Fedora 40 has been released! So let’s see what comes in this new release for the Fedora Atomic Desktops variants (Silverblue, Kinoite, Sway Atomic and Budgie Atomic).

Introducing Fedora Atomic Desktops

As you might have guessed from the title, we are now called Fedora Atomic Desktops! See the Introducing Fedora Atomic Desktops Fedora Magazine article for all the details.

The summary is that the Fedora Atomic Desktops are made up of four atomic spins:

• Fedora Silverblue
• Fedora Kinoite
• Fedora Sway Atomic (was Fedora Sericea)
• Fedora Budgie Atomic (was Fedora Onyx)

And we have a landing page on fedoraproject.org.

Status update on bootloader updates (bootupd integration)

Unfortunately, we could not land bootupd support in this release due to an issue found late in Anaconda’s handling of bootupd installations which relied on incomplete functionality in bootupd.

We will attempt to add bootupd again after the release, via an update.

If you encounter Secure Boot errors or need to update your bootloader in the meantime, you can try the instructions from fedora-silverblue#543. Make sure to have a Live USB ready in case you encounter an issue. Please make backups beforehand.

We are hoping to land improvements to bootupd that should simplify this process.

See: atomic-desktops-sig#1.

What’s new in Silverblue

Latest GNOME release

Fedora Silverblue comes with the latest GNOME 46 release.

For more details about the changes that comes with GNOME 46, see What’s new in Fedora Workstation 40 on the Fedora Magazine and Fedora Workstation 40 – what are we working on from Christian F.K. Schaller.

No longer overlay language packages (langpack) by default

GNOME Software will no longer overlay the langpack packages for your locale on the first update. This should make updates much faster as they won’t need to overlay packages anymore (unless you explicitly decide to overlay some packages).

If you are updating from a previous release, you will have to remove this overlayed package manually. For example:

1. Find the overlayed package using rpm-ostree status:

$ rpm-ostree status
State: idle
Deployments:
● fedora:fedora/40/x86_64/silverblue
                  Version: 40.20240410.1 (2024-04-10T03:43:23Z)
                   Commit: 2428fdbec13787633b3bcd79d4f002ab48582bae8c6a473ca357a1ad43573a94
             GPGSignature: Valid signature by E8F23996F23218640CB44CBE75CF5AC418B8E74C
          LayeredPackages: langpacks-fr

  fedora:fedora/40/x86_64/silverblue
                  Version: 40.20240402.0 (2024-04-02T00:39:43Z)
                   Commit: 634c8097165e6aab2baeaca6ae6d1ea2a7f11fba9f4955297bcf0fc2507047be
             GPGSignature: Valid signature by E8F23996F23218640CB44CBE75CF5AC418B8E74C
          LayeredPackages: langpacks-fr

2. Remove the overlayed package and reboot:

$ rpm-ostree uninstall langpacks-fr
...

Note that this will remove the dictionaries for the corresponding language from your system and thus for applications included in the image.

For Flatpaks, the dictionaries are downloaded according to the languages set in the Flatpak config. If you have set your preferred languages in GNOME Settings, this configuration should have been set already. For example:

# Get the current config
$ flatpak config --list
languages: en;fr;de (default: en)
extra-languages: *unset*

# Set the languages to use
$ flatpak config --set languages "en;fr"

See the flatpak-config documentation for more details.

Also note that with this change the translated man pages for system commands will also be removed. To get the man pages back, you can install them in a container using toolbox for example:

$ toolbox create
$ toolbox enter
$ sudo dnf install man-pages-fr

See: atomic-desktops-sig#14.

What’s new in Kinoite

KDE Plasma 6

Fedora Kinoite ships with Plasma 6, Frameworks 6 and Gear 24.02 (Fedora Change). See also What’s New in Fedora KDE 40? on the Fedora Magazine.

Wayland only

Fedora Kinoite is now Wayland only. Legacy X11 applications will run using XWayland. See Fedora 40: X11 is now unsupported.

If you have an NVIDIA GPU and encounter issues, I recommend looking at Universal Blue images (see below), waiting for an upcoming NVIDIA driver update that will hopefully improve Wayland support or trying out the updated Nouveau / NVK stack for supported cards.

KDE Apps as Fedora Flatpaks

A subset of KDE Apps are now installed by default as Fedora Flatpaks by Ananconda for new installations. The Flatpaks are not installed on updates but you can install them from the Fedora Flatpak remote or from Flathub.

KDE Flatpaks on Flathub

Most KDE Apps are directly published and maintained on Flathub by the KDE community and we have mostly completed the transition to the Qt 6.6 and KDE Framework 6 Runtime.

You can track the progress for the remaining apps in kde/teams/flathub#26.

What’s new in Sway Atomic

Fedora Sway Atmoic comes with the latest 1.9 Sway release.

