Forgive me if I sound a little overly excited, but ever since I ditched Windows for Linux five months ago, I hadn't experienced a version update for a Linux distro before. I did quite a bit of distro hopping to start, so I was never really stuck on one operating system long enough to see it upgrade to a new version.

However, about two months ago, I eventually settled in with Fedora, and now, Fedora version 43 is here! Man, if only Microsoft's updates were as exciting as this.

Fedora Linux 43 has been released for everyone to grab

Over on Fedora Magazine, the Fedora Project Leader, Jef Spaleta, detailed what we can expect from Fedora Linux version 43. They state that the update has "just too many individual changes and improvements to go over in detail," so, in lieu of manually typing everything in a blog post, they link to the Fedora Linux 43 release notes for you to review.

The update features a ton of things that go clean over the head of a Linux newbie like me, but even I, with only a handful of months of experience under my belt, can tell that Fedora Linux 43 has a few killer standout features. As Jef puts it:

There are, however, a few notable user visible changes in this release. For those of you installing fresh Fedora Linux 43 Spins, you may be greeted with the new Anaconda WebUI. This was the default installer interface for Fedora Workstation 42, and now it’s the default installer UI for the Spins as well.

If you are a GNOME desktop user, you’ll also notice that the GNOME is now Wayland-only in Fedora Linux 43. GNOME upstream has deprecated X11 support, and has disabled it as a compile time default in GNOME 49. Upstream GNOME plans to fully remove X11 support in GNOME 50.

Yep, we're no longer X11 now, even on the default GNOME. The release notes say that anyone who uses GNOME X11 will be transparently migrated to Wayland, and that X11 apps will still work on Wayland.

However, we still haven't covered the biggest, most exciting part of this Fedora version upgrade: the wallpaper! While Fedora Linux 42 featured a lovely nature scene, 43 replaces it with a fantastic rocket launch instead, and I already love it. You can see the night version of the wallpaper at the top of this article.

Fortunately, I'm not the only one in a Fedora mood on the XDA team. Jeff Butts, who has more years of Linux experience than I've had hot meals, recently covered Fedora Ultramarine and what it can do for you.