Fedora 23 Alpha Release Announcement
The Fedora 23 Alpha is here, right on schedule for our [[Releases/23/Schedule|planned] October final release. Download the prerelease from our Get Fedora site:
- Get Fedora 23 Alpha Workstation
- Get Fedora 23 Alpha Server
- Get Fedora 23 Alpha Cloud
- Get Fedora 23 Alpha Spins
What is the Alpha release?
The Alpha release contains all the exciting features of Fedora 23's editions in a form that anyone can help test. This testing, guided by the Fedora QA team, helps us target and identify bugs. When these bugs are fixed, we make a Beta release available. A Beta release is code-complete and bears a very strong resemblance to the third and final release. The final release of Fedora 23 is expected in May.
We need your help to make Fedora 23 the best release yet, so please take some time to download and try out the Alpha and make sure the things that are important to you are working. If you find a bug, please report it – every bug you uncover is a chance to improve the experience for millions of Fedora users worldwide.
Together, we can make Fedora rock-solid. We have a culture of coordinating new features and pushing fixes upstream as much as feasible, and your feedback will help improve not only Fedora but Linux and free software on the whole.
Fedora-Wide Changes
Fedora 23 includes a number of changes that will improve all of the editions. For example, Fedora 23 is making use of compiler flags to help improve security by "hardening" the binaries against memory corruption vulnerabilities, buffer overflows, and so on. This is a "behind the scenes" change that most users won't notice through normal use of a Fedora edition, but should help provide additional system security.
Likewise, Fedora 23 has disabled SSL3 and RC4 by default due to known vulnerabilities in the protocols. This means all applications that use GNUTLS and OpenSSL libraries have had the SSL3 protocol and RC4 cipher disabled.
Fedora 23 alpha also includes support for 8.0, which includes new emojis, and improvements in sorting Unicode text and processing non-ASCII URLs.
Other Notable Changes in the Alpha
Spins
Fedora "spins" are desktops or package sets for Fedora that provide a different experience than the standard Fedora Workstation edition. For instance, the Fedora KDE and Fedora Xfce spins provide popular alternatives to GNOME for Fedora users who enjoy the KDE or Xfce experience.
There's a new spin in town for Fedora 23. Want a classic take on a modern desktop? If so, the Cinnamon spin may just be what you're hoping to find. Fedora 23 includes a spin that tries to emulate the GNOME 2 experience using GNOME 3 shell. Learn more at [1].