Fedora Linux 44 is available for download here, and like most Fedora releases, it is less about big surprises and more about steady, meaningful progress. Everything feels a bit more refined, a bit more modern, and a bit more useful, especially if you are the kind of person who actually pays attention to what is under the hood.
On the desktop side, Fedora Linux 44 Workstation ships with GNOME 50. You get improvements across accessibility, color management, remote desktop, and core apps like Files and Calendar. Nothing wild, but after using it for a bit, it feels tighter. There are also built-in parental controls now, which is a nice addition for families running Fedora at home.
If KDE is your thing, Fedora 44 includes Plasma 6.6. This release improves the out-of-box experience with Plasma Setup and switches to Plasma Login Manager instead of SDDM. It is a cleaner, more consistent experience from first boot, which honestly matters more than flashy features.
The installer gets a practical tweak too. Anaconda will no longer create network profiles for every detected wired device. It only sets up what you configure during installation. That should make things less messy after install, especially if you like controlling your own network setup.
Under the hood is where Fedora Linux 44 really flexes. You get a full toolchain refresh with GCC 16.1, glibc 2.43, binutils 2.46, and GDB 16.3. LLVM moves to version 22. Ruby hits 4.0, Go jumps to 1.26, PHP lands at 8.5, and Django moves to 6.x. CMake is now 4.2, and Fedora defaults to Ninja for builds. If you develop software or just like having newer tools, this is a strong release.
Fedora is also moving PackageKit to the newer DNF5 backend, which should help modernize package management over time. It even adds the Nix package manager as an option, which is an interesting move for folks who like reproducible setups.
Gaming gets a quiet win too. Fedora Linux 44 enables the NTSYNC kernel module for Wine and Steam automatically through package recommendations. That can improve performance and compatibility when running Windows games, without requiring extra setup.
There is also a fair amount of cleanup happening. Fedora drops QEMU 32-bit host builds, removes older Java 21 OpenJDK earlier than planned, and continues trimming deprecated components like FUSE 2 on Atomic desktops. Not exciting, but necessary.
Cloud users see improvements as well. Fedora Cloud images now use a Btrfs subvolume for /boot where supported, which helps with space efficiency. Fedora is also pushing more of its image-building work toward Konflux, which hints at where things are going behind the scenes.
MariaDB 11.8 is now the default for new installs, and OpenSSL gets some performance improvements thanks to changes in how certificate bundles are handled.
As for Apple Silicon, Fedora Asahi Remix 44 is now available, bringing Fedora Linux 44 to Macs with Apple chips. To be clear, Asahi Remix itself is not new. It has been around for a while. This is simply the latest version catching up with Fedora 44.
That said, it is still worth mentioning because it keeps improving. This release drops custom Mesa and virglrenderer builds in favor of upstream Fedora packages, which should make maintenance and updates smoother. KDE Plasma 6.6 is the flagship desktop here too, complete with Plasma Setup and Plasma Login Manager, while a GNOME 50 option is also available. There are also Server and Minimal images for folks who want more control.
Upgrading works like standard Fedora, although GNOME Software is not supported for upgrades on Asahi. You will need to use Plasma Discover or the DNF system upgrade command instead.
At this point, Fedora running on Apple Silicon is not some novelty. It is just another supported way to use Fedora, which says a lot about how far things have come.
Fedora Linux 44 is not trying to blow anyone away. It just keeps making Fedora better in all the right places. And honestly, for most Linux users, that is exactly what you want.
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