What’s new in Budgie Atomic

Fedora Budgie Atomic ships with the latest release of the Budgie Desktop 10.9 “release series”. Budgie 10.9 features some initial porting work to libxfce4windowing as it progresses towards its move to Wayland and redesigns its Bluetooth applet with new direct (dis-)connect functionality.

Additionally, Fedora Budgie Atomic ships with the latest Budgie Control Center and takes into use budgie-session. As Buddies of Budgie officially supports Fedora, Budgie Desktop has also received numerous backported bug fixes to provide Fedora users an even better experience.

You can learn more about the latest happenings in Budgie on the Buddies of Budgie blog.

What’s next

Unfortunately, this section will be short this time, as there has not been much progress on our future plans since the last time.

We will provide an updated article when more information becomes available.

Teaser for improved update support in Discover for Kinoite

Universal Blue, Bluefin, Bazzite and Aurora

Our friends in the Universal Blue, Bluefin and Bazzite projects also released updates for their images.

Universal Blue is now considered Generally Available alongside Bluefin.

For all your gaming needs, Bazzite reached version 3.0, rebasing on our fresh Fedora 40 images.

They are also introducing Aurora, a KDE Plasma and Kinoite based alternative to Bluefin. See the Introduction to Aurora post for all the details.

Where to reach us

We are looking for contributors to help us make the Fedora Atomic Desktops the best experience for Fedora users.

• Atomic Desktops SIG: Wiki page, Issue tracker, #atomic-desktops:fedoraproject.org
• Silverblue: Workstation Working Group, #silverblue:fedoraproject.org
• Kinoite: KDE SIG, #kinoite:fedoraproject.org
• Sway Atomic: Sway SIG, #sway:fedoraproject.org
• Budgie Atomic: Budgie SIG, #budgie:fedoraproject.org

Fedora Silverblue is an operating system for your desktop built on Fedora Linux. It’s excellent for daily use, development, and container-based workflows. It offers numerous advantages such as being able to roll back in case of any problems. If you want to update or rebase to Fedora Linux 40 on your Fedora Silverblue system, this article tells you how. It not only shows you what to do, but also how to revert things if something unforeseen happens.

Update your existing system

Prior to actually doing the rebase to Fedora Linux 40, you should apply any pending updates. Enter the following in the terminal:

$ rpm-ostree update

or install updates through GNOME Software and reboot.

Note

rpm-ostree is the underlying atomic technology that all the Fedora Atomic Desktops use. The techniques described here for Silverblue will apply to all of them with proper modifications for the appropriate desktop.

Rebasing using GNOME Software

GNOME Software shows you that there is new version of Fedora Linux available on the Updates screen.

First thing to do is download the new image, so select the Download button. This will take some time. When it is done you will see that the update is ready to install.

Select the Restart & Upgrade button. This step will take only a few moments and the computer will restart when the update is completed. After the restart you will end up in a new and shiny release of Fedora Linux 40. Easy, isn’t it?

Rebasing using terminal

If you prefer to do everything in a terminal, then this part of the guide is for you.

Rebasing to Fedora Linux 40 using the terminal is easy. First, check if the 40 branch is available:

$ ostree remote refs fedora

You should see the following in the output:

fedora:fedora/40/x86_64/silverblue

If you want to pin the current deployment (meaning that this deployment will stay as an option in GRUB until you remove it), you can do this by running this command:

# 0 is entry position in rpm-ostree status
$ sudo ostree admin pin 0

To remove the pinned deployment use the following command:

# 2 is entry position in rpm-ostree status 
$ sudo ostree admin pin --unpin 2

Next, rebase your system to the Fedora Linux 40 branch.

$ rpm-ostree rebase fedora:fedora/40/x86_64/silverblue

Finally, the last thing to do is restart your computer and boot to Fedora Linux 40.

How to roll back

If anything bad happens (for instance, if you can’t boot to Fedora Linux 40 at all) it’s easy to go back. At boot time, pick the entry in the GRUB menu for the version prior to Fedora Linux 40 and your system will start in that previous version rather than Fedora Linux 40. If you don’t see the GRUB menu, try to press ESC during boot. To make the change to the previous version permanent, use the following command:

$ rpm-ostree rollback

That’s it. Now you know how to rebase Fedora Silverblue to Fedora Linux 40 and roll back. So why not do it today?

FAQ

Because there are similar questions in comments for each blog about rebasing to newer version of Silverblue I will try to answer them in this section.

Question: Can I skip versions during rebase of Fedora? For example from Fedora 38 Silverblue to Fedora 40 Silverblue?

Answer: Although it could be sometimes possible to skip versions during rebase, it is not recommended. You should always update to one version above (38->39 for example) to avoid unnecessary errors.

