π Final Objectives
The objective of the Final release is to:
- Provide a polished final release suitable for meeting the needs of our Target Audience
π Final Release Requirements
In order to be released to the general public, a compose must meet all of the following criteria. This is intended to make the decision process as clear and straightforward as possible. Mostly met items are incomplete until they are met. Optional and nice to have items should not be included in this list.
There may be times where a requirement is unmet only in a particular configuration, such as with some keyboard layouts but not others, or if a particular character is used in a username, password or passphrase. In such cases, the release team should use their judgement and refer to precedent to determine whether or not the issue should be considered to block the release. They should consider the number of users likely to be affected by the issue, the severity of the case when the issue is encountered, and the ease or otherwise with which the issue can be avoided by both informed and uninformed users.
The term release-blocking desktops means all the desktop environments in which bugs are currently considered capable of blocking a Fedora release. The current set of release-blocking desktops for x86_64 is GNOME and KDE, and for aarch64 is GNOME. Note that bugs in desktops that are not part of this set which would infringe these criteria automatically qualify for freeze exception status, according to the freeze exception bug process.
The term release-blocking images means all the images in which bugs are currently considered capable of blocking a Fedora release. The current set of release-blocking images includes the images defined by the three Editions - Server, Workstation and IoT - in their product requirement documents and/or technical specifications, the Everything network install image, key Cloud images, and the KDE live image. The canonical list of release-blocking images for Fedora 42 is on this page.
π Process requirements
π Beta criteria met
All Fedora 39 Beta Release Criteria must be met.
π Final blockers CLOSED
All bugs blocking the Final tracker must be CLOSED.
π Edition requirements
This section contains requirements relating to Fedora Editions: not to any specific edition, but to editions in general.
π Self-identification
For each Edition, the installer must be clearly identified as that Edition in all of that Edition's installable release-blocking images. Also, for any deployment of that Edition in accordance with the rest of these criteria, the relevant fields in /etc/os-release
must include the correct Edition name. Release-blocking images that are not part of any edition must not identify themselves as being part of any edition. The Fedora Council, as the body that defines Editions, may vote to waive this criterion at its discretion through its regular decision-making process.
π Initialization requirements
π Release-blocking images must boot
All release-blocking images must boot in their supported configurations.
π 'Basic graphics mode' boot mode behavior
The generic video driver option ('basic graphics mode' - as described in the Basic criteria) on all release-blocking installer and live images must function as intended (launching the installer or desktop and attempting to use a generic driver), and there must be no bugs that clearly prevent the installer or desktop from being reached in this configuration on all systems or on wide classes of hardware.
π No broken packages
There must be no errors in any package on the release-blocking images which cause the package to fail to install.
π Installer requirements
π Media consistency verification
Validation of install media must work correctly for all release-blocking images.
π Live image persistent overlays
The release-blocking live images must properly support mounting and using a persistent storage overlay for the entire system and/or one for the /home partition.
π Package and installer sources
The installer must be able to use all supported local and remote package and installer sources.
π Network attached storage
The installer must be able to detect (if possible) and install to supported network-attached storage devices.
π Installation interfaces
The installer must be able to complete an installation using all supported interfaces.
π Minimal install
When installing with the generic network install image with no update repositories enabled, the installer must be able to install the minimal package set.
π Disk layouts
The installer must be able to create and install to any workable partition layout using any file system and/or container format combination offered in a default installer configuration.
π Firmware RAID
- The installer must be able to detect and install to firmware RAID storage devices.
π Bootloader disk selection
The installer must allow the user to choose which disk the system bootloader will be installed to, and to choose not to install one at all.
π Storage volume resize
Any installer mechanism for resizing storage volumes must correctly attempt the requested operation.
π Windows dual boot
The installer must be able to install into free space alongside an existing clean Windows installation. As long as the Windows installation does not have BitLocker enabled, the installer must also install a bootloader which can boot into both Windows and Fedora.
π macOS dual boot
The installer must be able to install into free space alongside an existing macOS installation, install and configure a bootloader that will boot Fedora.
π Update image
The installer must be able to use an installer update image retrieved from removable media or a remote package source.
π Installer translations
The installer must correctly display all sufficiently complete translations available for use.
π Installer help
Any element in the installer interface(s) which is clearly intended to display 'help' text must do so correctly when activated.
π Cloud image requirements
π Cloud images work in EC2
Release-blocking cloud disk images must be published to Amazon EC2 as AMIs, and these must boot successfully and meet other relevant release criteria on at least one KVM-based x86 instance type, at least one KVM-based aarch64 instance type, and at least one Xen-based x86 instance type.
π Post-install requirements
π First boot experience
If an initial setup utility is run or intended to be run after the first boot of the installed system, then it must start successfully and each page or panel of the initial setup utility should withstand a basic functionality test.
