Fedora 24 Workstation is the latest release of our free, leading-edge operating system. You can download it from the official website here. There are several new and noteworthy changes in Fedora Workstation.

GNOME 3.20

The default environment comes courtesy of the GNOME community. They’ve put a lot of work into the latest 3.20 release, with many improvements. Some examples:

New shortcut overlays now help users learn keyboard shortcuts for commands.

Searching is easier than ever in the Files application.

You can now access media controls directly from the calendar in Shell.

The default font Cantarell is now more legible.

Printer jobs are easier to manage with a simpler interface.

Mouse settings are now customized to show you the right options for your hardware.

There are many other improvements. Read more about them in the GNOME 3.20 press release.

Graphical upgrades

The Software application now has the ability to detect and offer upgrades to the latest Fedora release. This feature will soon be updated in Fedora 23, allowing users to upgrade to Fedora 24. Your content downloads in the background, and when ready, you can reboot and upgrade. As always, mixing software from non-Fedora sources may affect your ability to upgrade. Most systems can upgrade without issues, though.

Flatpak support

Flatpak provides a new way to package apps for Linux systems. Flatpaks are more secure, and don’t depend on what’s installed already in your system. Developers and vendors can offer Flatpaks that run on any Flatpak-capable Linux system. This makes life simpler for them and their users. The flatpak tool was available in previous releases of Fedora as xdg-app. In Fedora 24, the Software app will be able to show Flatpaks you have installed. GNOME already provides a repository with Flatpaks, and other upstream projects will soon.

LibreOffice 5.1

No Fedora Workstation release would be complete without the latest popular office suite. In Fedora 24, LibreOffice comes with many improvements across all its apps:

More compatibility with document formats

Imports Gnumeric, Microsoft Write (.wri), and Apple Keynote 6 documents

Improved export and import filters for OOXML, MS Visio, and Corel Draw files

Better user interface, and reorganzed main menu in Writer, Calc, and Impress

Uses GTK+ 3 toolkit by default, to look more like a native app

Runs natively on Wayland

QGnomePlatform

When apps look as similar as possible, they’re easier to use. Ideally, whether apps are designed for GNOME or KDE, they’d look the same. But different toolkits, such as Qt for KDE, need extra theme information to look like they’re part of the same environment. Contributors have been working to solve this issue for a while now. QGnomePlatform is a new project that helps by synchronizing settings between GNOME and newer Qt tools. Now when you change font settings in GNOME Tweak Tool, the change shows up in Qt-5 based applications, too. QGnomePlatform plans to grow over time to sync other settings.

Wayland

Wayland is the new display technology that replaces X. Now it’s ready for daily use in Fedora 24. To use it now, select the user at the login screen, then on the password screen select the gear-shaped settings icon to choose the session type. There’s already improved multi-monitor support and tear-free video playback in Wayland. It also features better security since applications no longer can “peek” at each other’s data. Currently Wayland is expected to be default in Fedora 25 Workstation.

Other notes

These are only some of the improvements in Fedora 24. Fedora is made up of thousands of software apps contributed by our community. Many of them have been updated since the previous release as well.

Want to read more about the Fedora 24 release? We’ve got you covered. Check out the official release announcement for more details.