Question: I have rpm-fusion layered and I get errors during rebase. How should I do the rebase?

Answer: If you have rpm-fusion layered on your Silverblue installation, you should do the following before rebase:

$ rpm-ostree update --uninstall rpmfusion-free-release --uninstall rpmfusion-nonfree-release --install rpmfusion-free-release --install rpmfusion-nonfree-release

After doing this you can follow the guide in this blog post.

Question: Could this guide be used for other ostree editions (Fedora Atomic Desktops) as well like Kinoite, Sericea (Sway Atomic), Onyx (Budgie Atomic),…?

Yes, you can follow the Rebasing using the terminal part of this guide for every Fedora Atomic Desktop. Just use the corresponding branch. For example, for Kinoite use fedora:fedora/40/x86_64/kinoite

Oh, wow. This feels like a big number! I’m proud to announce the 40th release of Fedora Linux, a community-built and community-maintained operating system that belongs to all of us. I’m also happy to note that we’re back on track with an on-time release. Thank you to all Fedora contributors who made that possible, and who have, yet again, made this our best one ever.

This is also a personally exciting number for me, because this marks the 20th release for which I’ve served as Fedora Project Leader. We’ve gone through a lot in this last decade, and I’m incredibly happy to see our community thrive and grow. In addition to many long-familiar names and faces, it’s exciting to see a new generation with new energy and ideas. In some cases, this is literally a new generation, as many of you have grown up with Fedora. But at whatever age, I’m proud we’ve built such a welcoming and friendly community, and that we continue to work at improving our inclusiveness, diversity, and accessibility.

But anyway! Enough of that. Time to see what we’ve got for you in Fedora Linux 40! If you have a system already, Upgrading Fedora to a New Release is easy. If you’re new, or just curious, head to Get Fedora for installation options.

Desktop news

Fedora Workstation Edition features the GNOME desktop environment, now updated to version 46. Check out What’s New in Fedora Workstation 40? for the highlights!

The KDE Spin now includes KDE Plasma 6, and runs with Wayland out of the box. Read more about that and other KDE Spin updates at What’s New in Fedora KDE 40?

We’re also officially reviving the “Fedora Atomic Desktop” brand for all of our variants which use ostree or image-based provisioning. Our technology isn’t really “immutable”, so this provides a better grouping. Read more about this at Introducing Fedora Atomic Desktops — but in short, Fedora Silverblue and Fedora Kinoite will remain, while the other desktop  variants will become Fedora Sway Atomic and Fedora Budgie Atomic.

Tools for AI development

Fedora Linux 40 ships with our first-ever PyTorch package. PyTorch is a popular framework for deep learning, and it can be difficult to reliably install with the right versions of drivers and libraries and so on. The current package only supports running on the CPU, without GPU or NPU acceleration, but this is just the first step. Our aim is to produce a complete stack with PyTorch and other popular tools ready to use on a wide variety of hardware out-of-the-box.

We’re also shipping with ROCm 6 — open-source software that provides acceleration support for AMD graphics cards. We plan to have that enabled for PyTorch in a future release.

Updates all around!

As usual, we’ve rebuilt everything in the distribution using updated compilers and libraries (and, of course, those updated tools are ready for developers to use). These updates bring bugfixes, security improvements, and performance gains.

And, of course, hundreds of Fedora packagers and testers have worked to integrate the latest versions of open source software from thousands of upstream projects. Those projects, in turn, are made by an uncountable number of developers and contributors working on marketing, design, documentation, code, quality, translations, communications, events, governance, infrastructure, security, and so much more. Thank you again to everyone who makes Fedora amazing, and to everyone whose work has built this whole universe of free and open source software.

Speaking of updates…

There are several important release-day bugfix and security updates available today as well. If you upgrade from an earlier Fedora Linux release, you’ll get them as part of that. For new installations, please make sure to check for and apply updates as soon as possible.

In the unlikely event of a problem…

If you run into a problem, visit our Ask Fedora user support forum. This includes a category for common issues. 

Or if you just want to say “hello”…

Drop by our “virtual watercooler” on Fedora Discussion and join a conversation, share something interesting, and introduce yourself.

Also, remember that our annual contributor conference, Flock To Fedora, is coming up! It’ll be in Rochester, New York this August. The call for session proposals is still open, if you have something you’d like to share or work on. If you’re already a Fedora contributor, or are interested in being one, or think you might be, we’d love to see you there!

The response from the Fedora community to the Fedora Slimbook 16” and 14” has been great! More and more people are noticing the quality of these laptops. We’ve even had a demo unit at events like FOSDEM and SCaLE for community members to play with.

To build on that excitement, Slimbook and the Fedora Project are announcing Slimbook Fedora 2!

Slimbook Fedora 2

The Slimbook Fedora 2 comes in the 14” and 16” models and brings with it fantastic new options.

