The Fedora Project is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Fedora 28 Beta, the next big step on our journey to the exciting Fedora 28 release in May.

Download the prerelease from our Get Fedora site:

Or, check out one of our popular variants, including KDE Plasma, Xfce, and other desktop environments, as well as images for ARM devices like the Raspberry Pi 2 and 3:

Beta Release Highlights

Modular Repository for Fedora Server

As discussed in Modularity is Dead, Long Live Modularity, we have taken a simpler approach to modules for F28. Instead of a separate modularized operating system, we’ve added a new Modular Repository alongside the traditional Everything Repository. With the Fedora Server Edition, the Modular repository will be immediately available. You will have access to a few modules today with more to come during the run-up to the F28 release.

You can enable Modularity in other Editions and variants of Fedora, but unfortunately, Modules are not yet available through GNOME Software or Plasma Discover. We are working on providing the necessary support to libdnf which these tools (and others) rely on. To use the Modular repo on a Fedora desktop platform, we recommend enabling it inside a container.

64-bit Arm now a primary architecture for Fedora Server

Fedora Server is now officially available for AAarch64, the 64-bit ARM platform.

GNOME 3.28

Fedora 28 Workstation Beta further refines the desktop experience with the inclusion of GNOME 3.28, which adds the capability to favorite files, folders, and contacts for easier organization and access. Additional enhancements include Thunderbolt 3 connection support, active-by-default power saving features to improve laptop battery life, and more.

VirtualBox Guest Additions

We now include the Guest Additions for VirtualBox, which will make for a smoother experience and better performance for anyone using that virtualization environment.

Kubernetes 1.9

New for Fedora 28 Atomic Host Beta is the inclusion of Kubernetes 1.9, which brings along a host of new innovative features for orchestrating container-native workloads.

Other updates

A common set of base packages forms the core foundation of each Fedora edition, and as with new versions of the Fedora operating system, Fedora 28 Beta includes a host of minor bug fixes and tweaks to these packages. The changes to Fedora 28 Beta’s base packages are highlighted by the addition of glibc 2.27, the latest version of the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) 8, and updates to many open source languages, including Golang 1.10 and Ruby 2.5.

What is the Beta Release?

A Beta release is code-complete and bears a very strong resemblance to the final release, expected in May. If you take the time to download and try out the Beta, you can check and make sure the things that are important to you are working. Every bug you find and report doesn’t just help you, it improves the experience of millions of Fedora users worldwide! Together, we can make Fedora rock-solid. We have a culture of coordinating new features and pushing fixes upstream as much as we can, and your feedback improves not only Fedora, but Linux and Free software as a whole.

Issues and Details

Since this is a Beta release, we expect that you may encounter bugs or missing features. To report issues encountered during testing, contact the Fedora QA team via the mailing list or in #fedora-qa on Freenode. As testing progresses, common issues are tracked on the Common F28 Bugs page.

For tips on reporting a bug effectively, read how to file a bug report.

More information

For more detailed information about what’s new on Fedora 28 Beta Release, you can consult our Talking Points and the F28 Change Set. They contain more technical information about the new packages and improvements shipped with this release.