Now that the Fedora 26 Linux operating system has been officially released, the time has come for the Fedora Project developers to focus on the next major version, Fedora 27, which should launch later this year.

A preliminary release schedule has been published for Fedora 27 Linux, suggesting that development of the upcoming operating system starts today, July 12, with a mass rebuild. However, it looks like only on mid-August they will branch Fedora 27 from Rawhide, which will automatically become Fedora 28.

While the Beta Freeze stage is currently set for September 5, the target date of Fedora 27 Beta is September 19, but it's also possible that it could launch a week later, on September 26. As you can see, no Alpha milestone is planned for this release of the popular Linux-based operating system.

Fedora Project announced back in February that it plans to no longer offer Alpha builds during the development cycle of a new Fedora Linux release. Rawhide is considered by Fedora Project as Alpha-quality, so try Fedora Rawhide instead. The Final Freeze stage is currently set for October 10, 2017.

Final Fedora 27 release could launch on October 24, 2017

Finally, the target date of the Fedora 27 final release is two weeks later after the Final Freeze, on October 24, though it could ship a week later, on the last day of the month. As usual, nothing is set in stone with Fedora Linux, which is prone to be delayed several times during its entire development cycle.

Because there's no Alpha milestone anymore, we're looking at fewer possible delays, before the Beta and before the final release. Development of Fedora 27 will be based on the upcoming GNOME 3.26 desktop environment, which launches September 13, 2017, and possibly the Linux 4.13 kernel, whose development will start this coming Sunday with the first Release Candidate (RC).