• Silver is popular, but how about a smooth black Magnesium chassis?
• For those who need it, you now have the option of a US ANSI keyboard layout so you can work without skipping a beat!
• CPU is being upgraded to Intel’s 13th Gen i7 processor
• Take your work to the next level with the Nvidia RTX 4000 series graphics card in the 16” model

Of course we can’t forget that the Slimbook Fedora 2 will also come with the Fedora logo engraved on the lid, as well as on the super key.

This hardware update comes with a software upgrade courtesy of Fedora’s latest release, Fedora Workstation 40. Featuring GNOME 46 and numerous other enhancements, Slimbook Fedora 2 continues to be a great travel companion. Fedora Linux 40 also comes with the latest Nouveau drivers to give you a much better out of the box experience with the Nvidia graphics card in the 16” model.

Slimbook is dedicated to supporting open source initiatives. As part of that, 3% of the proceeds from each Slimbook Fedora unit sold will continue to be donated to the GNOME Foundation.

Besides that there is also the Fedora contributor discount which gives you an additional €100 off! If you’re a contributor to the Fedora Project you can find more info on how to get this discount from this Community Blog post.

Additionally, Slimbook offers a €150 discount for everyone on last year’s model. You can purchase the previous model with a discount through this link: https://fedora.slimbook.com.

More details below:

Slimbook Fedora 2, 16” Model

• Intel® Core i7-13700H Processor
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 GPU
• Sleek Color Options: Silver and Black (magnesium chassis)
• 16-inch 16:10, 100% sRGB, 90Hz Display (2560 x 1600 Resolution)
• Versatile Keyboard Options: ISO and ANSI (Available in almost any language)
• Up to 64 GB SO-DIMM DDR5 RAM (removable)
• Up to 8 TB M.2 SSD NVMe Gen 4.0 (removable)
• Thunderbolt 4 & USB-C 3.2 Gen2 10Gbps
• 82 Wh Battery
• Lightweight Design: 1.6 kg (3.5 lbs)
  

Slimbook Fedora 2, 14” Model

• Intel® Core i7-13700H Processor
• Sleek Color Options: Silver and Black
• 14-inch 16:10, 100% sRGB, 90Hz Display (2880 x 1800 Resolution)
• Versatile Keyboard Options: ISO and ANSI
• Up to 64 GB SO-DIMM DDR5 RAM (removable)
• Up to 8 TB M.2 SSD NVMe Gen 4.0 (removable)
• Thunderbolt 4 & USB-C 3.2 Gen2 10Gbps
• 99 Wh Battery
• Lightweight Design: 1.3 kg (2.8 lbs)

Check out both new Slimbook Fedora 2 models at https://fedora.slimbook.com/! 

Additional Resources

• Learn more about Slimbook Fedora
• Follow Slimbook on Mastodon
• Follow Slimbook on Twitter
• Follow Slimbook on Instagram
• Follow Slimbook on Facebook
• Follow Slimbook on YouTube
• Learn more about the Fedora Project
• Follow the Fedora Project on Mastodon
• Follow the Fedora Project on Twitter
• Follow the Fedora Project on Instagram
• Follow the Fedora Project on Facebook
• Follow the Fedora Project on LinkedIn
• Subscribe to the Fedora Project on YouTube

Fedora Linux is a community developed and maintained operating system. Fedora KDE is one of our adaptations of Fedora Linux for your laptop or desktop. With this milestone release of Fedora KDE 40, we hope that you’ll be interested in trying an OS that belongs to you from start to finish, from install to first shut down, from UI customizations to major changes under the hood!

KDE Plasma 6

The all-encompassing change in Fedora KDE 40 is the introduction of KDE Plasma 6. It’s the first major release of the Plasma desktop environment in nine years! Additionally, Fedora KDE is one of the first major distros to ship Plasma 6, and we’re the first Fedora Linux desktop variant to ship Wayland-only (not to worry, we retain full support for X11 applications!), enabling the project to push forward improvements to Wayland for the benefit of the entire Linux community. This builds upon the work done in previous Fedora Linux releases to have Fedora KDE run in Wayland from login to shutdown by default.

Featured Highlights

• There’s a new Overview Effect for keeping tabs on all of your open applications across all your virtual desktops.
• Partial support for HDR is implemented in this release on the way to having full support.
• Accessibility improvements have been introduced with color blindness correction filters.
• A new look to the taskbar comes in the form of a floating panel! Plasma 6 also makes customizing panels easier than ever with an understandable UI to help users make the changes they want with minimal effort.
• The Breeze UI theme that has been a hallmark of Plasma for a while gets a refresh with simplifications and modernizations where needed.
• NeoChat, KDE’s Matrix client, is provided by default for you to try.
• The Cube has returned! The new Overview Effect is cool, but using the Cube to manage your virtual desktops is a fantastic party trick to impress your friends next time you’re sharing your screen.

