Desktop

i3 Spin

Fedora Spins are versions of Fedora featuring alternative desktop environments and accompanying sets of software. Fedora 34 introduces a new Spin utilizing the i3 window manager. This is the first Fedora Spin to feature a tiling window manager instead of a traditional desktop environment.

The i3 Spin provides a better installation experience for Fedora users who prefer to use i3. Prior to this Spin, end users who wished to use i3 on Fedora needed to install another Edition or Spin of Fedora, then install the i3 window manager and related packages separately, a process often requiring an external guide or tutorial.

The design goals of this Spin are:

  • Simple is better than complex: the Fedora i3 Spin will choose simplicity over complexity.

  • Fast is better than features: the Fedora i3 Spin will choose to be fast, lean, and quick instead of full of features.

  • There should be one - and preferably only one - obvious way to do it: the Fedora i3 Spin will choose to maintain a single obvious way to do basic computing tasks.

  • Now is better than never: the Fedora i3 Spin will choose to try out and experiment with new ideas.

Download and try the i3 Spin at the Fedora Spins site.

Learn more about the design and development of the Spin at the Fedora i3 Special Interest Group (S.I.G.) site.

A KDE Plasma image for 64-bit ARM is now available

An installation image of the KDE Plasma spin is now available for the 64-bit ARM architecture (AArch64).

You can download the image from the following page: https://alt.fedoraproject.org/alt/.

XFCE 4.16

XFCE 4.16 is available in Fedora 34. 4.16 is the latest release of the XFCE desktop environment. Compared to the previous 4.14 release, XFCE 4.16 brings various improvements, new features, bug fixes and a visual update.

  • Support for HiDPI displays has been improved with support for fractional scaling, accessible through the Display Settings menu.

  • The visual identity of XFCE has also been updated with a new color palette as well as a redesigned icon set.

  • Basic system information can now be easily obtained with a tab in the About XFCE dialog, which will show information including CPU and GPU type.

  • The file manager Thunar now includes the option to pause and resume file operations at will and the ability to queue file transfers.

  • The user experience of XFCE has been improved, with XFCE now offering better ways to search and filter in the Settings Manager. There is a better layout of the Power Manager settings options. The Application Finder now searches by ‘frecency’, which combines recently and frequently opened applications.

A full list of changes can be found at the changelogs.

PipeWire is now the default audio service

The Pipewire service now manages all audio output and input. Pipewire replaces the PulseAudio service in general use cases and the JACK service in professional use cases. The system now redirects audio from applications that use PulseAudio, JACK, or the ALSA framework into Pipewire.

Benefits of Pipewire over the previous solutions include:

  • A unified solution for consumer and professional users

  • A flexible, modular architecture

  • High performance and low latency, similar to the JACK service

  • Isolation between audio clients for better security

You no longer have to configure the JACK service for applications that use it. All JACK applications now work in the default Fedora configuration.

Xwayland is now distributed as a separate package

The Xwayland display server was previously distributed together with the X.org server. It is now distributed separately in the Xwayland package.

Xwayland is receiving significantly more upstream updates than X.org. The separate packaging enables Fedora to release the updated Xwayland and keep X.org at the current stable version.

The updates to Xwayland include:

  • Multiple window buffers

  • initfd support

  • Xwayland pkgconfig file

For more information about the new Xwayland features, see the Xwayland 21.1.0 announcement: https://lists.x.org/archives/xorg-announce/2021-March/003076.html.

KDE Plasma now defaults to Wayland

In the default configuration, the KDE Plasma desktop now runs on the Wayland display back end. The default KDE Plasma session selected in the SDDM login manager is now the Wayland session. You can still select the legacy X11 session when logging in.

Starting with Fedora 34, KDE Plasma on Wayland has implemented all the necessary features that were previously missing compared to the X11 session. These features include:

  • Screen casting

  • Middle-click paste

  • Support for NVIDIA GPUs