Notable changes for desktop users

Change the Desktop release criteria for ARM and AArch64

The following release criteria changes are now present in Fedora 32:

  • Drop Xfce on 32-bit ARM from release-blocking desktops.

  • Workstation on AArch64 to release-blocking desktops.

The new additions to release-blocking deliverables include IoT and CoreOS architecture. To reduce the overall test coverage and release-blocking desktops, it no longer blocks on the 32-Bit ARM Xfce Desktop spin and adds Workstation on AArch64 as a release-blocking desktop.

As a result, this change reduces the release-blocking desktops and potential for blocker bugs.

Selected bitmap fonts are now available as OpenType

In Fedora 31, the Pango library switched to the HarfBuzz back end, which does not support bitmap fonts. Applications that use Pango for font rendering, such as GNOME Terminal, can no longer use bitmap fonts.

This release introduces new packages that provide selected bitmap fonts converted to the OpenType format. This format is supported by Pango.

The following packages now provide OpenType versions of bitmap fonts:

  • bitmap-lucida-typewriter-opentype-fonts

  • bitmap-fangsongti-opentype-fonts

  • bitmap-console-opentype-fonts

  • bitmap-fixed-opentype-fonts

  • ucs-miscfixed-opentype-fonts

  • terminus-fonts

You cannot install both the bitmap and OpenType versions of the packages, with the exception of terminus-fonts, which includes both formats.

Fonts language Provides moved to the langpacks package

This change aims to provide more reliable, predictable, and consistent fonts installation as well as better user experience around font dependencies. To achieve this, the change moves the Provides: font(:lang=*) tags into the langpacks-core-font-\* sub-packages of the langpacks package. The sub-packages already obtain the default font, locale and input-method for each language. As a result, whenever a missing glyph font installation is requested, the langpacks-core-font-<lang> package will be installed and will get the default font using the existing Requires: tag.