fedora 42 changeset

What is upcoming in Fedora 42

Among the changes includes Gnome 48, updated tools, and a new Cosmic spin

Mohamed Baig

03 Feb 2025 — 2 min read

I wrote a couple months back about the release of Fedora 41. It was a great update for the long running Linux distribution. Work was already underway for Fedora 42 and we can expect this update to the distribution in April. The change set is pretty much final now so let's have a look at some of the things shipping with Fedora 42.

Anaconda Web UI installer

The Anaconda installer has been staple in Fedora a number of years now. Originally released 1999, Fedora has been the only major distribution to use it, and Anaconda has been one of the primary criticisms of Fedora. The primarily problem being the non-linear user experience of the installer. It was not intuitive, for users unfamiliar with installing operating systems.

Fedora decided to address this criticism with the development of a new installer that is more linear and guided. Fedora 42 will be the debut of this new installer. Because the installer is web based there plans expand the installation experience to include remote installations and other methods.

Updated Environments

Fedora 42 will also include updated desktop environments. It will include Gnome 48, which I will create a dedicate post for, but highlights include updated core apps, a new "Wellbeing" screen in the settings, and a new default font after 15 years of using Cantarell.

Fedora 42 will also likely include KDE Plasma 6.3 on release. Although Fedora does tend to update KDE on a regular basis as updates are released. Among it's many updates and fixes, KDE 6.3 will include better support for fractional scaling. More on KDE 6.3 coming soon.

Fedora 42 will also upgrade XFCE to 4.20. This rock solid desktop environment now has an experimental Wayland session, and updated libraries and apps. Thunar, the file manager, gained a hamburger menu when the default menu bar is hidden, an option for client side decorations as well, and some nice performance improvements. The power manager now handles power profiles. And many more changes. Read more here.

Lastly, Fedora will also upgrade LXQT to 2.1. Like XFCE, LXQT also brings support for Wayland. It supports multiple different Wayland compositors. As a smaller release, it brings more moderate updates to it's configuration center, and terminal app. More detail here.

COSMIC Spin

Fedora 42 creates a new spin with the new COSMIC desktop developed by System76. COSMIC is an all new, Rust based, desktop environment that looks similar to Gnome. It is being built from the ground up, in response to Gnome's vision not aligning with System76. They have released a few Alphas of the environment and it is already looking very usable. The environment is looking like an excellent addition to the open-source desktop environments. Looking forward to testing this spin once released.