Fedora is a huge project that includes tens of thousands of packaged software. Sometimes you may notice an upstream has released an update that is not yet in the stable Fedora repositories, and in a lot of cases this updated version will be on its way for inclusion in Fedora. There are several places you can check to see if an updated version of the package is on the way for Fedora.

Check the Fedora Updates system (Bodhi)

Bodhi is Fedora’s updates system for tracking pending updates. You can check the Bodhi page for the package you are interested in and check if there are any pending updates in the “Testing” status. For example at the time of writing, the Bodhi page (https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/?packages=powerline) for Powerline shows that there is an update for Fedora 22 in the works:

Because a newer version of this package is in updates-testing, you can easily install it from the updates-testing repo with:

sudo dnf install lyx --enablerepo=updates-testing

Or you can wait for it to get out of the testing phase. (And if you do try it, you can help others by adding a + or – comment to the

update in Bodhi.)

Checking Bugzilla for answers

If you have checked Bodhi, and no update is pending, take a look in bugzilla for bugs like this one: <https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1060470> — maybe there’s a reason why there is not an update in the works yet. These types of “new upstream is available” bugs are going have also become easier for a Package Maintainer to track with the new Upstream Monitoring system launched earlier in the year. However, if there is a newer upstream version available, but not in Fedora, filing a bug of this type against the package you are interested in is a good way to inform the maintainer that a new version is available upstream.

Check Koji, our build system

Fedora’s updates policy asks for maintainers to be cautious about putting big updates which change the UI or significantly alter functionality into stable releases, so it may be that the newer package is destined only for the next Fedora release.

So check the koji builds <http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/packageinfo?packageID=17410> for the most recent version of Fedora + 1 and see if this version is newer than what you have.

Contact the Package Maintainers

Finally, you can contact the package maintainers and see what their plans are. (Offers of help are often welcome if you are technically inclined and familiar with the package in question — even if you’re not a packager, you can test.)

You can find the maintainers in the package db web app, like <https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/package/powerline/>.