You can find more changes and improvements in KDE Plasma 6 from their megarelease page!

A word about Kinoite…

If you have an interest in what all of the immutable / atomic / cloud-native / composable / image-based fuss is about, Fedora Atomic Desktops is a great entry point into that world. Case in point, check out Fedora Kinoite 40, an atomic implementation of Fedora KDE that also comes with Plasma 6!

Also check out…

All of the fun events Fedora has coming up! 

• Be on the lookout for dates for the Fedora 40 Release Party, a virtual, user-focused, two day conference all about the new things in Fedora and the exciting things happening from our contributors. Will (hopefully) happen in May.
• DevConf.CZ on June 13-15.
• Flock to Fedora, our in-person, contributor-focused conference, will be happening on August 7-10. 
• DevConf.US follows right after on August 14-16.
• KDE’s contributor conference, Akademy, will come to Germany on September 7-12.

Thanks for learning about Fedora KDE 40. We hope that it will continue to be the reliable and exciting desktop OS you know and love. Share your appreciation or feedback on social media with #FedoraKDE!

Try Fedora KDE 40 today!

Fedora Workstation, the flagship open source Linux desktop OS from the Fedora Project, has reached a new milestone with the release of Fedora Workstation 40. This release has been made possible due to the contributions of our global community, including your contributions! Fedora Workstation 40 comes packed with new features and performance enhancements that promise a smoother and more responsive computing experience. Read on to learn about the latest features and improvements in the sections below. You can download Fedora Workstation 40 from the Fedora Workstation webpage, or upgrade your existing install within the Software app or with dnf system-upgrade in your favorite terminal emulator.

GNOME 46

Fedora Workstation 40 features GNOME 46, the latest version of the GNOME desktop environment. Key updates include a notable upgrade of the Files app, introducing new features and enhancements. Additionally, many aspects of accessibility have received improvements, ensuring a more inclusive user experience. The Settings app and other core apps have been refined for better usability. More details can be found in the GNOME 46 release notes.

Many other improvements have been made throughout GNOME 46, such as:

• Grouping of notifications by app. Now, each notification has a header. It shows the app’s name and icon. This makes it possible to see which app sent an alert. Notification now also has an expand button.

• You can now open a new window for apps pinned to the dash by adding the Ctrl modifier. For example: Super+Ctrl+1 opens a new window for the first app in the dash, complementing the existing shortcut of Super+<Number> that launches the app itself.

• By default, Tap to Click is now enabled for touchpad.

• GNOME 46 now features Remote Login option. You can remotely connect using RDP to a new dedicated desktop session when there isn’t an active session.

Core apps

GNOME’s core applications have had significant improvements in the new version. Some of these include:

Settings

GNOME 46 comes with exciting updates to the Settings app, making it more user-friendly than ever. The latest version has more keyboard mnemonics which make navigation easier. It also has a sleek modern interface. The appearance settings load faster than before and with sharper previews. This new release provides more precise control of Wacom stylus pressure. 

In addition to the upgrades mentioned above, the Settings app has received major improvements that are worth mentioning:

• The Settings app has a new system panel. It groups Region & Language, Date & Time, Remote Desktop, and About into one settings pane. This new design makes the app easier to navigate.

• GNOME 46 has updated touchpad settings with two new options. The first, called Secondary Click, lets you choose how to perform a right-click on the touchpad: either with two fingers or by clicking in a corner. The second option allows you to keep the touchpad active while typing, which helps in some apps and games where you need to use the keyboard and touchpad at the same time.

Files

• One of the notable upgrades to Files is the introduction of a new global search feature. The global search feature lets you search files across all configured locations. You can search the contents of files, filter files by type and modification date, and search multiple locations at once. Click the icon next to the file path field to activate this feature.

• In GNOME 46, the sidebar dynamic progress section at the bottom allows you to monitor file operations more effectively with more details on their progress.

• Switching between list and grid views in Files now happens quickly. This fixes the lag noticed in prior versions.

Other changes to the Files app include a new search field within the Files preferences. It helps find specific settings. There’s now also an option to show date and time in a consistent format, and improved network discovery. These refinements make managing files more efficient.

Other core applications have also received upgrades

• The Software app now displays verified badges for trusted Flathub apps, ensuring software authenticity. 

• Maps app offers a new editing experience, support for dark mode, and expanded public transit routing. 

• The Extensions and Calendar apps boast modernized designs and usability improvements. 

• GNOME 46 upgrades Clocks and Contacts apps. It lets you set a timer quickly in Clocks. And, import multiple VCard files at once in Contacts.

• The Disks app has a new I/O resource graph for monitoring disk usage. 

