the lines of code inherited from the X11 graphics serverThis transition to Wayland allows for a more stable session persistence system, official support for fractional scaling of displays, optimized variable refresh rate (VRR) management, and direct compatibility with the latest color management protocols, guaranteeing a professional and accurate visual representation.
On the KDE Plasma side, the The distribution has been restructured to unify the user experience. All editions that incorporate KDE (including Plasma Mobile and the unchanging Kinoite) They have replaced the classic SDDM manager with Plasma's new native login manager.
In addition, the classic installedAnaconda now disables its own initial account setup modulesleaving user creation, language, and time zone to the official KDE project setup wizard. This decision eliminates technical redundancy and allows for a much more seamless installation on a new computer from the very first boot.
Windows game acceleration using NTSYNC
For video game fans, Fedora 44 implements one of the low-level optimizations most spectacular of the last year: the Default activation of the NTSYNC core moduleWhen installing platforms like Wine or Steam, the system automatically configures this module, whichIt implements synchronization primitives identical to those used in the Windows NT kernel..
By moving synchronization management directly to the Linux kernel level, the immense processing overhead is eliminated which previously occurred in user space. The result is a dramatic increase in frames per second and superior compatibility when running AAA games or demanding applications designed exclusively for Microsoft environments. To complement this advancement, the Fedora Games Lab edition has been redesigned to offer a high-performance software and driver ecosystem, taking full advantage of PipeWire and Wayland.
Cleaning and optimizing network storage
At the system administration level, the installer Anaconda introduces a logical changeor absolutely necessary. When configuring a machine, the installer now creates network profiles only for those interfaces (whether wired or wireless) that the user actively configured during the initial installation. No more annoying automatic creation of empty profiles for each inactive network adapter detected on the motherboard, which greatly simplifies subsequent connection management via NetworkManager.
Fedora Cloud editions abandon the classic boot partition separate ( /boot) to fully embrace a native subkey in the file system Btrfs, reducing the size of virtual images and making better use of space.
Modernization of the base software and reproducible builds
The transition towards older architectural styles becomes evident with the decision to definitively discontinue the development of QEMU for 32-bit host systems, and the complete purge of the old FUSE 2 libraries in favor of the FUSE 3 standard within the system's immutable editions. Furthermore, the legendary PackageKit has been rewritten to utilize the lightning-fast DNF5 download engine, greatly streamlining graphical package management.
Finally, it is also worth mentioning that this entire ecosystem is crowned by a titanic achievement in security: the project Fedora has achieved 99% coverage in reproducible build infrastructure.
Thanks to the standardization of metadata, users or auditors can download the source code, compile the program on their own machines, and obtain binary code that is identical bit for bit to the one distributed on Fedora servers, eradicating any possibility of backdoors being distributed hidden in the automated packaging processes.
If you are interested in learning more, you can find the details at the following link.
Download Fedora 44
The new compilations They are now available for downloadincluding Fedora Workstation, Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop, Fedora Server, Fedora IoT, Fedora CoreOS, Fedora Cloud Base, Fedora Silverblue, Fedora Kinoite and more.
Live versions are also offered with user environments such as Xfce, MATE, Cinnamon, LXDE, LXQt, Budgie, Sway, Phosh, Miracle and COSMIC, all compatible with x86_64, Power64 and ARM64 architectures.