From the desk of Fedora Project Leader Matthew Miller: The Fedora Project is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Fedora 27 Beta, the next big step towards our exciting Fedora 27 release in November.

Visit Get Fedora to download the installation media for Workstation prerelease, or to download or click to launch Fedora Atomic Host cloud images.

Note that for this cycle, we’re separating Fedora 27 Server and releasing it about a month after the regular cycle, as we work to incorporate major changes from the Modularity initiative. For more information, please read Where is Fedora 27 Beta Server?

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:

Also be aware that we are missing i686 (32-bit Intel architecture) images for this release; this is due to a bug in image checksum creation and which we will fix by the final release. If you are interested in testing Fedora 27 Beta on i686, wait for upcoming nightly images — or update from Fedora 26.

Fedora’s journey is not simply about updating one operating system with the latest and greatest packages. It’s also about innovation for the many different platforms represented in the Fedora Project: Workstation, Server, Atomic, and the various Spins. Coordinating the efforts across the many working groups is no small task, and serves as a testament to the talent and professionalism found within the Fedora community.

As we move into this Beta phase of the Fedora 27 release cycle, what can users expect?

Fedora-Wide Changes

Fedora, always in the path of innovation, will ship with the latest version of the GNU Compiler Collection, also known as GCC, bringing the latest language features and optimizations to users and to the software we build.

Also, we’ve made and included many improvements in security, improving user experience and reducing the risks of the digital life.

Fedora Editions

Fedora Workstation

The Workstation edition of Fedora 27 Beta features GNOME 3.26. In the new release, both the Display and Network configuration panels have been updated, along with the overall Settings panel appearance improvement. The system search now shows more results at once, including the system actions, and also the antiquated system tray has been removed to reduce visual clutter and confusion. The Topicons extension is available for use with any applications that have not yet updated.

GNOME 3.26 also features color emoji support, folder sharing in Boxes, and numerous improvements in the Builder IDE tool. Many thanks to the GNOME community for their work on these features. For more information refer to the upstream release notes at Gnome 3.26 Release Notes.

Applications LibreOffice 5.4 – New functions and improvements related mainly to Writer and Calc and also in EMF+ vector images import. Now we can use OpenPGP keys to sign ODF documents. Fedora Media Writer – the latest version allows you to create bootable SD cards with Fedora for ARM devices such as Raspberry Pi. Support for Windows 7 and screenshot handling have been improved. The utility also notifies you when a new release of Fedora is available. There are no big changes compared to the previous version, only stability and usability fixes.



Fedora Atomic Host

Fedora Atomic 27 now defaults to a simpler container storage setup. Furthermore it offers containerized Kubernetes, flannel and etcd. This allows flexibility for users to choose different versions of Kubernetes, or to not use Kubernetes at all. This release is shipped with the latest rpm-ostree, now with support for base package overrides. Cockpit is also updated to the latest version and includes support for Cockpit Dashboard installation on Atomic Host via RPM package layering.

Spins and Labs

KDE

There are no significant updates. Frameworks, Plasma, KDE Applications, and all the other applications with independent release schedule have been updated, bringing fixes and improvements. Qt 5 is now updated to 5.9.1, which brings more stability and new features.

Xfce

The Xfce spin is running on Xfce 4.12. This cycle only brings stability improvements but no new features.

Design Suite

Updates include new versions of Blender, Entangle, Gimp, and Inkscape, and other features.

Security Lab

Updates include new versions of Wireshark, Yersinia, and Siege, and other features.

Alternative Architectures and Other Downloads

We are also simultaneously releasing 64-bit Fedora 27 Beta for ARM (AArch64), Power (both little and big endian) and s390x architectures. You’ll also find minimal network installers and the Fedora 27 Beta Cloud Base image here: Beta Alternative Architectures and Other Downloads.

What is the Beta Release?

A Beta release is code-complete and bears a very strong resemblance to the final release. The final release of Fedora 27 is expected in November. 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 F27 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 27 Beta Release, you can consult our Talking Points and the F27 Change Set. They contain more technical information about the new packages and improvements shipped with this release.