Performance Improvements

GNOME 46 provides substantial under-the-hood improvements for a more efficient and polished experience. Key improvements include:

• Reduced memory usage in search.

• Significant speed boosts in terminal apps. 

• More appealing visuals as app interfaces appear sharper, text on the screen clearer, and UI elements more defined, particularly when using fractional display scales due to GTK’s new renders.

• Experimental support for Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) for smoother video performance. You can enable this feature with the command:
  gsettings set org.gnome.mutter experimental-features "['variable-refresh-rate']"
  Once enabled, the refresh rate can be set in the display settings.

Under-the-hood changes in Fedora Linux 40

Fedora Linux 40 features many under-the-hood changes. Here are some notable ones:

• IPV4 Address Conflict Detection is enabled by default in NetworkManager to address conflicts caused by duplicate IPV4 addresses in the same physical network.

• Fedora 40 integrates PyTorch directly into its software repository. This makes it easier for users to access the open source machine learning framework for their projects. Installation is now a breeze through a single command:
  sudo dnf install python3-torch

• Starting with Fedora Linux 40, the term “immutable” will no longer be used to describe all rpm-ostree based variants of Fedora Linux (Silverblue, Kinoite, Sway and Budgie). Instead, they will be referred to as “Atomic” desktops with Sericea now known as Fedora Atomic Sway. This change is part of a rebranding aimed at simplifying the naming conventions for Fedora spins. More information on this change may be found here.

Also check out…

Cool happenings throughout the Fedora Project!

Stay tuned and get ready to engage with the Fedora community at some upcoming events! In June, join us in Brno, Czechia, for the DevConf CZ conference — a gathering filled with insightful discussions, workshops, and the chance to meet fellow enthusiasts.

Then, mark your calendars for August, when our flagship contributor conference, Flock, takes place. For more details on Flock 2024, check out this post.

What is Matrix?

Matrix is an open protocol for decentralized, secure communications built on the principles of interoperability and decentralization. You can create an account on a home server and then join channels across different home servers. This means if you have an account through Matrix.org, you can use it to join our community spaces! One of those is Fedora Chat.

The Matrix Foundation acts as the guardian of the Matrix protocol, ensuring it remains a free and open standard for secure, decentralized communication. It’s responsible for developing and maintaining the Matrix Specification along with working closely with the community to enhance interoperability and innovation.

What is Fedora Chat?

Fedora Chat is what we call our Matrix homeserver instance. It is a set of two homeservers, one for our community rooms as fedoraproject.org as well as the fedora.im homeserver which provides accounts for our users to join the fedoraproject.org rooms. Both of these are hosted by Element Matrix Services (“EMS”) thanks to our sponsorship from Red Hat.

You can use your fedora.im account to join other Matrix homeservers as well and collaborate with other communities, including Gnome, Mozilla, and Ubuntu!

Getting Started on Fedora Chat

Ready to jump into Fedora Chat? If you do not have a Matrix account already, you can use the fedora.im homeserver to get an account and join our community space! If you already have Matrix – you can join our Fedora space through this link.

1. Visit https://chat.fedoraproject.org and click the blue “Sign in” and then “Continue with your Fedora Account” to login with your FAS account.
2. You should be added to our Space automatically which is a collection of rooms, but if not, join the room here #fedora-space:fedoraproject.org
3. You can then choose different rooms in the menu in which to say hello. Find a room and then say hello!

Exploring Other Matrix Clients

While Fedora Chat uses the hosted Element client, the Matrix universe is vast. Explore other clients that suit your needs, from desktop apps to mobile solutions. Each offers unique features, allowing you to tailor your experience. You can find an updated list of different clients on the Matrix.org website.

Understanding Encryption, Keys, and Device Verification

Matrix’s end-to-end encryption ensures that only the communicating users in a room can read messages. Some rooms are end-to-end encrypted, but most public rooms are not. Most rooms in Fedora community spaces are not end-to-end encrypted, and you can see the history. However, if you directly message another user or join an E2E room, your messages will be encrypted by default. This is achieved through the management of cryptographic keys that secure each conversation. The encryption process involves generating unique keys your client stores on your behalf.

Protecting your encryption keys is essential, and your Recovery Key is critical to keep. The Recovery Key allows you to restore access to your encrypted conversations if you lose access to your primary key backup. Keep your Recovery Key in a safe location.

Session verification further enhances security by allowing users to verify their identity across multiple devices, ensuring that verified devices can only read encrypted messages.

Element provides a great FAQ on how to create and manage your key backups, but this will vary based on the client you choose to use. If you use chat.fedoraproject.org, it is a great resource.

What’s Next

Join #fedora-space:fedoraproject.org and say hello in #intros:fedoraproject.org – and welcome to the Matrix-verse!

