Fedora 27 Beta now available

We’re pleased to announce that Fedora 27, the latest version of the Fedora operating system, is now available in beta. The Fedora Project is a global community that works together to lead the advancement of free and open source software, culminating in the innovative Fedora operating system which helps to answer end user needs across the computing spectrum. As part of the community’s mission, the project delivers separate editions, each one a free, Linux-based system tailored to meet specific use cases. With the launch of Fedora 27 Beta, Fedora 27 Atomic Host Beta and Fedora 27 Workstation Beta will be available; Fedora 27 Server Beta will be available in the coming weeks with new modular functionality.

Each edition is built from a common set of base packages, which form the core foundation of the Fedora operating system. As with all new versions of Fedora, Fedora 27 Beta provides many minor bug fixes and tweaks to these underlying components, as well as new and enhanced packages, including GNU C Library version 2.26 and RPM 4.14.

Fedora 27 Atomic Host Beta
Providing a minimal footprint operating platform, Fedora 27 Atomic Host offers a tailored experience for running container-based workloads in the cloud or on bare metal. Delivered on a two-week refresh schedule, Fedora 27 Atomic Host Beta provides a base image for creating virtual machines, an Atomic Host image for creating hosts for container deployment and a docker image.

The latest version of Fedora Atomic Host includes:

• Consolidated storage setup based on OverlayFS for a more simple container storage setup. Fedora 27 Atomic Host Beta will now default to a large root filesystem that is shared with container storage through overlayFS.

• Containerized Kubernetes, flannel and etcd by default, which replaces Kubernetes, flannel and etcd in the base OSTree. This provides more flexibility to users in choosing different versions of Kubernetes/flannel/etcd, or to not use these technologies at all. Package layering is still an option for those seeking to deploy Kubernetes as an RPM.

• Improvements in package layering by way of the latest rpm-ostree, which now supports base package overrides (removes and replaces). This builds on top of the previous features including support for direct rpm install, and experimental LiveFS layering, enabling layering without a reboot.

• System Containers in Fedora Layered Image Build Service (FLIBS) to expand the way users can install system infrastructure via containers. Since Fedora 26, the Fedora Project has been polishing the System Container technology and is able to offer System Containers for docker, Kubernetes, Flannel, and etcd all through the Fedora Layered Image Build Service.

• atomic 1.19.1, the updated Atomic Command Line Interface (CLI), which provides enhancements/bugfixes to system container support.

• Cockpit 149, the latest version of Cockpit, a system monitoring tool, that brings support for Cockpit Dashboard installation on Atomic Host via rpm package layering.

Fedora 27 Workstation Beta
The desktop experience for developers and general users is not neglected in Fedora 27 Beta, with Fedora 27 Workstation Beta featuring the latest version of the GNOME desktop, version 3.26. This brings a new and improved Builder IDE to bear for developers, providing a new interface, contextual popups, improved search functions and a new debugger. For traditional desktop users, GNOME 3.26 adds support for fractional scaling for high DPI screens, color emoji, and a cleaner look for the Settings application.

Beyond GNOME 3.26, Fedora 27 Workstation Beta introduces a host of minor performance and usability tweaks, as well as new capabilities, highlighted by TRIM support for encrypted disks which enhances the performance of Fedora Workstation on solid-state drives (SSDs).

Fedora 27 Server Beta
While Fedora 27 Server Beta is not available at this time,we are hard at work to deliver a new beta experience for Fedora Server in the coming weeks. Based on the feedback that we received from the Boltron Modular Server Preview, we’re reworking Fedora Server 27 Beta to allow for the popular features of the preview to be included and that there is functional modular content available at launch for users to work with.

You can take Fedora 27 Beta for a spin yourself at https://getfedora.org.

As always, the Fedora Project team wants to hear from you – let us know about any bugs or problems that you encounter, as your feedback can help us improve Fedora 27. Common issues can be found on the Fedora 27 common bugs page (please read this on how to effectively report bugs).

If you are interested in becoming more involved with Fedora, we want you on our team! You can contribute to the Fedora Project in many ways other than bug reporting – the Fedora Project is always looking for translators, testers, content creators, marketers, designers and so much more. Whatever your skill set, we would love to have you involved – find out more at http://whatcanidoforfedora.org/.

The Fedora Project is a Red Hat-sponsored community project. For more information about Fedora, please visit the Fedora Project homepage.