Fedora 42 Looks To Make It Easier For Unprivileged System Flatpaks & Disk Management

In addition to proposed opt-in data metrics collection and the new web-based installer UI, some of the other early proposals for Fedora Linux 42 that isn't due out until April of 2025 is expanding the possibilities for unprivileged users.

Change proposals have been filed for allowing users outside of the "wheel" group to allow managing system Flatpaks as well as disk management.

The unprivileged management of system Flatpaks would establish a dedicated "flatpak" group for users to have the ability to manage system Flatpaks without needing to be part of the wheel group for administrators. This proposal doesn't impact any existing abilities around user Flatpaks.

There is also a proposal for unprivileged disk management that was also filed this week. That proposal would establish a "diskadmin" group for users to manage external drives without needing to be part of the wheel group. The intent here is to make it easier to mount/unlock LUKS-encrypted external drives.

Both of these proposals are part of an effort to have more confined users and letting users do more without needing to be part of the wheel group. These Fedora 42 change proposals are still up for discussion on the mailing list and ultimately need to be voted on by the Fedora Engineering and Steering Committee (FESCo).