Fedora Workstation is one of the most popular desktop Linux distributions, and it might be the best option if you like the GNOME desktop environment. Fedora Workstation 40 is now available with some great improvements.
The Fedora project has released Fedora Workstation 40, a new major release intended for use on home computers—there are other versions for IoT devices, servers, and other devices. You can download it for free from the Fedora website, with 64-bit x86, 64-bit ARM, and PPC64 installation images available.
The main upgrade in this release is an updated GNOME desktop environment. GNOME 46, which was released in March, has many improvements to the Files app, the Online Accounts system, Settings and Software applications, and much more. The update also comes with some performance and reliability improvements, including reduced memory usage in search, faster terminal apps, sharper text and visuals in many applications, and experimental support for Variable Refresh Rate (VRR). Fedora doesn’t stray far from the “vanilla” GNOME experience, so all the great changes in GNOME 40 are available out of the box in Fedora Workstation 40.
There are some changes specific to Fedora, though most people probably wouldn’t notice them. Fedora Silverblue and other “immutable” distributions have been reorganized, and are now collectively known as “Atomic” desktops. Fedora 30 also now has PyTorch integrated in the software repository, which is helpful for anyone building projects with machine learning.
Fedora Workstation 40 officially recommends a 40GB solid state drive with 4GB RAM for installation, though worse hardware will usually work (just with a degraded experience). The Fedora 31 update in 2019 dropped support for 32-bit processors, so you do need a 64-bit x86 or ARM PC to run the latest releases. The ARM version is especially useful to use in a virtual machine on an Apple Silicon Mac. The Asahi Linux project is working on a version of ARM Fedora that runs natively on M1 and M2 Mac computers, but that has not been updated to Fedora 40 just yet.
You can download Fedora Workstation from the Fedora website. The installer image can be written to a USB drive to try out in a live boot.
Source: Fedora Magazine
