Fedora Linux 35 is here: Pushing Linux to the limit

Do you want to push Linux's limits? Are you thrilled by the idea of running the latest open-source software? Then you'll want to run Red Hat's newest version of its community Linux, Fedora 35.

Yes, it took a little longer than expected to arrive this time around, but as Fedora's Project Leader Matthew Miller wrote, "While we broke our six-release streak of on-schedule releases, we felt it was more important to resolve a few outstanding blocking bugs." Amen!

Here's what the latest Fedora brings to the table:

GNOME 41 for Fedora Workstation's default desktop. GNOME 41 brings changes to multitasking in GNOME along with a new remote desktop client, a Mobile Settings panel to manage mobile network connections, and other performance enhancements. Additionally, the horizontal workflow introduced in GNOME 40 has new enhancements designed for ease of use.

Improved third-party application support, making it easier to install a selection of third-party software via Flathub, the Flatpak-based Linux app store. With it, you can easily install programs such as Zoom, Minecraft, Bitwarden, and other popular applications available. You can, of course, also still install programs with RPM.

The addition of Fedora Kinoite spin. Similar to Fedora Silverblue, Fedora Kinoite features the KDE Plasma desktop in an immutable desktop offering that uses the RPM-OStree and a container-focused workflow.

Improved NVIDIA support under Wayland. This adds support for NVIDIA drivers with XWayland, enabling users who want to run applications that don't have native Wayland support to still benefit from 3D support under NVIDIA drivers.

Remote Desktop support: If you use other desktops far away from your PC, you'll appreciate the new Connections VNC- and RDP-based remote desktop client.

Improved audio. In Fedora Linux 34, the developers switched to the far superior PipeWire. Now, on top of that, you use the new WirePlumber session manager. WirePlumber enables you to customize your audio and video policy and rules.

If you're not picky about only using pure Fedora software, its third-party repositories are now immediately available. When you enable these repositories you can get selected Flathub applications with the filtered Flathub remote. This eases access to a curated list of applications that will not cause legal or other problems for Fedora to point to, does not overlap Fedora Flatpaks, and works reasonably well. Or if you want to, you can always get the full set of Flathub applications by adding the Flathub remote.

For developers, as usual, Fedora 35 includes the news programming languages and system library packages. These include LLVM 13, a GNU toolchain update; Python 3.10; Perl 5.34; PHP 8.0; and many others.

For those who use Fedora for more than a developer platform, the Fedora server family has improvements as well. For example, Fedora 35 Cloud images will now have hybrid BIOS+UEFI boot support. With this update, if UEFI doesn't work for you you have legacy BIOS support to fall back on.

Btrfs is now Fedora Cloud's default file system. The big win here is you can take advantage of transparent compression to save filesystem space.

Put it all together and as Miller says, "With Fedora 35, the Fedora Project continues towards our vision of a world where everyone benefits from free and open-source software built by inclusive, welcoming, and open-minded communities. We prioritize bringing the latest Linux innovation to our users. This latest version is focused on polishing features and support for improved performance and an even better user experience - helping to bridge the gap between new and expert users."

Ready to try it? You can download Fedora and install it on a new machine or virtual machine (VM). Or, if you're already a Fedora user you can run the latest release by updating your current Fedora.