What’s new in Fedora 27 Workstation

Fedora 27 Workstation is the latest release of our free, leading-edge operating system. You can download it from the official website here right now. There are several new and noteworthy changes in Fedora Workstation.

GNOME 3.26

This Fedora Workstation release, as always, brings with it the latest, greatest GNOME desktop environment. Notable features in this release include:

  • Revamped Settings control panel
  • Enhanced Search that also returns system actions in an improved layout
  • Color Emoji in the Characters app
  • Better visual transitions for windows, and app thumbnails in the Overview
  • …and more

The GNOME 3.26 release notes online contain a much larger list of improvements. There are even improvements beyond those in the release notes. These include more secure image thumbnails and more gaming hardware support.

Pipewire

PipeWire is a new subsystem that vastly improves audio/video handling under Linux. Eventually it will support the full range of ways users currently use PulseAudio and JACK, and provide similar handling for video. It’s designed to be a new core foundation for audiovisual I/O in Linux apps. In Fedora 27 Workstation, PipeWire provides screen capture and screencast recording in GNOME Shell. In future releases its capabilities will expand.

Builder

The new release of GNOME Builder comes with numerous improvements as well. Examples includes the debugger, the overall design, symbol search and word completion. This release also has enhancements to inline documentation for a better developer experience.

LibreOffice 5.4

Fedora 27 Workstation also includes the latest stable release of the LibreOffice productivity suite. This full-featured suite makes it easy for you to create and collaborate on documents, presentations, spreadsheets, and more. The full set of features is in the upstream release notes, but here is a partial list:

  • Writer now has better support for .dotx, .dotm, and .rtf files
  • Calc remembers your CSV export settings for later sessions
  • Writer has a better style toolbar to make document formatting a snap
  • Calc adds new options for more granular cell protection
  • Writer handles export of bullets and numbering much better
  • Calc has new cell comment commands

RHEL Developer Subscription access in Boxes

For a while now, Red Hat has offered a no-cost developer subscription to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. (Full disclosure for those living under rocks: Red Hat sponsors the Fedora Project.) In Fedora 27 Workstation, the GNOME Boxes application will let you access your subscription to easily download and install RHEL for a guest box. This is a nice streamlining feature for developers who want to test their work for enterprise deployment.

Fedora Media Writer

The Fedora Media Writer is the easiest way to get a new release of the Workstation Live onto a convenient USB key. The latest release allows you to create bootable SD cards with Fedora for ARM devices such as Raspberry Pi. It also brings improved support for Windows 7 and screenshot handling. The utility also notifies you when a new release of Fedora is available. You can install it, as with many other apps and add-ons, in the Software app.

Other notes

This is but a small fraction of the new features of Fedora 27. Fedora also lets you install thousands of software apps provided by our community. Many of these apps and utilities have also received updates since Fedora 26. When you upgrade, you’ll receive them automatically.

Fedora 27 is available now for download.

New in Fedora

22 Comments

  1. Sergio

    If Fedora Media Writer has a Windows version where is it?
    (link could be in the text)

    • madmax

      You are offered it when downloading Fedora fron getfedora.org. If you are not using that OS (or it is not detected correctly), you have to click the “View all platform downloads”.

  2. Sergio

    Fedora Media Writer for Apple or Windows are at
    https://github.com/MartinBriza/MediaWriter/releases

  3. Seshpenguin

    Woo!

  4. Dimitris

    Can I upgrade to the new version by doing:
    $ dnf dist-upgrade
    ?

    • Sebastiaan Franken

      Not with that command, you can use DNF to upgrade though:

      $ dnf install dnf-plugin-system-upgrade && dnf system-upgrade download –refresh –releasever=27 && dnf system-upgrade reboot

      Run as a user with admin/root privileges. If you’re a normal user, prefix the command’s with sudo.

    • https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DNF_system_upgrade is instructions for using DNF to update your Fedora to latest release.

  5. wahéb

    I have fedora 26 , can I upgrade my OS without new installation ?

    • @wahéb: Yes, you can use the upgrade article on the Magazine for guidance: https://fedoramag.wpengine.com/upgrading-fedora-26-fedora-27/

