Work on beats has now moved to git at https://pagure.io/fedora-docs/release-notes. If you have changes or additions, please contact the docs team via #fedora-docs, docs@lists.fedoraproject.org, or with the release-notes BZ component.
GNOME
GNOME 3.12
GNOME has been updated to the upstream release 3.12.
The release features improved support for HiDPI across the GNOME Desktop components.
The Totem video player has been renamed to Videos.
The Gedit text editor has been redesigned to feature a more compact interface.
The release also includes new applications, such as:
- GNOME Logs: A systemd journal viewer.
- GNOME Sound Recorder: A simple utility for audio recordings.
- Polari: An IRC client.
Other feature improvements include support for Google Cloud Print, Windows Live email, and a new terminal search provider for GNOME Shell.
For more information about the release, read the GNOME 3.12 Release Notes at https://help.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/3.12/.
GNOME Software
The GNOME Software application installer (the gnome-software package), which was first introduced in Fedora 20, is now more integrated in the system and provides additional functionality. Notable new features include:
- Installing application add-ons is now supported.
- High quality metadata, such as screenshots, are now offered with many applications, allowing you to gather more information before installing a package.
- The installer has been turned into a session service, which allows it to check for available system updates automatically even when the application itself has not been launched by the user. This functionality was previously provided by the gnome-settings-daemon service.
- The application is now much better integrated into GNOME Shell:
- Available system updates are now offered in the Power Off dialog.
- Non-installed packages can now be displayed among search results when using the integrated search function.
- You can now right-click an application icon in the shell overview and select Show Details from the menu to obtain information about the application.
- You can now create and customize application folders using the application installer.
- The tool now starts up much faster and provides a more responsive interface due to the switch from the YUM backend to the one provided by the DNF project.
See the Application Installer Continued wiki page for more information.
Wayland support previewed GNOME
The transition of GNOME to Wayland continues in Fedora 21. In particular, GNOME shell is being changed to run as a Wayland compositor instead of an X11 compositor. Other components of GNOME which currently talk directly to the X server, such as gnome-settings-daemon or gnome-control-center, will be ported to corresponding Wayland interfaces. Most GTK+ applications will continue to work normally using the existing Wayland backend.
Applications that make use of X-specific APIs continue to be supported using the xwayland X server, which is started on demand. gdm supports both Wayland-based sessions and X-based sessions.
Proprietary driver support in Wayland is less complete than under X. Systems that have been configured to use proprietary drivers under X will fall back to using open-source drivers under Wayland. Addionally, support for alternative input devices such as Wacom tablets or joysticks may not be available in time for Fedora 21.
For additional information about Wayland in general, see the official documentation. The Wayland page on the GNOME wiki provides information relating specifically to Wayland in GNOME.
Try out Wayland and GNOME in Fedora 21 by installing the *gnome-session-wayland-session* package and choosing the Wayland session when logging in.
MATE 1.8
The MATE desktop environment in Fedora has been updated to version 1.8. The updated version brings a number of visual and functional changes, such as new applets and extensions and support for UPower 1.0. The default sound mixer has been switched from GStreamer to PulseAudio. MATE now also uses the Yelp help browser, which fixes issues with broken links in help pages.
Many packages which are part of MATE were either renamed or replaced.
A full list of changes is available on the MATE 1.8 wiki page and the MATE 1.8 release announcement.
To install MATE, use the yum groupinstall "MATE Desktop" command, and then select MATE from the menu the next time you log in.
KDE
KDE 4.14 and SDDM
The KDE Software Collection and KDE Plasma Workspaces 4.14, which is the version to be included in Fedora 21, have already been made available to users of Fedora 20 through the Updates repository. However, the KDE spin of Fedora now uses SDDM as its new default display manager. KDM, which was the default display manager on Fedora 20 and earlier, is still available for installation from the Fedora repositories.
To return to using KDM, install the kdm package using the following command:
~]# yum install kdm
Then enable the service using the following command:
~]# systemctl enable --force kdm.service
(Other notes, do not publicanize)
Mesa update
SDL2 stack