Within the “Linux” ecosystem we can find a large number of different distributions, each one with a main objective and maintained by an organization or community with ideals. Given that Ubuntu has been in the doldrums for a long time, it is still time to start looking for some alternatives to this distro that allow us to experience much better everything that an operating system like Linux is capable of offering us when its managers worry about it. And one of the best maintained distros today, and most innovative, is Fedora.
Fedora is a distribution created and maintained by one of the best Linux communities that we can find. Such is the implication of its developers to improve this ecosystem that, when a failure is detected, a specific patch for Fedora is not released, but rather goes directly to the source of the failure (the Kernel, a package, component, etc.) and fixes there so all Linux users, regardless of the distro they use, can get it too.
Currently, this distribution ranks eighth as the most interesting distribution for users. And with the arrival of the new Fedora 33 we hope its popularity will continue to rise in the coming months.
What’s New in Fedora 33
This new version of Fedora brings a lot of changes, especially internally. All changes have long been tested in beta versions of the distro until, starting today, they will be available to all users.
The first of the important news that we can find is the change of the default file system . By default, like most Linux distros, Fedora used an EXT4 file system, but this was starting to cause problems, especially when using two different mount points. From now on, the default file system of this distro becomes BTRFS . With it, it is expected that these problems will disappear, and also provide the distro with other improvements such as, for example, the possibility of creating snapshots, data compression functions and hot partition resizing.
Another important novelty that we can find in Fedora 33, related to performance, is the use of zRAM . What this new system does is reduce the size of the memory that is used for exchange through compression systems. In this way, if the PC is low on memory and swap is being used to speed up the PC’s operation, the space it will occupy within the swap partition will be less than half.
The Wayland and X11 graphics servers now have the Video Acceleration API enabled by default. Thanks to it, users will be able to use hardware acceleration to decode video. This will improve the user experience, especially when playing multimedia and audiovisual content.
Other changes that we can also find in the new Fedora 33 are:
- Vi is no longer the basic default editor to make way for Nano.
- The IoT version now appears alongside the other versions.
- GNOME 3.38 Desktop
- Possibility of editing the libvirt XML file to configure virtual machines.
- Fedora KDE now brings Earlyoom enabled by default, monitoring and optimizing RAM in real time.
Of course, the release of this new version of Fedora has also been used to correct all kinds of bugs and errors in the distro, both in terms of operation and security.
Download Fedora 33
Fedora, as it is not a Rolling Release distro , forces users to download new versions every 6 months. Anyone interested in installing or simply testing this distribution on their computer or in a virtual machine can download the latest version of Fedora from its website .
And if we already have Fedora installed on our computer, we can update to this new version using the following commands. The first one to update the software list and install the latest packages that we have available:
sudo dnf upgrade --refresh
The next step will be to get the update plugin. We can do this with:
sudo dnf install dnf-plugin-system-upgrade
We indicate to the system that we want to make the leap to the new version 33 of Fedora and we begin its download and installation with:
sudo dnf system-upgrade download --releasever=33
When it finishes, we only have to restart the system with the command:
sudo dnf system-upgrade reboot
Ready. We already have our Fedora in the new version 33. Now to enjoy its news.