      • oreak

        I have Fedora 26 Workstation installed , want to install Fedora 27 Workstation just run
        sudo dnf upgrade –refresh
        sudo dnf install dnf-plugin-system-upgrade
        sudo dnf system-upgrade download –releasever=27
        sudo dnf system-upgrade reboot
        All of the command execution look normal, but still get into the 26 desktop. what’s wrong, is a bug ?
        I looked journalctl –since ‘2017-11-17 13:28:00’
        as follows:
        11月 17 13:28:32 ying kernel: reserve setup_data: [mem 0x0000000100000000-0x000000047f5fffff] usable
        11月 17 13:28:32 ying kernel: efi: EFI v2.31 by Lenovo
        11月 17 13:28:32 ying kernel: efi: ACPI=0x7cefe000 ACPI 2.0=0x7cefe014 SMBIOS=0x7cd2e000
        11月 17 13:28:32 ying kernel: efi: [Firmware Bug]: Invalid EFI memory map entries:
        11月 17 13:28:32 ying kernel: efi: mem45: [Reserved | | | | | | | | | | | | ] range=[0x0000000000000000-0x0000000000000000] (invalid)
        11月 17 13:28:32 ying kernel: efi: mem46: [Reserved | | | | | | | | | | | | ] range=[0x0000000000000000-0x0000000000000000] (invalid)
        11月 17 13:28:32 ying kernel: efi: mem47: [Reserved | | | | | | | | | | | | ] range=[0x0000000000000000-0x0000000000000000] (invalid)
        11月 17 13:28:32 ying kernel: efi: mem48: [Reserved | | | | | | | | | | | | ] range=[0x0000000000000000-0x0000000000000000] (invalid)
        11月 17 13:28:32 ying kernel: efi: mem49: [Reserved | | | | | | | | | | | | ] range=[0x0000000000000000-0x0000000000000000] (invalid)
        11月 17 13:28:32 ying kernel: efi: mem50: [Reserved | | | | | | | | | | | | ] range=[0x0000000000000000-0x0000000000000000] (invalid)
        11月 17 13:28:32 ying kernel: efi: mem51: [Reserved | | | | | | | | | | | | ] range=[0x0000000000000000-0x0000000000000000] (invalid)
        11月 17 13:28:32 ying kernel: efi: Removing 7 invalid memory map entries.
        11月 17 13:28:32 ying kernel: random: fast init done
        11月 17 13:28:32 ying kernel: SMBIOS 2.7 present.
        11月 17 13:28:32 ying kernel: DMI: LENOVO 20BG0014US/20BG0014US, BIOS GNET72WW (2.20 ) 02/26/2015
        11月 17 13:28:32 ying kernel: tsc: Fast TSC calibration using PIT
        11月 17 13:28:32 ying kernel: e820: update [mem 0x00000000-0x00000fff] usable ==> reserved
        11月 17 13:28:32 ying kernel: e820: remove [mem 0x000a0000-0x000fffff] usable

  6. The_Humble_Fool

    Is it just me or the transition animations in Fed26 is glitching or slow?

  7. That’s great to access RHEL subscriptions. Thanks Fedora and Redhat.

  8. Jake Montez

    What about Fedora Server 27? Why it hasn’t been released yet?
    When is it gonna be released?
    any idea?

  9. Peter

    Sorry, but where in F27 application string from left down corner?

    • Jockey

      Since F27, that app string is deleted. F27 dont use that string, beacuse is really unusable.

  10. I don’t know why I couldn’t get 26 to upgrade to 27 via command line, even after
    sudo dnf update –refresh
    sudo dnf install dnf-plugin-system-upgrade
    sudo dnf system-upgrade download –refresh –releasever=27
    sudo dnf system-upgrade reboot

    It just kept rebooting into the same kernel and then loading 26 GNOME back up.

    I had to use the GUI in software settings in GNOME to manually select the upgrade, and sure enough I woke up this morning to an upgraded version of 27!

  11. How about, I had a problem updating, the system does not recognize my camera fijifilm finepix S, everything worked fine until the F25 version, but neither in the F26 nor F27 wants to recognize it, does anyone know what I can do?

  12. Fred

    When trying to install Fedora 27, I got a message saying grub2-efi would be deleted. I stopped the upgrade and tried to understand what this meant to my computer but have had no luck so far. Any ideas?

    • S. M. Syiemlieh

      uninstall it.

      i did that and upgraded.

      no problem whatsoever.

      cheers

  13. CR7

    I am novice to Linux. Please advice on the following points:-
    1. My machine has Fedora 26 32 bit. If I install Fedora 27, will my OS become 64 bit?
    2. Will my data be deleted/comprised if I install Fedora 27?

    • S. M. Syiemlieh

      the upgrade process will upgrade 32 bit with 32 bit and 64 bit with 64 bit.

      no worries on that end.

      your data will be safe since the upgrade doesn’t mess around with your disk settings, it just upgrades the packages already present in fedora 26.

      go for it.

  14. patleny

    fedora 27 is running on threadripper ? yes or no
    thanks

Comments are Closed

The opinions expressed on this website are those of each author, not of the author's employer or of Red Hat. Fedora Magazine aspires to publish all content under a Creative Commons license but may not be able to do so in all cases. You are responsible for ensuring that you have the necessary permission to reuse any work on this site. The Fedora logo is a trademark of Red Hat, Inc. Terms and Conditions