Welcome to Fedora Linux 44! This release brings a host of updates to the Atomic Desktop variants—Silverblue, Kinoite, Sway Atomic, Budgie Atomic, and COSMIC Atomic. Below, we’ve broken down the most important changes in a Q&A format to help you understand what’s new and how it may affect your workflow. From tracker migrations and unified documentation to the removal of FUSE 2 libraries, here’s everything you need to know.
1. What changes were made to the issue tracker and documentation for Atomic Desktops?
The cross-variant issue tracker has been moved to the new Fedora forge. This is now the central place to report bugs that affect all Atomic Desktop variants or to coordinate work across them. For issues specific to a particular desktop environment (e.g., Budgie or COSMIC), the respective Special Interest Group (SIG) trackers are preferred—you can find links to these in the atomic-desktops organization README. Additionally, the unified documentation for all Atomic Desktops is now live on the same new forge. While the documentation has been consolidated, translations from the previous version were not migrated. Once the translation infrastructure is ready, volunteers will be needed to re-translate the content, which should be mostly a copy-paste effort from the old docs. This means we only need to translate once for all variants, rather than for each individual one. For more details, see the tracking issue atomic-desktops#10.
2. Why was FUSE version 2 removed from Fedora 44 Atomic Desktops?
FUSE version 2 has been deprecated and unmaintained for some time. The Fedora team decided to remove it from the Atomic Desktop images to improve security and reduce maintenance burden. This change has two main practical consequences. First, some AppImages that rely on an older runtime requiring FUSE 2 libraries may no longer work. Second, legacy backends for Plasma Vaults on Kinoite that depend on FUSE 2—specifically EncFS and CryFS—are no longer available. Users relying on these backends should migrate their data before updating. If you have already updated and need access to your data, you can temporarily layer the needed packages using rpm-ostree install <package>, then migrate and reset layers with rpm-ostree reset. For the full picture, see the Fedora Change and tracking issue atomic-desktops#50.
3. How does the removal of FUSE 2 affect AppImages, and what can I do?
Some AppImages still bundle an old runtime that expects FUSE 2 to be installed on the host system. Without these libraries, they may fail to mount and run. To check if your AppImage is affected, you can examine its runtime version—see the Discussion thread for examples. If you encounter problems, we recommend two steps: first, look for a Flatpak version of the same application, as Flatpaks are fully containerized and do not depend on FUSE 2. Second, report the issue to the upstream developers and encourage them to update their AppImage runtime to a newer version that uses FUSE 3 (which is still supported). Helping upstream package their app as a Flatpak is also a valuable contribution. In the meantime, you can try extracting the AppImage or using alternative packaging formats.
4. What should Kinoite users know about Plasma Vaults and FUSE 2?
KDE upstream has deprecated the EncFS and CryFS backends for Plasma Vaults because they rely on the removed FUSE 2 libraries. Only the gocryptfs backend is now maintained. If you are using EncFS or CryFS, you should migrate your data to a new vault using gocryptfs before updating to Fedora 44. To do this, open Plasma Vaults, create a new vault with the gocryptfs backend, then copy your data from the old vault to the new one. After confirming everything works, you can delete the old vault. If you have already updated and cannot access your encrypted data, you can temporarily install the required packages by running rpm-ostree install fuse-encfs or cryfs, then migrate your data, and finally revert with rpm-ostree reset. This is a workaround; the permanent solution is to migrate to gocryptfs.
5. What happened to pkla Polkit rules in Fedora 44?
Support for the legacy pkla format for Polkit rules has been dropped in Fedora 44 Atomic Desktops. Polkit is a system that controls privilege escalation; the pkla format was an older, less secure way to define rules. It has been replaced by the more modern JavaScript policy format. Most users are unlikely to have custom pkla rules, but if you do, they will no longer be recognized. To continue using custom policies, you should convert them to the new format. The change is part of a broader cleanup to align with upstream security recommendations. For more information, check the Fedora Change announcement. If you encounter issues with system permissions after upgrading, verify that any custom rules are in the proper format.
6. Is the unified documentation ready? Will it be translated?
Yes, the unified documentation for all Atomic Desktop variants is now live on the new Fedora forge. It combines guides and references that were previously scattered across multiple variant-specific sites. However, translations from the old documentation were not carried over. Once the translation system for the new forge is set up, the community will need help re-translating the content into different languages. The good news is that the new documentation is consolidated, so translators will only need to work on one set of documents rather than separate ones for each variant. The translation process should be straightforward—essentially copy-pasting from the old translated pages. If you’re interested in helping, check the atomic-desktops repository for updates on when the translation setup is ready.