Fedora Linux 44: Key Updates for Atomic Desktop Users

Introduction

Fedora Linux 44 has arrived, bringing a host of refinements and critical changes to the Atomic Desktop variants—Silverblue, Kinoite, Sway Atomic, Budgie Atomic, and COSMIC Atomic. These immutable desktops prioritize stability and containerized workflows, and the latest release introduces unified project management, improved documentation, and several deprecations that users need to be aware of. This article highlights the most significant updates and provides guidance on handling the transitions smoothly.

Centralized Issue Tracking and Documentation

Issue Tracker Moved to the New Fedora Forge

The cross-variant issue tracker has migrated to the new Fedora Forge, streamlining collaboration across all Atomic Desktop flavors. This is the primary place to file bugs or coordinate fixes that affect multiple variants. For desktop-specific issues (e.g., GNOME on Silverblue or KDE on Kinoite), the respective Special Interest Group (SIG) trackers remain the preferred venue. You can find links to those trackers in the README of the atomic-desktops organization.

Unified Documentation on the New Forge

A long-awaited unified documentation hub for all Atomic Desktops is now live, hosted on the new Forge. This central resource replaces scattered, per-variant guides and makes it easier to find information. However, translations have not been carried over from the previous system. The community will need to re-translate the content once the translation infrastructure is ready. The good news is that translations will be maintained in a single place rather than duplicated for each variant. Interested contributors can follow the progress in tracking issue atomic-desktops#10.

Deprecation of FUSE Version 2 Libraries

FUSE (Filesystem in Userspace) version 2 has been unmaintained for some time and is now removed from Fedora Atomic Desktop images. This change has two main consequences: AppImages that rely on the old FUSE 2 runtime may fail, and certain backends for Plasma Vault (on Kinoite) are no longer supported. The following sections detail the implications and recommended actions.

Impact on AppImages

Many AppImages still use an older runtime that depends on FUSE 2 being available on the host system. If you run an AppImage on Fedora 44 and it doesn’t work, first check the runtime version (see the Fedora Discussion thread for detection methods). To resolve the issue, consider these steps:

• Look for a Flatpak version of the application—Flatpaks are fully containerized and don’t rely on host FUSE libraries.
• Report the incompatibility to the application’s upstream and encourage them to update to a newer AppImage runtime. Helping with packaging as a Flatpak is another valuable contribution.

Plasma Vault: EncFS/CryFS Backends Removed

KDE upstream no longer recommends the EncFS and CryFS backends for Plasma Vaults, primarily because they depend on FUSE 2. If you use one of these backends, migrate your data to the sole maintained backend, gocryptfs, before upgrading to Fedora 44. If you’ve already updated and need temporary access to your vault, you can install the legacy packages (e.g., cryfs or fuse-encfs) using rpm-ostree install <package>, migrate the data, and then remove the layers with rpm-ostree reset.

Removal of Legacy Polkit Rules

Support for the old .pkla Polkit rules format has been dropped in Fedora 44. This change is unlikely to affect most users because modern Polkit configurations use the .rules or .conf format. If you have custom .pkla files, you must convert them to the new format to maintain system policy behavior.

Getting the Most Out of Fedora 44 Atomic Desktops

Fedora Linux 44 brings welcome improvements to project management and documentation for Atomic Desktop users, alongside necessary deprecations that align with upstream maintenance. By migrating to gocryptfs, updating AppImage runtimes, and converting legacy Polkit rules, you can ensure a seamless experience on Silverblue, Kinoite, and friends. For further details, refer to the unified documentation or the Fedora Change page for FUSE 2 removal.