Fedora Linux 44 Is Here: What’s New and Why It Matters

GNOME 50 Ships as Default

The most noticeable changes to Fedora 44 Workstation’s user interface are that of GNOME 50. One of the new additions to Gnome 50 is Parental Control natively located inside Settings. You are now able to limit screen time for your children or yourself and establish a bedtime schedule with no need for any additional application. Accessibility was an area that has had actual effort put into it this cycle as well. Improved Color Management and Better Remote Desktop Handling are just two examples. All default applications (Document Viewer, File Manager, and Calendar) have been upgraded.

Be mindful of that. Middle-click paste is currently disabled as a default in GNOME 50. If you use it regularly then try running this command line to enable it again.

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-enable-primary-paste true

Alternatively you may choose to revert it via the GUI with GNOME Tweaks. The change was a small one, however it has caught many users off-guard after an upgrade.

KDE Plasma 6.6 for KDE Edition Users

The Fedora KDE 44 comes with Plasma 6.6.4 as an excellent version upgrade. New fresh installations of KDE will have both the new Plasma Login Manager and Plasma Setup, making the initial boot process significantly smoother than in past versions. In addition to these improvements, KDE 44 includes some very interesting enhancements including using a mobile app scanner (by simply scanning a QR code) to connect to your home wireless network; per-application volume controls directly from the system tray/taskbar; a "grayscale" option to help those who are color blind view their screen more easily; and a new screen magnification tool that follows your cursor around the screen.

In addition to many other changes, KDE 44 replaces the traditional on-screen keyboard with Plasma Keyboard. There was one additional development of note -- Star Labs has become a member of the Fedora Ready program. This means you can purchase computers with Fedora KDE pre-installed from Star Labs. As such, if you'd like to see what running a "Linux First" computer looks like, I highly recommend purchasing a Framework Laptop 13 Pro.

Under the Hood What Developers and Sysadmins Need to Know

There were a number of backend items in Fedora 44 that could be important to look at as an administrator of a system or script writer.

GCC 16 prerelease is included in this release. Fedora regularly ships prerelease compiler versions in its even-numbered releases to help catch bugs before the official GCC release. GCC 16.1 is expected to land shortly after Fedora 44 ships, so this is intentional and Fedora-typical behavior. For context on what is also changing at the kernel level, the Linux kernel 7.0 features write-up covers the bigger picture.

If you're managing systems or writing scripts, DNF5 is now the PackageKit backend. For most users there should be no differences noticed, however, if your automation, or tooling was built using PackageKit functionality, run your tests against those systems before putting them into production. These changes connect to larger systemic administration changes such as systemd 260's SysV Init Support.

/etc/pki/tls/cert.pem has been removed. This file no longer exists by default in Fedora 44. Some older apps and scripts still look for this path to access system CA certificates instead of using the proper crypto library APIs. If something breaks after upgrading and throws TLS errors, this is likely the cause.

Fedora now supportsQualcomm-based laptops (hardware) for all new installs. The base hardware supported by Fedora when installed "out of the box" just expanded.

"Fedora Linux 44 Workstation ships with the latest GNOME release, GNOME 50. This comes with a long list of refinements to your desktop, including everything from accessibility to color management and remote desktop."

— Matthias Clasen, GNOME Developer and Fedora Workstation contributor, Fedora Magazine

How to Upgrade from Fedora 43 to Fedora 44

You can upgrade using the standard dnf system-upgrade path. If you want the ISO instead, grab it directly from the official Fedora 44 release mirror. We also covered what changed leading up to this in the Fedora 44 Beta post if you want the full timeline. To upgrade an existing install, run these commands in order:

sudo dnf upgrade --refresh<br> sudo dnf install dnf-plugin-system-upgrade<br> sudo dnf system-upgrade download --releasever=44<br> sudo dnf system-upgrade reboot

If the upgrade fails due to a conflict between tuned-ppd and tlp, add the exclude flag to the download step:

sudo dnf system-upgrade download --releasever=44 --exclude=tuned-ppd

Both tuned-ppd and tlp register the same D-Bus service for power profiles, so they cannot coexist. If TLP is working well for you, exclude tuned-ppd and keep it. If you want to switch to the Fedora default power stack, remove TLP first before running the upgrade.

Fedora 43 vs Fedora 44 - What Changed

Fedora 44 Asahi Remix - Apple Silicon

The Fedora Asahi Remix 44 is offered as an alternative to the official version. This Remix is based upon the Fedora Core 44 and will bring the same updates that have been made to Apple Silicon Macs using the Asahi Project to run Linux. Upgrading if you currently use an M series mac with the Asahi Remix will likely be a good idea. For a quick look at what was included in the last version of the remix see my previous post on Fedora Asahi Remix 43.