These are the Talking Points for the Fedora 24 release. For information on how these talking points were chosen, see Talking Points SOP. They are intended to help Ambassadors quickly present an overview of highlighted features when talking about the release, and to help drive content for the release, etc.
The talking points are based in part on the Change Set for this release.
Overall Release Story
Fedora-Wide Changes and Improvements
- GNOME now has 3.20
- More inline with upstream
- System upgrades use dnf system-upgrade logic -- reducing the reboot failure and gdm instabilities known to come with some upgrades
- Cantarell fonts improved
- Updates / Improvements for Mouse & Touchpad Users
- Gtk+ theming enhancements (CSS)
- Addition of
Shortcut windows
- Glibc moves to 2.23
- Updating is more automated and verbose in the 'what was updated' info dialog
- This automation is also removing much of the security and bugfix update runs for glibc as it is pulled in natively like a dnf update would.
- Allows for better tooling with things like pungi and koji.
- Pungi refactor
- Faster builds -- partly due to a full build kick-off
- More frequent builds -- allowing for nightlies (qa / releng) to match more closely the RC (qa / releng / test-days)
- Streamlining and ensuring Fedora build templates seamlessly cross compose for / on RHEL
- Allows for better / more logging of builds (more transparent as well)
- Allowing for install_tree builds for all supported variants / releases resulting in a working result build ( cold or live media)
- Much cleaner / understandable switches ( --ksurl, repo, repo_from, etc )
- Allowing for making koji the compose 'farm'
- Langpacks now have metapackages
- Allows per-language install Greatly reducing payload downloads and allowing much more granular control of installed langpacks
- Node.js has been updated to version 4.4.4
- New and great version of the popular server-side JavaScript engine.
Fedora Cloud
Overall message for Fedora 24 release cycle: The Fedora Cloud Working Group is focusing on "cloud native" applications and infrastructure, from top to bottom. We're focusing on Atomic Host for running containerized applications, putting energy into providing a better developer experience around Atomic Host, and enabling developers to use OpenShift Origin on Fedora / Fedora Atomic Host.
A reminder that Fedora Atomic Host is released on a two-week cadence, barring any show-stopping bugs. While the Atomic Host still roughly tracks Fedora 24 development, we have the ability to push out releases quickly and allow users to get the most recent Docker, Kubernetes, etc. ahead of the normal Fedora release cycle.
- OpenShift Origin for Fedora: We want to enable a "full stack" experience for folks to run the OpenShift Origin Platform-as-a-Service on Fedora and Fedora Atomic Host. We've packaged Origin so Fedora users can spin it up and get started working with containerized applications in Origin.
- Developer Mode for Fedora Atomic Host: Using "developer mode" for Fedora Atomic Host obviates the need for a cloud-init data source, and gives a better developer experience overall. When running in Developer Mode, the host will download and start Cockpit and fire up a tmux session to make it easier to work at the console and obtain necessary inforamation (like the root password, IP address, etc.).
See this ticket: https://fedorahosted.org/cloud/ticket/143
Tracking features that will make it into the Alpha. From there we'll create the basic points.
The overall "story" for Fedora Cloud this cycle is continuing work on container technologies for cloud environments. Most of the wood behind the arrow this cycle is going to be for Fedora Atomic Host and running OpenShift Origin on top of Fedora.
Fedora Server
- New partitioning scheme: The new partitioning scheme for Fedora Server is designed to be more in line with a server deployment, and further differentiate the server edition from other editions of Fedora.
- Allowing for use of cockpit for to allocate 'free space' and not have to allocate the full VG at install.
- Reducing the footprint of the Server edition: More packages have been removed from the default Server edition in order to make the footprint of the default installation smaller.
- FreeIPA 4.3: A new version of FreeIPA (Domain Controller role) is included in Fedora 24. Version 4.3 of FreeIPA includes a number of new features that helps streamline installation of replicas by adding a replica promotion method for new installs. A new topology plugin has also been added that automatically manages new replication segment creation. A very effective replica topology visualization tool is also available in the webUI.
