Fedora has done it again. The fruit of their labor is now ready for the masses to enjoy. Fedora 32 will definitely strike the chord for most of its users and the ones who have a keen eye on joining in. Released on April 28th 2020 after a patient wait from the fans and enthusiasts, there are no more barriers to getting it on your hands because it is now officially out.
Outstanding Features in Fedora 32 Workstation
1. GNOME 3.36
Fedora 32 has been unleashed with the newest garments in town. GNOME 3.26 is the latest release of GNOME that comes with a lot of improvements and features that the community has been requesting. Gnome 3.26 has the following features.
Better Applications Search
Powered by the talent and the evident hard-work invested in this new release, it is amazing now that you can now search applications like lock screen, power off, log out and many more in a beautiful layout. It integrates well with screens that can be oriented vertically or horizontally which makes it sweet to interact with.
New design on the settings App
Renamed to settings, the GNOME Control Center now has an easy to use side bar which embraces the user with an intuitive and fluid navigation through the settings arena. Additionally, the About category now has a more information about your system, including which windowing system you are running (e.g. Wayland)
Better Nautilus
If you like searching files or directories without hassle or working so hard, then the new Nautilus will truly sort you out. Try it out and get to see how much it can go for you to find that which you are looking for.
New Extensions Application
Fedora 32 features the new Extensions application, to easily manage your GNOME Extensions. In the past, extensions were installed, configured, and enabled using either the Software application and/or the Tweak Tool.
Desktop
The GNOME Shell received a lot of visual and functional improvements this release.
- The power off / log out options have been reorganized. There is now a visible suspend option, making suspending a computer much easier!
- System dialogs requiring a password now have an option to reveal the password text by clicking the “eye” icon.
- Most, if not all, system dialogs have been redesigned, making them more consistent and easier to read.
- App folders in the application overview can now be renamed.
- The entire interface has been improved even more, with special focus on the calendar popover and overview search.
Redesigned Login Screen
A lot of design went into improving the login and unlock experience in GNOME 3.26. The resulting lock screen is more functional, easier to use, and looks elegant in its simplicity.
2. EarlyOOM by default
Linux has an in-kernel oom-killer (out of memory killer) that kicks in when the system is struggling with out of memory technicalities. It comes in when there is nothing else that the system can do to salvage itself from the memory storm. It will go ahead and swap out the desktop environment, drop the whole page cache and empty every buffer before it will ultimately kill a process. The effect is that the system can be totally unresponsive and hence the bad name it unfortunately carries.
The Early out of memory (EarlyOOM) daemon, sitting in the user-space was developed to solve this problem by checking the amount of memory and swap frequently. What it does is triggering Linux’s in-kernel out-of-memory killer (oom-killer) sooner before the system experiences too much memory that causes total unresponsiveness problems. By default if the amount of available memory and free are below 10%, it will kill the largest process (highest oom_score).
3. Package Updates
A new release always means replacing the old oil with new ones. Fedora 32 comes with various new packages as outlined below.
package updates like the near-final
GCC 10 code compiler
Even though GCC 10 has not been released officially yet, it has the following general improvements
- Profile driven optimization improvements
- Link-time optimization improvements
- Inter-procedural optimization improvements
- New command-line options
- New built-in functions
Glibc 2.31
The GNU C Library project provides the core libraries for the GNU system and GNU/Linux systems, as well as many other systems that use Linux as the kernel.
TRIM enabled by default for SSDs
TRIM is an Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA) command that enables an operating system to tell the solid-state drive (SSD) that a particular data block on the drives are no longer needed and they can be erased internally. It comes with the advantage of extending SSD life as well as improving its data writing performance.
Python 3.8 and Ruby 2.7
Pythin has gained much traction now in the development sphere and as Data Science keeps soaring even higher, Fedora 32 could not hold back but come packed and ready for the world with Python 3.8 by default. Nevertheless, a legacy python27 package is provided for developers and users who still need it.
Firewalld
Firewalld now defaults to using nftables in this new Fedora release
Why should you choose Fedora 32
Leading with a track record of producing Operating Systems for power the future such as Fedora IoT, Fedora Silverblue and Fedora CoreOS, the team has released Fedora 32 packed with features that the community requested as well as others to make the experience beautiful for all. Fedora Server brings the latest in cutting-edge open source server software to systems administrators in an easy-to-deploy fashion. For edge computing use cases, Fedora IoT provides a strong foundation for IoT ecosystems. In order to celebrate with the Fedora team for the relentless work they are doing, here is a piece that spells out what they have for us in this new release.
Fedora has these other unique options
Fedora CoreOS
Fedora CoreOS is an automatically-updating, minimal operating system for running containerized workloads securely and at scale. It is currently available on multiple platforms, with more coming soon. Source (Fedora Magazine).
Fedora Silverblue
Silverblue is a code-name for the new generation of the desktop operating system, previously known as Atomic Workstation. The operating system is delivered in images that are created by utilizing the rpm-ostree project. The main benefits of the system are speed, security, atomic updates and immutability. Source (Fedora Magazine).
Fedora IoT
Fedora Internet of Things is a Fedora Edition focused on being a strong foundation for IoT ecosystems. Whether you’re working on a project at home, industrial gateways, smart cities or analytics with AI/ML, Fedora IoT provides a trusted open source platform to build on. Fedora IoT produces a regular rolling release to help you keep your ecosystem up-to-date. Source (Fedora Magazine).
With such a load of features introduced for you, there is nothing left than you to get to experience it right on your desktop or PC. Go ahead and get your copy of Fedora 32 and let the fun commence.
Getting Started with Fedora 32 Workstation
Luckily, we have you covered on the installation part as well. Simply follow the comprehensive guide below:
How To Install Fedora 32 – Step by Step With Screenshots
Better yet, if you have Fedora 31 and you would wish to get the latest release, an upgrade is your best option. You can do that by following how to Upgrade Fedora 31 to Fedora 32 Linux Workstation.
Finishing Up
Much appreciation and congratulations to Fedora for finally releasing the 32nd version. We celebrate the work you are doing together with the tremendous community support. May you soar higher.
We have a good number of guides featuring Fedora 32 and some have been sampled for you to get started quickly.
Install Zoom Client on CentOS 8 / Fedora 32/31/30
How To Install AnyDesk on Fedora 32/31/30/29
Install Visual Studio Code on Fedora 32/31/30/29
