Upgrading from pre-release to final

This page includes information on upgrading Rawhide, or a Fedora pre-release (Alpha or Beta) of the next release of Fedora, to the final release.

Can I update the Fedora 42 Alpha/Beta/Snap# release to the final Fedora 42 release?

Yes. In the last weeks leading up to the F42 release, there will be an updated fedora-release package which will change your release name from Rawhide to the general release Fedora 42, and more importantly, change your package repositories from rawhide to the general release repositories automatically. Until release day, MirrorManager will redirect requests for the general release repositories to rawhide. On release day, the redirect will be removed, and your system will update from the general release repositories. A layman's version of the specific details is available.

Rawhide detritus
While upgrading from rawhide to final usually works without issue, some corner case issues may exist where bad interim rawhide updates leave the system in a different state than a final clean install, or even a regular F41 to F42 upgrade (or preupgrade). The likelihood of such issues generally decreases as the general release approaches and stabilization efforts increase.

fedora-release changes back to Rawhide a few weeks after release
If you delay updating too long after F42 is released, you may miss the final F42 fedora-release transition package, and instead of going from Rawhide to Fedora 42, you will remain on Rawhide.

After updating to final, I see the new fedora and updates repos, but why is my rawhide repo also still enabled?

This will happen if you have manually modified your /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-rawhide.repo file before updating fedora-release. For example, if you have switched from using mirrorlist= to baseurl= for a repository definition, this situation occurs. Once fedora-release is updated, rather than overwrite your configuration changes, the new Rawhide repository file is created as fedora-rawhide.repo.rpmnew. To disable Rawhide, either toggle enabled=0 in your modified configuration, select the Software Sources application from System > Administration > Software Sources on the menu, or run this command:

su -c 'mv /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-rawhide.repo.rpmnew /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-rawhide.repo'

I found a Fedora 42 ISO leak before release day! Is it legit or is it exploited?

The only way to know for sure is to verify the leaked SHA256SUM CHECKSUM file's GPG signature (if available) with the official Fedora GPG key. If you can't, or won't do this, it's safer to just be patient and wait for release day. Also note that even if the early leak does check out, it might not be the FINAL release. Fedora has in the past had to re-push last-minute changes to the official releases.

If I report my problem to fedora-test list or post in fedora forum, will my issues reach the developers?

You can use such avenues for discussions however for maximum efficiency, we always recommend that all actual bugs be reported to the Fedora bug tracker (Bugzilla) against the appropriate package in rawhide. This is the only assured way of reaching the right developers.

When is Fedora 42 going to be released?

An up-to-date release schedule is always maintained at Releases/42/Schedule.

What are the new features in Fedora 42?

The Fedora_12_Announcement and Fedora 42 feature list has more details.

Should I upgrade to Fedora 42?

We offer you the choice of the greatest and latest release. Per the Fedora lifecyle policy, each release of Fedora is maintained until a month after the second following release. For example, Fedora 40 will stop getting updates a month after Fedora 42 release. We highly recommend that users of unmaintained, "end-of-life" (EOL) releases upgrade to a newer release to continue getting critical security fixes.

How can I upgrade?

Refer to Upgrading.

Where can I get support for 42 pre-releases?

For IRC Support, please use the #fedora-qa channel instead of the main #fedora channel. The FedoraForum site has a dedicated forum for Alpha and Beta pre-releases; please use that forum instead of the main forum. For email list discussions, please use the fedora-test-list.