{"id":5923,"date":"2026-04-28T08:21:57","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T15:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/?p=5923"},"modified":"2026-04-28T08:21:57","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T15:21:57","slug":"after-2-weeks-of-delay-fedora-44-is-finally-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/?p=5923","title":{"rendered":"After 2 Weeks of Delay, Fedora 44 is Finally Here!"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Fedora Project<\/a> has had an interesting journey since its inception in November 2003. It started as a community-backed effort spun off from Red Hat Linux, which Red Hat<\/a> had decided to retire in favor of its commercial Enterprise Linux product.<\/p>\n

Rather than leave the community without a home, Red Hat partnered with contributors to launch Fedora as an open, community-driven distribution<\/strong> that would push new technologies forward.<\/p>\n

That upstream-first philosophy has held ever since. Fedora consistently ships things before most other distributions dare to, from Wayland<\/a> adoption to newer compiler toolchains, often serving as the real-world test bed for what eventually becomes Red Hat Enterprise Linux<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Of course it is not limited to that; its various flavors serve all kinds of users, starting from desktop users to server administrators, hobbyist tinkerers, and anyone running containerized workloads at scale.<\/p>\n

Now, to the topic at hand, a new Fedora release<\/a> has landed, and as always, we must check out what it offers. <\/p>\n

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Subscribe to It’s FOSS YouTube Channel<\/a><\/div>\n

\u2b50 Fedora 44: What’s New?<\/h2>\n

The release ships with Linux kernel 6.19<\/a>, which introduces expanded hardware support, and some noteworthy improvements for gaming that we will talk about later. Both desktop variants, Workstation<\/em> and KDE Plasma Desktop<\/em>, arrive with fresh wallpapers<\/strong>, as is tradition with every Fedora release.<\/p>\n

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Workstation gets GNOME 50<\/strong>, which finalizes the removal of X11 from GDM and promotes variable refresh rate and fractional scaling to stable status. KDE Plasma Desktop bumps up to Plasma 6.6<\/strong>, which introduces a post-install setup wizard and swaps out SDDM for the new Plasma Login Manager<\/a> as the default across all KDE variants.<\/p>\n

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Beyond the desktops, this release brings meaningful improvements to gaming through the NTSYNC kernel module, a reworked Games Lab spin, a freshly updated GNU toolchain, and a range of language runtime upgrades. <\/p>\n

There’s quite a bit packed in here!<\/em> \ud83d\ude03<\/p>\n

GNOME 50<\/h2>\n
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GNOME 50<\/a> is the flagship desktop for Fedora Workstation 44, and it comes with a major change that has been a long time coming. X11 has been fully removed from GDM.<\/strong> The plan was originally to do this in GNOME 49, but a last-minute bug had caused it to be pulled back.<\/p>\n

Then there are the two features, variable refresh rate and fractional scaling, that have been sitting behind experimental flags for an awkwardly long time are now stable. If you have a high refresh rate display and have been holding off, then this Fedora release is the right time to try them out.<\/p>\n

Additionally, the Files app (Nautilus<\/em>) picks up case-insensitive path completion in the location bar and switches to GNOME’s sandboxed Glycin library for more efficient loading of image thumbnails.<\/p>\n

KDE Plasma 6.6<\/h2>\n
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KDE Plasma 6.6<\/a> powers Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop 44 in this release, with improvements like OCR support in Spectacle<\/strong>, the screenshot tool. You can now pull text directly out of a screenshot, which can be a genuinely useful thing to have when you are copying error messages or text from images.<\/p>\n

Accessibility sees a solid round of additions too. There is a new on-screen keyboard called Plasma Keyboard<\/a>, a grayscale filter in the Color Blindness Correction<\/em> settings, and the Zoom and Magnifier tool gains a new tracking mode that keeps the pointer centered.<\/p>\n

The release also adds the ability to save your current desktop layout as a custom global theme, ambient light sensor support for automatic brightness adjustment, and Wi-Fi QR code scanning<\/strong> from the system tray’s Networks<\/em> widget.<\/p>\n

But wait, there are more KDE-related changes!<\/em><\/p>\n

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From left to right, we have the login screen and Plasma Setup on Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop 44.<\/em><\/i><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

All Fedora KDE variants now include Plasma Setup<\/a>, a post-install wizard that handles account creation and initial configuration separately from the OS installer, and Anaconda<\/a> (the installer<\/em>) has been updated to skip the setup stages that would otherwise overlap with it.<\/p>\n

The other notable change for KDE users is the switch from SDDM to Plasma Login Manager<\/a> (PLM) as the login manager, making Fedora 44 the first distribution to ship it by default.<\/p>\n

Gaming is Better Now<\/h2>\n
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Installing Wine<\/a>, Steam<\/a>, or open source game launchers (e.g., Lutris and Heroic Games Launcher<\/em>) on Fedora 44 now quietly pulls in the NTSYNC kernel module<\/a> as a recommended dependency. NTSYNC handles thread synchronization at the kernel level, which takes a chunk of work off Wine and Proton<\/a>‘s plate.<\/p>\n

The result is better Windows game (and software<\/em>) compatibility and a performance bump in many titles<\/strong>, with no configuration work required from your side.<\/p>\n

The Games Lab<\/a> spin also gets a proper refresh. Xfce is out, KDE Plasma is in, specifically for the better Wayland support it brings to gaming workloads.<\/p>\n

If you didn’t know, this is one of Fedora’s curated offerings that brings together a decent spread of open source games<\/strong> across genres like turn-based strategy, puzzles, and first-person shooters.<\/p>\n

Toolchain Upgrades<\/h2>\n

Fedora 44 also brings a pack of toolchain and language runtime updates, keeping it well-positioned as a development platform:<\/p>\n