Fedora 29 development and testing is currently in full swing, and Fedora 29 features a range of improvements to Internationalization (i18n) support. Major improvements in Fedora 29 include better font support, and improvements to the iBus input method.

All this week, the Fedora i18n Team is running a Test Day Week to try out these new features. More details on helping out and testing is available at the Test Day wiki page.

Font Improvements

In Fedora 29, the default font for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean (CJK) languages is now Google Noto. This provides better quality of rendering for Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters. This change provides a Serif face default for Japanese and Korean. Additionally, it provides a Monospace typeface for all of CJK languages, improving visual consistencies among the typefaces.

Fedora 29 includes version 2 of the Liberation Fonts — specifically version 2.00.3. This updated font provides wider character coverage and automated hinting instructions.

Input Method Improvements

iBus — the default input method in Fedora — is updated to version 1.5.19 in Fedora 29. This provides a range of bugfixes and enhancements. Notably, users can type either emoji annotation or Unicode names on the current application and see the composing text before the final committed text is output.