Fedora launches Atomic Desktop Initiative

Accompanying official editions of the Fedora Linux distribution, which uses the atomic system update, there is now a proposal to reorganize and rename the atomic editions to improve clarity and user experience. The initiative suggests using a single name, Fedora Atomic Desktop, for assemblies that are not divided into separate packages and are updated atomically. This change aims to simplify the naming convention and make it easier for users to choose a specific version of Fedora.

Currently, the atomic editions of Fedora are presented as unchanged (“Immutable”) on the website, which can be confusing for users. Furthermore, the current arbitrary names for the atomic assemblies are not tied to architectural features, further complicating the selection process. For example, the atomic assembly with the user environment Gnome is distributed under the name Fedora Silverblue, with KDE – Fedora Kinoite, with SWAY – Fedora Sericea, and with Budgie – Fedora Onyx.

If the proposal is approved, these assemblies will be distributed under the names Fedora Gnome Atomic, Fedora KDE Atomic, Fedora Sway Atomic, and Fedora Budgie Atomic. Existing assemblies have the option to retain their previous names at the discretion of the developer teams. Atomic editions of Fedora Coreos and Fedora IoT, which are not intended for workstations, will continue to be supplied under their previous names.

Atomic assemblies are delivered as monolithic images, not divided into separate packages, and are updated as a single unit by replacing the entire systemic image. The basic environment is built from official RPM packages of Fedora using RPM-Sostree tools and mounted in read-only mode. For installing and updating additional applications, a self-sufficient Flatpak bags system is used, isolating applications from the main system and running them in separate containers.