Fedora Linux 45 Beta landed on 15 September 2026 Fedora Magazine, giving developers a first look at changes slated for the general release in about a month. The beta spans Workstation, KDE Plasma Desktop, Server, Cloud, and IoT editions, plus Atomic Desktop variants built with the new image-builder pipeline.
The headline change replaces the legacy in-kernel console with kmscon Fedora Project Wiki. The move delivers smooth rendering, proper Unicode and font support, and better stability on the virtual terminal layer.
Package security tightens: Fedora 45 now enforces valid package signatures by default, blocking unsigned packages, while desktop secret management consolidates around oo7, replacing GNOME Keyring and KWallet backends Fedora Project Wiki.
The toolchain refresh is broad. GCC moves to 16.2, glibc to 2.44, binutils to 2.47, and GDB to 17.2; LLVM lands at 23, Golang at 1.27, Python at 3.15, and Perl at 5.44 Fedora Project Wiki. Runtime updates include Podman 6, Pandas 3, MySQL 9.7, and MariaDB 12.3 Fedora Magazine.
For Atomic Desktop users, the beta introduces Anaconda WebUI installation flows and native Stratis filesystem partitioning support. Fedora CoreOS gains systemd-oomd and zram swap support Fedora Magazine.
Image credit: Fedora Project
The Asahi Remix 45 Beta brings the same changes to Apple Silicon Macs, adding initial M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max support with H.264/VP9 hardware decode (AV1 on M3) Fedora Magazine.
Upgrades from Fedora 43 or 44 use the DNF system-upgrade plugin; the Workstation Software application does not support beta upgrades. Known issues are tracked on the Fedora Discussion forum.
With signature enforcement, kmscon, and a modernized toolchain all landing together, Fedora 45 shapes up as a substantial platform refresh — not just a version bump.
Previously: Framework Laptop 12 ships with Fedora KDE Plasma pre-installed
