Fedora 21 has just been released, featuring the latest stable GNOME 3.14 along with other interesting changes.
With this release, Fedora is available in three flavors: server, cloud and workstation and below, we'll take a quick look at what's new in Fedora 21 Workstation.
With this release, Fedora is available in three flavors: server, cloud and workstation and below, we'll take a quick look at what's new in Fedora 21 Workstation.
GNOME 3.14
Fedora 21 Workstation ships with GNOME 3.14 which, compared to GNOME 3.10 that was available with Fedora 20, includes many changes for both GNOME Shell and the core GNOME applications:
- support for system-wide multitouch gestures (for touchscreen devices only);
- new interactive inspector for GTK+ (can be invoked using Ctrl+Shift+I);
- improved support for Wi-Fi hotspots - when connecting to a Wi-Fi portal that requires authentication, GNOME will now automatically show the login page as a part of the connection process;
- network-based sharing (WebDAV, DLNA and VNC will now remember which network you want them to be active on);
- enhanced geolocation framwork with the use of Mozilla's Location Service for 3G and network-based positioning;
- new design for Evince, Videos (Totem) and Gedit, which are now in line with the other GNOME apps (they now use header bars, redesigned tabs, etc.);
- Adwaita, the default GNOME (and Fedora) theme, was overhauled and it now includes improved message dialogs, a new more compact appearance for the progress bars, redesigned spinners and a new look for the menus and switches. Also, many controls now have animated transitions.
- GNOME Weather has a new layout and the app makes use of GNOME's new geolocation framework to automatically show the weather for your current location.
- Maps was updated with a route planning feature which allows you to plan journeys by foot, bicycle or car.
- proper HiDPI support;
- various Wayland improvements.
There are way too many improvements in GNOME 3.14 since 3.10, so check out our previous articles for more information (videos included):
Here are a few GNOME 3.14 screenshots taken under the latest Fedora 21 Workstation:
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| When searching the Activities Overview, GNOME Shell now displays applications available to install, along with installed apps; |
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| Evince |
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| Gedit |
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| GNOME Software |
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| GTK+ Inspector |
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| GNOME Weather now automatically detect the current location (there's also a new location indicator in the status menu) |
Other changes
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| Fedora 21 ships with a "GNOME on Wayland" session |
- the kernel package is now a meta package that pulls in kernel-core and kernel-modules. Thanks to this, you can optionally uninstall kernel-modules, which reduces the cloud image size. Note that the kernel-modules package should be included when Fedora is installed on real hardware;
- the Anaconda installer now supports swap on zRAM during the installation. This feature is automatically enabled if Anaconda detects 2 GB or less memory, and disabled on systems with more memory;
- basic support for the OpenCL standard, which provides sufficient environment for the development of the OpenCL enabled software;
- RPM has been updated to version 4.12, bringing support for packaging files larger than 4 GB, support for weak dependencies and more;
- OpenJDK8 is now the default Java Runtime in Fedora 21, replacing OpenJDK7;
- experimental Wayland support - you can select "GNOME on Wayland" from the login screen to test it (note that this session didn't work under VirtualBox in my test).
Defaults
Fedora 21 Workstation ships with LibreOffice 4.3.4.1, Firefox 33.1 (but Firefox 34 is available as an update), Empathy 3.12.7, Rhythmbox 3.1.1, Transmission 2.84, Shotwell 0.20.2 and of course, the core GNOME apps (Nautilus, Gedit, etc.), on top of GNOME Shell 3.14.2 and GTK 3.14.5.
Under the hood, Fedora 21 uses Linux kernel 3.17.4, systemd 216, Mesa 10.3.3 and Xorg Server 1.16.1.
With Fedora 21, there are a few new default applications. GNOME Weather, Boxes and Bijiben, which were missing from the default Fedora 20 installation, are now available by default with Fedora 21:
Also, DevAssistant is installed by default with Fedora 21 Workstation. This is a tool which can help create and set up basic projects in various languages, install dependencies, set up environments, etc.:
Download Fedora 21
Before installing Fedora 21, make sure you check out the common bugs list and the official release notes.
And as usual, you can use Fedy (previously Fedora Utils) to tweak various Fedora settings and easily install codecs, Java and other applications (note that some apps provided by Fedy may not be available for Fedora 21 yet, because its repository needs to be updated and the OpenSUSE Build Service, which Fedy uses under the hood, doesn't support Fedora 21 yet).
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