Fedora 25 Beta now available

We're pleased to announce that Fedora 25, the latest version of the Fedora operating system, is now available in beta. The Fedora Project is a global community that works together to lead the advancement of free and open source software. As part of the community’s mission the project delivers three editions, each one a free, Linux-based operating system tailored to meet specific use cases: Fedora 25 Atomic Host Beta, Fedora 25 Server Beta, and Fedora 25 Workstation Beta.

Each edition is built from a common set of base packages, which form the core foundation of the Fedora operating system. As with all new versions of Fedora, Fedora 25 Beta provides many minor bug fixes and tweaks to these underlying components, as well as new and enhanced packages, including:

• Docker 1.12 for building and running containerized applications

• Node.js 6.5, the latest version of the popular server-side JavaScript engine

• Support for Rust, a faster and more stable system programming language

• Multiple Python versions - 2.6, 2.7, 3.3, 3.4 and 3.5 - to help run test suites across several Python configurations, as well as PyPy, PyPy3 and Jython

Fedora 25 Workstation Beta

Providing many of the latest developer and desktop tools, Fedora 25 Workstation Beta delivers a host of new features, including the long-awaited official debut of the Wayland display server. Replacing the legacy X11 system, Wayland has been under development for several years and aims to provide a smoother, more user-friendly experience when navigating Fedora Workstation. To further enhance ease-of-use, Fedora 25 Workstation Beta also features GNOME 3.22 in pre-release, which offers multiple file renaming, a redesigned keyboard settings tool and additional user interface improvements.

Fedora 25 Workstation Beta now makes it easier to upgrade a desktop environment to the latest stable version of Fedora with the Fedora Media Writer. This tool helps users find and download the current Fedora release and write it to removable media, like a USB stick; this allows for potential Fedora users to “test drive” the operating system from that media environment. If they like what they experience, Fedora can then be installed to their system with the same process.

Finally, for developers, Fedora 25 Workstation Beta introduces improved Flatpak support. This tweak makes it easier to install, update and remove Flatpak software and enables this application packaging standard to be more user friendly at the workstation level.

Fedora 25 Server Beta

Beyond the flexible multi-role functions provided by rolekit, Fedora 25 Server Beta now delivers a new SELinux Troubleshooter module for Cockpit. Similar to what is available on Fedora Workstation, the module helps provide suggestions for a user when an SELinux denial is encountered, which otherwise requires log checking and manual workarounds.

Fedora 25 Server Beta also will now display SSH keys in the system dashboard to make it easier for administrators to see what keys are connecting to a given machine. Additionally, support is now included for multi-step (including two-factor) authentication services.

Coming Soon: Fedora 25 Atomic Host Beta

While Fedora 25 Atomic Host will not be a part of this beta release, the Fedora Project plans to change Fedora Atomic Host to be on Fedora 25 base on when generally available.

Fedora 25 Atomic Host will be tailored for running container-based workloads, in the cloud or on bare metal. This edition includes:

• A base image for creating virtual machines

• An Atomic Host image for creating hosts for container deployment

• A Docker image

Delivered on a two-week refresh schedule, Fedora Atomic Host is rebased to new Fedora releases every six months (coinciding with Fedora releases), so stay tuned as we get closer to the Fedora 25 launch for what’s in store!

While Fedora Atomic Host will replace the Fedora Cloud Base image as one of Fedora’s three editions, we will also make Fedora 25 Cloud Base Beta available to users who need it.

You can take Fedora 25 Beta for a spin yourself at https://getfedora.org.

As always, the Fedora Project team wants to hear from you – let us know about any bugs or problems that you encounter, as your feedback can help us improve Fedora 25. Common issues can be found on the Fedora 25 common bugs page (please read this on how to effectively report bugs).

If you are interested in becoming more involved with Fedora, we want you on our team! You can contribute to the Fedora Project in many ways other than bug reporting – the Fedora Project is always looking for translators, testers, content creators, marketers, designers and so much more. Whatever your skill set, we would love to have you involved – find out more at http://whatcanidoforfedora.org/.

The Fedora Project is a Red Hat-sponsored community project. For more information about Fedora, please visit the Fedora Project homepage.