The Fedora 23 Beta is here, right on schedule for our planned
October final release! Want to help make Fedora 23 be the best
release ever, or just want to get a sneak peek? Download the
prerelease from our Get Fedora site and give it a whirl:

- Get Fedora 23 Beta Workstation — a reliable, user-friendly, and
powerful operating system for your laptop or desktop computer
https://getfedora.org/en/workstation/prerelease/

- Get Fedora 23 Beta Server — make use of the very latest
server-based technologies available in the open source community
https://getfedora.org/en/server/prerelease/

- Get Fedora 23 Beta Cloud — build scale-out computing and utilize
the next generation of container deployment technology
https://getfedora.org/en/cloud/prerelease/

- Get Fedora 23 Beta Spins — alternative desktops for Fedora
https://spins.fedoraproject.org/prerelease

- Get Fedora 23 Beta Labs — curated bundles of purpose-driven
software and content
https://labs.fedoraproject.org/prerelease


What is the Beta release?
-------------------------

The Beta release contains all the exciting features of Fedora 23's
editions in a form that anyone can help test. This testing, guided
by the Fedora QA team, helps us target and identify bugs. When
these bugs are fixed, we make a Beta release available. A Beta
release is code-complete and bears a very strong resemblance to the
third and final release. The final release of Fedora 23 is expected
in October.

We need your help to make Fedora 23 the best yet, so please take
some time to download and try out the Beta and make sure the things
that are important to you are working. If you find a bug, please
report it – every bug you uncover is a chance to improve the
experience for millions of Fedora users worldwide.

Together, we can make Fedora rock-solid. We have a culture of
coordinating new features and pushing fixes upstream as much as
feasible, and your feedback will help improve not only Fedora but
Linux and free software on the whole.


Fedora-Wide Changes
-------------------

Fedora 23 includes a number of changes that will improve all of the
editions. For example, Fedora 23 makes use of compiler flags to
improve security by "hardening" the binaries against memory
corruption vulnerabilities, buffer overflows, and so on. This is a
"behind the scenes" change that most users won't notice through
normal use of a Fedora edition, but will help provide additional
system security.

Likewise, Fedora 23 has disabled SSL3 and RC4 by default due to
known vulnerabilities in the protocols. This means all applications
that use GNUTLS and OpenSSL libraries have had the SSL3 protocol
and RC4 cipher disabled.

Fedora 23 comes with the latest version of Mono 4. This means a big
improvement because we were stuck with an ancient version of Mono
(2.10) for too long. All packages within Fedora that are based on
Mono have been adjusted and rebuilt, to target the 4.5 version of
the .Net framework. Mono 4 does not support solutions targeting
v1.0, v2.0 or v3.5 of .Net, but usually they can be easily upgraded
to v4.5.

Fedora 23 Beta also includes support for Unicode 8.0, which
includes new emojis, and improvements in sorting Unicode text and
processing non-ASCII URLs.


Fedora Server
-------------

The Fedora Server release includes a number of interesting changes
and additions.

The rolekit service now supports setting up three roles. In
addition to the previously supported Domain Controller (powered by
FreeIPA abd Database Server (powered by PostgreSQL) roles, Fedora
Server 23 features a cache server for web applications (powered by
memcached).

Rolekit can also now be used from the anaconda kickstart by passing
the `--deferred` arguments to `rolectl`. For example: `rolectl
deploy domaincontroller --name=example.com --deferred` will
instruct the system to deploy the Domain Controller role on the
next boot.

The Cockpit Admin Interface in Fedora Server has several big
improvements as well.

- Support for SSH key authentication
- Support for configuring user accounts with their authorized keys.
- Basic cluster dashboard for driving Kubernetes on Fedora Server
and Fedora Atomic Host.
- Set the imezone for your Fedora Server from the Cockpit User
Interface (UI).
- Cockpit has also been made safe to use with multipath disks.


Fedora Workstation
------------------

While there's a lot going on under the hood, desktop users are also
going to find Fedora 23 Beta pretty exciting for all the obvious
goodness coming to the desktop. The easiest way to experience the
preview of these technologies is to download and try the Fedora 23
Beta Workstation edition.

Naturally, GNOME is getting an upgrade, with Fedora 23 containing a
preview of the upcoming GNOME 3.18 release, which is easier to use
than ever. There are also many enhancements on the way, such as:

- Improvements to next-generation graphics stack Wayland,
preparing it to be the default graphical server in a future release.
This includes mixed HiDPI support, to provide a better experience
when moving apps between HiDPI and non-HiDPI monitors
- Support for ambient backlight drivers, so brightness responds to
the environment on laptops with the required hardware
- The Software application is smarter about metered Internet
connections, and can now update system firmware
- Refreshed support for Google APIs to provide access to user data
through GNOME apps (including Google Drive integration)

Users trying to get a little work done on Fedora will be happy to see
LibreOffice 5 in Fedora 23. The new release includes a lot of new
features and improvements:

- Style previews in the sidebar
- Microsoft Word-compatible text highlighting
- Built-in image crop
- UI for data bars in Calc
- Support for Time-Stamp Protocol in PDF export
- Support for Adobe Swatch Exchange color palettes
- Import of Apple Pages files
- Improved support for HiDPI screens
- Significantly improved support for MS Office formats


Fedora Cloud
------------

Fedora 23 Cloud Base image includes many updates and enhancements to the
underlying Fedora base packages. For example, Fedora 23 now has the
latest Docker release, docker 1.8. We can now verify the publisher
of an image before running. This gives the users the power to identify
that the image publisher published has not been tampered with.

Stay tuned for news about Fedora Atomic Host in the not too distant
future!


Other notable changes in Fedora
-------------------------------

### Spins

Fedora Spins are alternative desktops for Fedora that provide a
different experience than the standard Fedora Workstation edition.
For instance, the Fedora KDE and Fedora Xfce spins provide popular
alternatives to GNOME for Fedora users who enjoy the KDE or Xfce
experience.

There's a new spin in town for Fedora 23. Want a classic take on a
modern desktop? If so, the Cinnamon spin may just be what you're
hoping to find. Fedora 23 includes a spin that tries to emulate the
GNOME 2 experience using GNOME Shell from GNOME 3.x.

Sugar on a Stick is a stand-alone implementation of the desktop
environment originally designed for the One Laptop per Child
project. Fedora's SoaS spin has been updated to Sugar 0.106, for
better performance, updated activities, and a new "social help"
feature for collaborative learning.


### Labs

Fedora Labs are curated software collections. You can find updated
live media focused on Games, Design, Robotics, and more.


Issues and Details
------------------

This is an Beta release. As such, we expect that you may encounter bugs
or missing features. To report issues encountered during testing,
contact the Fedora QA team via the mailing list or in #fedora-qa on
freenode.

As testing progresses, common issues are tracked on the Common F23
Bugs page. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F23_bugs

For tips on reporting a bug effectively, read "how to file a bug
report." https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/How_to_file_a_bug_report


Release Schedule
----------------

The full release schedule planned is available on the Fedora wiki.
The current schedule calls for a beta release towards the end of
September, and the final release scheduled towards the end of October.
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/23/Schedule

These dates are subject to change, pending any major bugs or issues
found during the development process.