It’s official — CVE-2024-3094 is the “Backdoor in XZ Utils That Almost Happened“. Fortunately, the malware was detected before we released the compromised version as an official update. If you are using a Fedora Linux 38 or 39, or an up-to-date Fedora Linux 40 Beta, you should be all set, and the upcoming Fedora Linux 40 final release is not affected.

The XZ backdoor is a devious piece of work. It affects the SSH remote login protocol, which has a feature where users can be authenticated using a public-private key pair. The exploit sneaks a public key right into the allow-list, so someone out there with the corresponding key could log in to a compromised machine with full root access — without a trace. We have no evidence that the attackers ever got a chance to take advantage of this, but if the malware had slipped by undetected, it could have been devastating.

Fortunately, the plot was foiled by Andres Freund while doing volunteer work in his spare time. He noticed that there was a slight change in performance, and decided to investigate. One of my Fedora friends quoted John Denver: “What one man can do is change the world and make it work again! Here you see what one man can do.”

If you have a system with the Fedora Linux 40 Beta or Fedora Rawhide, and you applied updates during the time the compromised package was in our updates-testing repository, you should check to make sure that it is now reverted, and apply current updates if not. (You should have xz-5.4.6, as of this post.) On Fedora Workstation systems, the ssh daemon does not run by default, which additionally limits possible risk. However, if you did have the bad update on a system, or think you might have, we recommend a full reinstall out of an abundance of caution.

Fedora Linux 38 and 39 never had even a candidate update for the compromised package, and we pulled the test update for 40, so it was never merged into the release.

In this article you will see how we are using Accessibility as an automation tool to test desktop applications just like a real user would using keyboard key presses and mouse clicks.

Although this topic and all of its parts can be talked about for hours to exhaust everything, I will attempt to describe how we are dealing with automation testing in a more digestible form.

For those interested there is a link to a full technical solution at the end of this post, with all of our tools and how to use them. We also provide our full GNOME Terminal testing suite for anyone to try.

Let us start wit the very core of our ability. Accessibility.

Automation stack

We do not have a single project that we could utilize. No such project that would fulfill all of our criteria exists, to our knowledge.

Therefore, we are using multiple open source projects together to achieve our goal of testing desktop applications. We are maintainers and contributors to most of the following projects.

• The API – dogtail
• Usage on Wayland – gnome-ponytail-daemon
• The project template – behave
• Gathering results – behave-html-pretty-formatter
• Library of tools – qecore

@showing_off_behave
Feature: Showing off behave

  Scenario: Run a simple test
    Given we have behave installed
    When we implement 5 tests
    Then behave will test them for us!

… which is implemented in Python as you can see below…

from behave import given, when, then, step

@given('we have behave installed')
def step_impl(context):
    pass

@when('we implement {number:d} tests')
def step_impl(context, number):
    assert number > 1 or number == 0
    context.tests_count = number

@then('behave will test them for us!')
def step_impl(context):
    assert context.failed is False
    assert context.tests_count >= 0

We also use behave‘s file structure as a project template for our testing suites. Therefore, our suites are started by behave in all of our cases.

Starting a single test:

$ behave -kt showing_off_behave

There is more that behave does for us but that is not relevant here.

Lets explore how we gather the results of our testing.

$ behave -kt <test> -f html-pretty -o test.html

Library of tools – qecore

With the tools above we have a way to implement our test, have the steps written in natural language, have them executed, and obtain the output of this execution in an HTML file for review. In spite of having all of that, we still need more, much more.

For that reason we have a library of tools that is present in all of our automation suites. It provides everything else we might need in our solution. When we need a new feature, we will add it to this project.

To list a few examples of what qecore is used for:

• System configuration.
• Video recording.
• Data gathering.
• Debugging on error.
• Image matching.

Summary of parts

• qecore will start a session and execute behave.
  • behave starts executing its parts.
    • qecore initiates and executes commons functions.
      • Test will execute.
        • Automation testing via dogtail /ponytail.
      • Test finishes.
    • qecore gathers all data and lets behave know how to include them in our file.
  • behave finishes its parts and provides results in HTML format.
• qecore may or may not terminate the session based on user setup.

Starting the entire solution for a single test:

$ qecore-headless “behave -kt <test> -f html-pretty -o test.html”

The “headless” in the name of the script is historical, now it serves as a session configuration tool.

