hi folks. https://frame.work/gb/en/desktop?tab=linux Mentions 43. The linked Fedora 43 Installation on the Framework Desktop - Framework Guides says download latest, which is 44.
so which one should I be going for? And if I should be sticking with 43 how do I get it? I can’t see previous versions available on fedora site?
desktop 128gb on its way. Newish to Linux. Looking to host local llms, tinker, learn more Linux, and possibly play steam games. So not wedded to fedora but it seems like a good starter choice from what I’ve read?
Fedora is a fast moving distro; they tend to do a new point release every 6-8 months and each release will only get a year or so of support. In general I would say you should be installing the most recent non beta version unless you have a compelling reason not to.
F43 I believe will only get updates for another 5 months at this point.
FWIW, I am on a FW16 (laptop) and not the desktop, but running F44 now for almost two months.
KDE Plasma spin (personal preference from way back). Fedora supports in place upgrades as long as you skip at most one version. Fro example I did:
F39 (original install)->F40->F41->F42->F44 (my first skip one – aka skipped F43) on in-place upgrades. process has been pretty simple (I do have a lot of Linux and Fedora/RedHat experience so I do the upgrades via the CLI but from what I have gathered the GUI interface to it works similarly )
I do notice they list F43 on the FW16 laptop side as well, so maybe they haven’t done all of their regression prove outs yet on F44. and On a FW16 with a different motherboard there is a forum post of some folks having issues with F44 at the moment.
since (for me at least) the in-place upgrades are pretty painless, you might want to start with F43 and then plan on doing the in-place upgrade afterwards.
to get the older versions, I go straight to their download site:
https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/43/KDE/x86_64/iso/Fedora-KDE-Desktop-Live-43-1.6.x86_64.iso
(Edit: that is for the KDE Plasma spin, just head up a couple of parent directories to get the Gnome desktop for example).
For anyone looking at specifics: the exact date isn’t known, but F43 support probably ends on December 9, 2026. Link: Fedora Linux | endoflife.date
Fedora has a great magazine about the latest updates and new software, including LLMs. Totally recommend checking it out: https://fedoramagazine.org/. Steam should work out of the box, though this is speaking about other devices.