The Fedora Project is pleased to announce Fedora Linux 35 Beta. This release continues the Fedora Project's emphasis on delivering leading-edge open source technologies and includes updates spanning the Linux kernel to the desktop experience. 

Fedora Linux 35 Beta is all about polish -- extending existing features and adding new features or support to level up the experience of using Fedora Linux. Whether you use Fedora on the desktop, as a cloud-based image, or as a Linux container image, you'll find improvements that make Fedora 35 a pleasant upgrade. 

Fedora on the Desktop

Fedora Workstation 35 brings several features worth noting, and testing, for the beta release. First up is improved NVIDIA support under Wayland. This adds support for NVIDIA with XWayland, which means users who want to run applications that don't have native Wayland support can still benefit from 3D support under NVIDIA drivers. 

A desktop is no fun without applications. With the Fedora 35 release we're improving our third-party application support and making it easier to install a selection of third-party software via Flathub. This means installing apps like Zoom, Minecraft or Bitwarden and other popular applications available via Flathub will show up right in GNOME Software. 

GNOME, of course, gets an update with Fedora 35, and users will get GNOME 41 with Fedora Workstation. We'll have a longer look at the Fedora Workstation 35 experience with the final release, but look for changes to multitasking in GNOME along with a new remote desktop client, a Mobile Settings panel to manage mobile network connections and a number of performance enhancements.

If GNOME isn't your speed, Fedora offers a number of desktop spins, including the newly added Fedora Kinoite spin. This is a variation of Fedora Silverblue, an immutable desktop offering that makes use of RPM-OStree and a container-focused workflow, featuring the KDE Plasma desktop. 

Fedora server technologies

It's common for public cloud providers to support UEFI boot for Linux images now, so Fedora is providing Fedora 35 Cloud images with hybrid BIOS+UEFI boot support. This means that users have legacy BIOS support for fallback, but can take advantage of UEFI where needed. 

Fedora 34 made Btrfs the default file system for Fedora Workstation, now it's coming to Fedora Cloud as the default as well. This means users can take advantage of transparent compression to save filesystem space, as well as other features offered by Btrfs. 

System-wide changes

The Fedora Project provides a common base for its editions and spins. All Fedora releases share updates to things like the Linux kernel, updates to system libraries and much more. 

During the Fedora 35 cycle, the project has adopted a policy change to allow packagers to make a technical case for using GCC or Clang/LLVM to build their package as appropriate.  

Another "under-the-hood" change that users may appreciate but not notice immediately is support for DNS over TLS. This means Fedora will attempt to send DNS requests over TLS where possible. Users who've chosen custom DNS servers that offer encryption can enjoy additional protection from passive network attacks. 

Finally, Fedora 35 has the usual updates to system utilities, developer tools and popular languages. This release brings firewalld 1.0.0, LLVM 13, a GNU toolchain update, Python 3.10 and many others. 

Get Fedora 35 Beta

Download the beta release of your choice and if you encounter any problems we'd love your feedback. Common issues are tracked on the Fedora Wiki, so you can check to see if your bug has been reported before filing a new one. Fedora is a global community that works to help advance free and open source software. You can benefit from their work, and even join in if you like!


About the author

Joe Brockmeier is the editorial director of the Red Hat Blog. He also acts as Vice President of Marketing & Publicity for the Apache Software Foundation.

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