Examples

• Click on System menu – Video of the execution

#!/usr/bin/python3
from dogtail.tree import root
from time import sleep

# Load application root to variable.
shell = root.application("gnome-shell")

# Search the application tree for objects.
system_menu = shell.child("System", "menu")
# Click it.
system_menu.click()

• Open Terminal form Overview – Video of the execution

#!/usr/bin/python3
from dogtail.rawinput import typeText, pressKey
from time import sleep

# Start the application.
# Open overview.
pressKey("Super")
# Give overview a little time to show.
sleep(1)

# Search application.
typeText("Terminal")
# Confirm by Enter.
pressKey("Enter")

• Scrolling the terminal – Video of the execution

#!/usr/bin/python3
from dogtail.tree import root
from dogtail.rawinput import typeText, pressKey
from time import sleep

# Start the application.
# Open overview.
pressKey("Super")
# Give overview a little time to show.
sleep(1)

# Search application.
typeText("Terminal")
# Confirm by Enter.
pressKey("Enter")

typeText("seq 100")
pressKey("Enter")

scroll_bar = terminal.findChild(
    lambda x: x.roleName == "scroll bar"
)
s_min = int(scroll_bar.minValue)
s_max = int(scroll_bar.maxValue)

for i in range(s_max, s_min, -1):
    scroll_bar.value = i
    sleep(0.05)

for i in range(s_min,s_max):
    scroll_bar.value = i
    sleep(0.05)

• Start Terminal and execute a command in New Tab – Video of the execution

#!/usr/bin/python3
from dogtail.tree import root
from dogtail.rawinput import typeText, pressKey
from time import sleep

# First open the application.
pressKey("Super")  # Open overview.
sleep(1)  # Give overview a little time to show.

# Search application.
typeText("Terminal")
# Confirm by Enter.
pressKey("Enter")

# Load application root to variable.
app = root.application("gnome-terminal-server") 

# Search the application tree for objects.
terminal = app.child("Terminal", "terminal")
# Right click in the terminal.
terminal.click(3)
# Give menu some time to show.
sleep(1)

# Find the item Show Menubar that is showing
show_menubar = app.findChild(
    lambda x: x.name == "Show Menubar" and
    x.roleName == "check menu item" and
    x.showing
)
# Click it if the option is not checked.
if not show_menubar.checked:
    show_menubar.click()
else:
    # Close the menu if option is checked.
    pressKey("Esc")

sleep(1)

app.child("File", "menu").click()
app.child("New Tab", "menu").click()
app.findChild(lambda x: "1." in x.name).click()
sleep(1)

# Execute the command.
typeText("echo Hello World")
pressKey("Enter")

• Start a Calculator and do a simple calculation – Video of the execution

#!/usr/bin/python3
from dogtail.tree import root
from time import sleep
import dogtail.rawinput

# Load application root to variable.
shell = root.application("gnome-shell")

# Search the application tree for objects.
shell.child("Activities", "label").click()
sleep(2)  # Give overview a little time to show.

shell.child("Show Apps", "toggle button").click()
sleep(2)

shell.child("Calculator", "label").click()
sleep(2)

# Load the Calculator Atspi object to a variable.
calculator = root.application("gnome-calculator")

# For calculator we have to account for shadows.
def _update_coords(coords):
    return (coords[0] + 40, coords[1] + 40)
dogtail.rawinput.update_coords = _update_coords
# Or you can disable box-shadow for gtk4 css.

# Simple calculation.
calculator.child("3").click()
calculator.child("+").click()
calculator.child("5").click()
calculator.child("=").click()

# Simple check.
assert calculator.child("3+5").showing
assert calculator.child("8").showing

Examples of an automation suite output files

• Passed test in GNOME Terminal Suite

• Passed test in GNOME Terminal Suite in High Contrast.

We have teammates with visual impairment. While designing the output format we thought about a button that would remove all color as a core feature.

• Failed test in a Zenity Testing Suite

Our automation solution will provide as much data as possible after any error.

You will notice the amount of data present in a failed page. This page has everything a developer will need to debug a problem.

• Set of steps taken to reproduce the issue.
• Screenshot at the moment of the failure.
• Video of the reproducer.
• Journal logs.
• Full backtrace from coredumps – all relevant debuginfo/debugsource packages are installed.
• Status shows what version of an application is tested.
• We also have debug logs for our own tools to verify we did not introduce the issue.

Advantages of our solution

• It does not matter what theme is in use.
• It does not matter what font is in displayed on the screen.
• It does not matter where on the screen the application is located.
• In GNOME Control Center we can enable Zoom, Large Text or High Contrast and the automation will still work.
• If the application is in the Atspi tree in can be tested:
  • Evolution
  • Firefox
  • GNOME Control Center
  • GNOME Shell
  • GNOME Software

Disadvantages of our solution

• Accessibility is primarily not meant to be used for automation.
• Most applications we test have the Accessibility layer in imperfect/incomplete state.
  • Wrong coordinates.
  • Incorrect or missing names, roles or attributes.
  • Widgets for scroll bars have their limit set to 0 and cannot be changed even if a user can scroll in the GUI with no issues.
• While most of the issues we find have relatively simple workarounds they still exist and have to be dealt with.
• Problems with Accessibility in context of an automation are not a priority and might not get the attention they would need.