Fedora Workstation
- Wayland - The new display technology to replace the aging X is ready for daily use. Although Wayland hasn't reached 100% feature parity with X, developers have covered most use cases and made it a reliable option. Wayland brings better HiDPI support for multiple monitors, tear-free video playback, significantly improved security due to app isolation on the display server level, and lots of potential for the future.
- Graphical Upgrades - Upgrading your OS is now easy with Software. No need to use a CLI tool to upgrade your Fedora to the newest release. You'll be notified once the new release is available, and you can start the upgrade process from the "Updates" section in Software.
- Flatpak support - Flatpak provides a new way to package apps for Linux distributions. Flatpaks run in a sandbox and independently on the underlying system. They're more secure and don't depend on particular versions of libraries in your system. The flatpak tool was available in previous releases of Fedora as xdg-app, but now it's integrated in Software where you can easily manage Flatpaks. GNOME already provides a repository with Flatpaks, and other upstream projects will soon. Want the newest version of your favorite app? With Flatpak, it won't be a problem!
- Reviews in Software - The Software tool for managing your apps now supports user reviews. Now it's easier than ever to choose the right app for your need.
- Improvements in Shell - The GNOME Shell has also received a couple of handy improvements: Music controls have been added to the calendar drop down, above the calendar list. It uses MPRIS so lots of media players are supported. A hidden setting to show the battery percentage has been added, replacing four existing extensions. For systems that cannot detect whether a headset, headphones or a microphone is getting plugged in, a new dialog in the Shell configures the jack properly. Keyboard keys to disable Wi-Fi or Bluetooth are now supported out of the box.
- QGnomePlatform - This new addition to Workstation improves integration of GTK and Qt worlds by synchronizing settings. In Fedora 24, it supports font settings. If you change font settings in GNOME Tweak Tool, the change will be reflected in Qt applications, too. No need to change it in two different places anymore.
- Redesigned Printer Job Dialog & Mouse and Touchpad Settings - The dialog to manage printer jobs has been redesigned and is easier to use. The Mouse and Touchpad Settings have also been redone. Among other improvement, you'll only see relevant settings to you, meaning those supported by your device.
- Font Improvements - The default font, Cantarell, has received major improvements. Language coverage has been brought up almost to Adobe Latin 4 and Adobe Cyrillic 2. For example, Vietnamese is fully supported now. Hinting has also been tweaked so the font is more legible and useful.
- BBC Microbit support - Fedora now supports BBC Microbit devices using the mu IDE.
- Application Improvements:
- Shortcuts Windows - 18 GNOME apps have received a window that shows an overview of keyboard shortcuts and multitouch gestures available for the application. Just hit Control-F1 or Control-? to open the window.
- New Search UI in Files - The Files browser (aka Nautilus) has a new interface for search filters. It now uses a popover and is more intuitive.
- LibreOffice 5.1 - A new major release of this popular office suite comes with many improvements across all its apps. As always, the document format compatibility has been significantly improved. LO now supports import of Gnumeric, Microsoft Write (.wri), and Apple Keynote 6 documents. There are many improvements in export and import filters for OOXML, MS Visio, and Corel Draw files. There have also been refinements in the user interface, such as reorganization of the main menu in Writer, Calc, and Impress. All OpenGL transitions in Impress have been ported to OpenGL 2.1+, which removes support for very old graphics processors, but allows better usage of modern ones. Four new transitions have been added which require OpenGL 3.2+ that exploit these new available features. LibreOffice in Fedora 24 has also switched to GTK+ 3 by default which gives it a more native look, and the ability to run natively on Wayland.
- Native LO document support in Documents - Documents now natively support LibreOffice documents through the LibreOfficeKit widget.
- Automatic Initial Snapshots in Boxes - Boxes now automatically makes a snapshot of a VM installation, so you can reset your VMs at any time and return to the initial state.
- Eclipse Neon - A major new release of the Eclipse IDE will ship with Fedora 24. See the upstream "New and Noteworthy" document for the core platform and Java tooling: https://www.eclipse.org/eclipse/news/4.6/