Fedora Had A Killer 2018, But It Will Be Interesting To See What Comes Next Year

It was a very exciting year for Red Hat's Fedora Linux distribution process with the successful releases of Fedora 28 and 29, each of those new Fedora releases adding in plenty of new features, achieving the long-desired flicker-free polished boot experience, and Fedora Silverblue taking shape for what was formerly their Atomic Workstation initiative. Next year though could be even more radical for the project.

Looking ahead to 2019 for Fedora, they are looking at dropping or drastically delaying Fedora 31 to focus on re-tooling and other low-level changes... Thus 2019 could very well only see one new Fedora release. Some have also called for Fedora just to move to an annual release cadence or the like, we'll see what happens. It will also be interesting to see how Fedora Silverblue takes off next year as well as the other technical innovations that continue to happen within the Fedora camp and then pushed upstream. On a larger scale, it will be interesting to see if any changes happen in the Fedora space following IBM closing on their acquisition of Red Hat -- we're certainly hoping for the best and that it will only benefit RHEL and Fedora.

As for what was most popular on Phoronix this year when it came to Fedora, here's that recap:

Fedora 29 Is Shaping Up To Be A Very Exciting Release
While Fedora 28 has been a fantastic release, Fedora 29 that is currently under development for releasing in October is going to be what feels like a massive amount of changes.

Fedora 29 Succeeds At Flicker-Free Boot Experience On Intel Hardware
After optimizing the Linux laptop battery life last cycle, Hans de Goede of Red Hat has been working on Fedora 29 to provide a "flicker-free" boot experience. A Linux desktop flicker-free boot has been talked about for a decade or longer but with Fedora 29 and using Intel graphics that is finally becoming a reality.

Fedora 31 Will Likely Be Cancelled Or Significantly Delayed To Focus On Retooling
Following the release of Fedora 30 in May, there might not be another major Fedora Linux release for about one year's time.

Fedora 29 Dropping GCC From Their Default Build Root Has Been Causing A Heated Debate
One of the surprisingly controversial changes being implemented for Fedora 29 is dropping GCC and GCC-C++ from the default BuildRoot for assembling Fedora packages with Koji and Mock.

Fedora's Power Tweaks Dropped The Power Use On A ThinkPad By ~30%
Over the past few months Hans de Goede of Red Hat has been focusing on Linux power improvements, in particular to extend the battery life of laptops running Fedora Linux. As indicated by his presentation this past weekend at FOSDEM 2018, he's making great strides in that effort.

Fedora 29 Is Blocked From Release Due To 11 Open Bugs
Fedora 29 will not be managing to deliver its final release right on time due to lingering blocker bugs.

Fedora Developers Are Trying To Figure Out The Best Linux I/O Scheduler
Fedora developers are working on trying to figure out the best default behavior moving forward for their I/O scheduler selection.

Fedora Is Looking For Help Testing Their New Silverblue
Fedora is hosting a test day today for testing their new Silverblue spin, formerly known as Fedora Atomic Workstation.

Fedora 29 Might Make Change To Eliminate Unnecessary Linking
Yet another notable change proposal for Fedora 29 is to "remove excessive linking", which could help program start-up times, but may be too late for happening with the current Fedora Linux release cycle.

Fedora 29 To Fully Embrace The FreeDesktop.org Boot Loader Specification
Adding to the growing list of features for Fedora 29 is a plan to fully support the FreeDesktop.org Boot Loader Specification and making use of their defined fragment files to populate boot-loader boot menu entries, including the kernel entries.

Fedora 29 Might Finally Switch To Liberation Fonts 2
Back in 2012 was feature work to upgrade Fedora from using the Liberation Fonts to Liberation Fonts 2. That change at the time for Fedora 19 was then diverted due to the updated fonts causing some fuzzy/blurred rendering. That issue has been fixed now following an update to F18 at the time and with Fedora 29 they are looking at once again trying Liberation Fonts 2 by default.

Red Hat Continues Driving Wonderful Innovations In Fedora Workstation
Red Hat's Christian Schaller has provided an update regarding some of the new feature work and improvements that the Red Hat developers have been working on this summer for Fedora Workstation.

Some Of The Features Expected For Fedora 29
Fedora 28 was just released at the start of May but there is already a great deal of activity happening for Fedora 29, which is expected to be released by the end of October and with a beta release expected a month prior while feature development is ending around the middle of August.

Fedora Workstation 29 Is Looking Up To Be Another Impressive Release, Looking Great
In addition to Ubuntu 18.10 releasing soon, Fedora 29 is set to be release by month's end if all goes well.

Feral's GameMode Is On Its Way To Fedora
Feral's GameMode is soon going to be within easy each for Linux gamers running Red Hat's Fedora Linux distribution.

Fedora 29 Officially Released With Arguably The Best Fedora Workstation Release Yet
Fedora 29 is now available as the newest version of this Red Hat sponsored Linux distribution. Fedora 29 has a lot of work on its Workstation/desktop spin, the Fedora Silverblue release has come together nicely for an atomic OS, Fedora Server continues to serve as a great basis for likely what RHEL8 will be looking like, and there are various other enhancements throughout the Fedora stack.

Fedora Perfecting Their Flicker-Free Boot Experience With A New Plymouth Theme
The recent release of Fedora 29 the long-desired goal of a flicker-free boot experience to the Linux desktop was finally achieved... Well, assuming you are for now using Intel graphics and set a couple extra settings and don't have any quirky hardware. While all of the key components are in place, for Fedora 30 and beyond they will likely be taking care of the "rough edges" and already there is work on a new Plymouth boot theme for pairing with this flicker-free boot process.

Fedora 29 Aims To Offer Up Modules For Everyone
The latest Fedora 29 feature proposal is about offering "modules for everyone" across all Fedora editions.

Fedora Enables ClearType Subpixel Font Rendering Thanks To Microsoft
Fedora has finally enabled ClearType sub-pixel rendering in FreeType for providing much nicer font rendering.

Fedora 29 Is On Track With A Lot Of Changes
With Fedora 29 Beta set to ship today, here's a reminder about some of the great changes on the way with this next installment of the Fedora Linux distribution that is on track to officially release around the end of October.