Fedora Linux 42 Beta has officially landed, and it’s packed with a ton of awesome changes. This release gives KDE Plasma Desktop full edition status, introduces the COSMIC spin, and rolls out Fedora Asahi Remix 42 Beta for Apple Silicon Macs. There’s also a big refresh to the Anaconda installer, improvements to DNF5, and a slew of updated packages.
For KDE fans, Fedora Linux 42 finally makes Plasma an official edition, putting it on the same level as Workstation, Server, IoT, and Cloud. It’s also now officially supported on Power Systems (ppc64le), including OpenPOWER machines like the Talos Workstation. That means users on those platforms get the full KDE stack, including KDE PIM.
Meanwhile, Fedora COSMIC spin brings System76’s revolutionary Rust-based desktop to the mix. This environment offers a hybrid approach to window management, blending traditional workflows with tiling options. Window stacks, tabbed switching, and deep customization with GTK are baked in, and there are plans to extend support to Qt in the future.
On the Apple side, Fedora Asahi Remix 42 Beta is out, bringing Fedora Linux 42 to Apple Silicon Macs. Developed in partnership with the Fedora Asahi SIG and the Asahi Linux project, this release integrates all Fedora Linux 42 updates and adds built-in support for FEX, an emulation tool that makes running x86 and x86-64 binaries much easier.
Those already using Fedora Asahi Remix 40 or 41 can upgrade using DNF’s System Upgrade plugin, though Fedora Workstation’s Software app won’t support this. The final release of Fedora Asahi Remix 42 is expected to go live alongside Fedora Linux 42’s general availability.
The Fedora team has also revamped the Anaconda installer, making the Web UI the default for Fedora Workstation. The new setup includes a progress tracker, built-in help, a configuration review step, and a guided partitioning tool. There’s even a new “Reinstall Fedora” option that makes recovery a breeze.
Dual-booting is simpler now too, thanks to automatic partition handling. On top of that, Anaconda now defaults to GPT partitioning across all supported architectures and has been reworked as a native Wayland application, ditching its old X11 dependencies.
Beyond the UI improvements, Fedora Linux 42 Beta introduces plenty of system-wide updates. RPM now supports systemd’s sysusers.d for managing users and groups, and a new dependency generator ensures GNOME Shell extensions remain compatible with GNOME updates. Package-wise, Fedora 42 brings Protobuf 5.x/6.x, Golang 1.24, Tcl/Tk 9.0, Ruby 3.4, Django 5.x, PHP 8.4, Xfce 4.20, and LXQt 2.1. The aging PostgreSQL 15 and Python 3.8 are gone, while NumPy moves up to version 2.x.
Security and performance improvements are also in the mix. DNF will now automatically remove expired and obsolete repository keys, improving security. The RPM Copy-on-Write feature is enabled for all variants, cutting down on system I/O and CPU usage during installations.
Fedora 42 also brings hardware and security enhancements, including better support for Intel Compute Runtime, an optimized binaries mechanism for AMD64/x86_64, and improved SELinux logging. Live media now uses EROFS for faster boot times. On top of that, Fedora Kinoite, the KDE-based immutable desktop, now enables auto-updates by default, keeping users up to date with minimal hassle.
Fedora CoreOS has moved its update system from OSTree to OCI, keeping it aligned with modern container workflows. For developers, the GNU Toolchain has been refreshed with GCC 15, Binutils 2.44, and Glibc 2.41. LLVM 20 is also included for better compiler performance.
Fedora Linux 42 Beta is available now, with downloads for Workstation, KDE Plasma Desktop, Server, IoT, Cloud, CoreOS “next” stream, and Asahi Remix 42 Beta. Those running an older Fedora version can upgrade using DNF system-upgrade.
Image credit: Natanael Ginting / Shutterstock
