Fedora Workstation: Fresh GNOME Linux With Media Writer

Fedora Workstation is a good fit for developers and anyone who wants recent software without running a rolling release. It ships a clean GNOME desktop and tends to adopt new Linux technology early.

Which image to download

The download page offers a Live ISO for x86_64 (Intel/AMD PCs) and, for ARM machines, an aarch64 Live ISO or a raw image. Most desktop and laptop users want the x86_64 Live ISO, which lets you try Fedora before installing.

The easy way: Fedora Media Writer

Fedora’s own advice is simple: you need a 4 GB USB flash drive and Fedora Media Writer, available for Windows, macOS and Linux. It can download the image for you and write it to the stick. You can also write a downloaded ISO with Rufus or boot it from a Ventoy drive.

Verify the download

Download the checksum file for your image into the same folder, plus Fedora’s OpenPGP certificates. Check the checksum file’s signature with gpgv or sq, then run sha256sum -c --ignore-missing on the checksum file. If you only want to rule out a corrupted download, compare the SHA256 value shown on the download page.

Release rhythm

Fedora releases a new version roughly every six months, and each release is supported for about 13 months. Plan to upgrade once a year or so; the built-in software tool handles the upgrade between versions. As with any install, back up your data first, especially if you will share the disk with another operating system.