Fedora Linux 34 Beta now available

Today, the Fedora Project, a global community that works to help advance free and open source software, is pleased to announce the availability of Fedora Linux 34 Beta, the latest version of the Fedora Linux operating system. Fedora Linux 34 Beta continues the Fedora Project’s emphasis on delivering editions, each designed to address specific use cases for modern developers and IT teams. 

Fedora Linux 34 Beta sees a continued trajectory for a more coherent desktop interface for a better user experience with GNOME 40. We also continue to foster the development of emerging Fedora editions like Fedora CoreOS to better address the future of cloud-native, containerized infrastructure and development. Fedora Linux 34 Beta enables a coherent set of packaged application updates, streamlining new versions and enabling users to revert to previous versions.

GNOME 40 unified organization

Fedora Workstation is a reliable, user-friendly and powerful operating system created for developers and Linux enthusiasts. 

The latest available upstream GNOME desktop environment release, GNOME 40, is included in Fedora Linux 34 Beta. GNOME 40 brings user experience enhancements to the GNOME shell overview, which rearranges features like search, windows, workspaces and applications to be more spatially coherent. GNOME 40 also includes improvements to multi-monitor handling and allows users to choose between workspaces on primary displays only, or workspaces on all displays.

GNOME shell will also start in the overview after login, and the GNOME welcome tour that was introduced in Fedora Linux 33 will be adapted to the new design for an integrated, cohesive look for desktop.

Btrfs transparent compression 

Btrfs is a file system with interesting features like data integrity, multiple device support and more. Btrfs became the default file system for desktops in Fedora Linux 33, and Fedora Linux 34 Beta builds on that work by enabling transparent compression for more disk space This is designed to help significantly increase the lifespan of flash-based media by reducing write amplification for solid-state disks. This compression will be essential for increasing read and write performance of larger files, with the potential to add significant time efficiency into workflows. With a foundation for future enhancements, we aim to continue adding to these capabilities in future versions.

Replacing PulseAudio with PipeWire

Desktop audio will transition from using PulseAudio to PipeWire to mix and manage audio streams, with low-latency for pro audio users. Better designed to meet the needs of containers and applications shipped in Flatpaks, this change supports the growing shift in IT to a containerized world. 

The integration of PipeWire also creates the space for just one audio infrastructure to serve desktop and pro audio use cases for mixing, with a goal of ending the fragmentation of the audio landscape. In the next phase, the Fedora Project plans to expand the user experience and configuration of the audio infrastructure with better integration throughout the system.

And much more

Those are just some of the improvements coming to Fedora 34 Beta. This release, as usual, is chock full of updates to crucial open source development tools, languages, and user-facing applications. 

Test Fedora Linux 34 Beta for yourself

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 Linux 34. Common issues can be found on the Fedora Linux 40 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! 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 what you can do for Fedora.

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