Fedora Linux 43 RC 1.6 is the final version
The Fedora Linux development team has announced that Fedora Linux 43 Final RC 1.6 will be released as the final version of Fedora Linux 43, which will be officially shipped on October 28, 2025.
During a recent meeting, the team reviewed the current status of Fedora Linux 43 Final and determined whether it was ready for shipment according to the release criteria. The purpose of the meeting was to check if Fedora Linux 43 Final met all the necessary requirements before its official release.
To assess the readiness of Fedora Linux 43 Final, the team examined the RC (Release Candidate) status and reviewed the blocker bugs that were currently under consideration. A proposed blocker is a bug or issue that could potentially prevent the release of Fedora Linux 43 Final if it is not resolved in time. The team evaluated several proposed blockers, including mbedtls timing attacks in RSA operations, gnome-session being killed by SIGABRT after systemd timeout during initial install, and the GNOME login prompt not appearing on the Pinebook Pro.
After reviewing these bugs, the team made several decisions regarding their status as blockers or non-blockers. For example, the bug involving mbedtls timing attacks was rejected as a blocker because it did not have any practical security implications for users of Fedora Linux 43 Final. On the other hand, the team also rejected a bug related to the GNOME login prompt on the Pinebook Pro as a blocker because it lacked sufficient details and the handling of ARM hardware coverage was subjective.
The team also discussed accepted blockers, which are bugs or issues that will be fixed in the final release but did not meet the criteria for blocking the release. For instance, the bug related to installing KDE Live with a French keyboard layout resulting in a US layout at the decryption prompt and console was confirmed as an accepted blocker by a wider vote.
The team also reviewed the test matrices for Fedora Linux 43 Final RC 1.6, which included tests for Workstation on aarch64. After some last-minute testing, it was determined that there was sufficient test coverage in place to proceed with the go/no-go decision.
Following a check-in from the Fedora CoreOS and IoT teams, who confirmed their release readiness, the team made the final Go/No-Go decision for Fedora Linux 43 Final. After polling FESCo, Releng, and QA members, it was agreed that Fedora Linux 43 Final was ready to be released on its current target date of October 28, 2025.
The meeting concluded with several action items, including announcing the Go/No-Go decision and noting the absence of the UKI image in the RC 1.6 compose. The Flock Organizing Team also made an open call for feedback on CFP themes for Flock 2026 to the four governance bodies of Fedora, requesting that they take specific issues back to their respective committees for discussion by November 11, 2025.
