Following Fedora 42 and 43's advancements in 2025, the Fedora Project released version 44 on April 28 after a two-week delay for bug fixes. Highlights include Linux kernel 6.19, GNOME 50 on Workstation, KDE Plasma 6.6 on the KDE spin, plus gains in gaming, toolchains, and desktop features.
The release prioritizes stability over schedule in Fedora's bi-annual cycle. Building on KDE Plasma's promotion to full edition status in Fedora 42 and prior Wayland improvements, the KDE spin now features Plasma 6.6 with OCR in Spectacle, Plasma Keyboard for accessibility, Wi-Fi QR scanning, Plasma Login Manager as default (a Fedora first), and a post-install setup wizard.
Fedora Workstation ships GNOME 50, finalizing GDM's X11 removal (delayed from GNOME 49), stabilizing variable refresh rate and fractional scaling, and enhancing Files with case-insensitive completion and Glycin-based thumbnails.
Gaming benefits from the NTSYNC kernel module improving Wine/Proton, plus a refreshed Games Lab spin with Plasma Wayland support. Developers get PHP 8.5, LLVM 22, CMake 4.0, Golang 1.26, Ruby 4.0, MariaDB 11.8, GCC 16.1, and glibc 2.43.
ISOs are available for download, with upgrades via GNOME Software, KDE Discover, or DNF, including fresh wallpapers for desktops.
