Note: This Post goes live in a few weeks!
(Looks like discourse sent some of you a notification, oops! Enjoy the preview!)
Guardians, today Bluefin switched its base from Fedora 41 to Fedora 42.
You’ll receive this update during your next update window, or you can run an update manually. Here’s the major Fedora release information:
- Fedora Magazine: What’s new in Fedora Workstation 41
- GNOME 48 release notes
Note that composefs is now enabled via upstream Fedora!
What is Bluefin?
Bluefin is an operating system for your computer. It is designed to be installed on a device upgrade for the life of the hardware – we accomplish this by sharing the maintenance and care of our systems together as a community. It is designed to be as “zero touch” as possible by providing a curated GNOME experience. Bluefin (aka bluefin:stable) is our leading edge desktop, designed to bring you the newest version of Fedora and GNOME.
We fiercely invest in automation and distributed work, which is one of the many reasons why Linux and Open Source have devoured the industry. We strive to bring these cloud native features to the desktop.
You’ll receive the update automatically over the next day or so or click on this button to manually run an update:
If you’re brand new you can use the website to pick the right image or use one of the direct DL links:
- AMD/Intel: https://download.projectbluefin.io/bluefin-stable.iso
- Nvidia: https://download.projectbluefin.io/bluefin-nvidia-stable.iso
Work on better ISOs continues, and we have news to share on that front soon!
Major Changes
There are a few major changes from a Bluefin perspective that we’ve been looking forward to:
-
As usual most of the changes are the work we do in GitHub to deliver Bluefin and not so much in the image itself. This took up the bulk of the work this cycle. Here’s a huge changelog of the package updates. You can also check out the release notes or use
ujust changelogsto keep track of what’s going on. We really, really made some efficiency gains across Universal Blue this cycle, we were able to grow the team while getting faster. -
Some packages have moved to flatpaks: Upcoming changes to Bluefin packages for the F42 release
-
This cycle has also been all about being more up front about our project metrics:
Deprecation Notices
These will take effect when we migrate to Fedora 43 this fall so we’re giving you a full release cycle heads up.
Nvidia Closed Images
-
Due to Nvidia’s software support changes we can no longer support the older closed modules for Nvidia cards.
- We will continue to make the Nvidia closed driver images for the remainder of this cycle. If your Nvidia card is OLDER than Turing+ / GTX 16XX+ this is the last release of Bluefin that will run on your card. Due to these changes being at of control we cannot guarantee that older cards will work on the subsequent GTS release either. Sorry.
- We will not be generating ISOs for the closed driver images.
- We will migrate you to the new
nvidia-openimages automatically during an upgrade if your hardware supports it. So any GTX 16XX+ and RTX Series cards will be migrated over with no action needed from you. - Pour one out for that GTX 1080Ti, the thing slayed for an absurdly long time, rest in peace friend.
- We will continue to make the Nvidia closed driver images for the remainder of this cycle. If your Nvidia card is OLDER than Turing+ / GTX 16XX+ this is the last release of Bluefin that will run on your card. Due to these changes being at of control we cannot guarantee that older cards will work on the subsequent GTS release either. Sorry.
Bluefin HWE Images
-
If you are using one of the old
hweimages for Surface/Asus, this is the last cycle that we will be generating them. We haven’t linked to their ISOs in a long time but there’s a handful of you still rocking these. If you’re using one of these images you’ll seehwein yourbootc statusorfastfetchoutput.- Use
ujust rebase-helperand select thelateststream, which will put you on Bazzite’s kernel which has some patches for these devices. - If you own one of these devices we recommend trying this sooner rather than later to see where your device stands today.
- If anyone is interested in maintaining images for Asus and Surface devices let us know and we’d be happy to link to your images.
- Use
More Information
Bluefin is a deinonychus, and may snap at you occasionally. Three year olds can get feisty of so there might be issues that you discover that we haven’t seen before. Filing issues is always appreciated.
We also accept donations to sponsor the infrastructure and artwork. If there’s a piece of software in Bluefin that makes you happy, consider donating to the upstream organization and/or authors. Thanks to the present (and past!) supporters for helping out.
Check the docs for all the available version options:
Is that it?
Nothing makes ops people happier than uneventful things.
Today is really like any other, we just updated a few tags, you always have the option to go to any version we support at any time. Wether you like the chill vibe of bluefin:gts, the refined aggresiveness of bluefin:stable, or go right to bluefin:latest, the raptor abides.
Here’s the current lay of the land:
gts (default) |
stable or stable-daily |
latest |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Fedora Version: | 41 | 42 | 42 |
| GNOME Version: | 47 | 48 | 48 |
| Target User: | Most users | Enthusiasts | Advanced users |
| System Updates: | Weekly | Weekly or Daily | Daily |
| Application Updates: | Twice a Day | Twice a Day | Twice a Day |
| Kernel: | Gated | Gated | Ungated |
Desktop DevOps folks wanted!
Bluefin is an active predator and is constantly hungry. You can help keep Bluefin healthy by becoming a contributor! We are an open source project and accept contributions:
- Help Wanted issues
- Contributing Guide
As a cloud native project we are always looking for contributors with skills in Podman, Docker, CI/CD, GitHub Actions, and good ole bash.
What’s Next?
- Bluefin LTS and Bluefin GDX are looking solid, mostly it’s just waiting for secureboot support. In May we will start publishing the ISOs on the website.
Stay Safe
- Always read the documentation before venturing out into the wild.
We’ll see everyone next month to talk about Bluefin LTS — meanwhile enjoy the release!
Feel free to ask questions!