π System services
All system services present after installation with one of the release-blocking package sets must start properly, unless they require hardware which is not present.
π Keyboard layout configuration
If a particular keyboard layout has been configured for the system, that keyboard layout must be used:
- When unlocking encrypted storage volumes during boot (but see footnotes)
- In the "initial setup" utility (if applicable)
- When logging in at a console
- When logging in via the default login manager for a release-blocking desktop
- After logging in to a release-blocking desktop, if the user account does not have its own keyboard layout configuration for that desktop (if there is such a user/desktop-specific configuration, it must be used when that user logs in to that desktop)
π Critical path translations
All critical path actions on release-blocking desktops must correctly display all sufficiently complete translations available for use.
π SELinux and crash notifications
There must be no SELinux denial notifications or crash notifications on boot of or during installation from a release-blocking live image, or at first login after a default install of a release-blocking desktop.
π Default application functionality
For all release-blocking desktop / arch combinations, the following applications must start successfully and withstand a basic functionality test:
- web browser
- file manager
- package manager
- image viewer
- document viewer
- text editor
- archive manager
- terminal emulator
- problem reporter
- help viewer
- system settings
If there are multiple applications of the same type (e.g. several web browsers), the primary/default one must satisfy the requirements. If the primary/default application can't be determined, at least one of said applications must satisfy the requirements.
Additionally, for Fedora Workstation on the x86_64 architecture, all applications installed by default which can be launched from the Activities menu must meet this requirement.
All applications installed by default in Fedora Workstation must comply with each MUST and MUST NOT guideline in the Applications and Launchers policy.
π Default panel functionality
All elements of the default panel (or equivalent) configuration in all release-blocking desktops must function correctly in typical use.
π Dual monitor setup
On computers using two monitors (e.g. two monitors on a desktop, or the built-in and one external monitor on a laptop), the graphical output is correctly shown on both monitors.
π Installing, removing and updating software
The default graphical package manager for a given software type must appropriately:
- Install, remove and update software
- List locally-installed software coming from the official Fedora repositories
- List available software (possibly in categories, a curated list, etc)
- Display metadata relevant to the selected software (e.g. the description, screenshots, the size)
- Start the selected installed software
- Configure software sources by enabling/disabling pre-defined official repositories and then adjust the available software pool accordingly
- Notify the user when system updates are available (taking into account the intended frequency of such notifications)
The following must hold true:
- When multiple operations (covered by this criterion) are requested, all of them must finish correctly. (It's also valid to inform the user that a certain operation is not available at that moment, see the "Supported functionality and design decisions" note).
- The displayed state of software or software sources must not differ from their actual state. (E.g. an RPM package must not be shown as installed when it is not, a repository must not be shown as disabled or missing when it is enabled, etc).
- Usual GUI interactivity must not break operations covered by this criterion. (E.g. when the GUI allows the user to click some buttons while an operation is running, it must not break that operation).
- The package manager must never make the system enter an inconsistent or unbootable state. (E.g. damage the local software database, remove wrong system files, break the bootloader, etc).
π Update notification
Release-blocking desktops must notify the user of available updates, but must not do so when running as a live image.
π Desktop keyring
Saving passwords to and retrieving passwords from the default keyring must work for all release-blocking desktops.
π Printing
Printing must work in release-blocking desktops on at least one printer using each of the following drivers:
- The built-in print-to-PDF driver
- The generic IPP driver
π Sound recording
The installed system must be able to record audio using the default web browser (if applicable) and gstreamer-based applications.
π Artwork
The proposed final Fedora artwork must be included and used as the background on release-blocking desktops. All Fedora artwork visible in critical path actions on release-blocking desktops must be consistent with the proposed final theme.
π Pre-release notices
No notices or alerts about pre-release status may be shown as part of installation or critical path actions on release-blocking desktops.
π Security bugs
The release must contain no known security bugs of 'important' or higher impact according to the Red Hat severity classification scale which cannot be satisfactorily resolved by a package update (e.g. issues during installation).
π Kickstarts
At the time of the release, the fedora-kickstarts git repository must have a tag matching the commit used to produce the accepted release candidate compose. The tag's name must clearly and unambiguously match the release number.
π Release notes
Any release notes included in the release repositories and/or any release-blocking deliverables must be for the correct release, and approved for release by the documentation team.
π Release identification
A fedora-release
package containing the correct names and information and a fedora-repos
package containing the correct repository configuration for a final Fedora release must be present on release-blocking images and the appropriately versioned generic-release
package must be available in the release repository.
π User switching
User switching must work using the mechanisms offered (if any) by all release-blocking desktops in their default configuration.
π Window manager functionality
For each release-blocking desktop, the desktop environment must perform regular operations like windows close/resize/maximize/minimize/fullscreen (when supported/applicable), windows switching, using windows on virtual workspaces, and similar common operations as expected. Common application content such as regular application windows, video output, and games must be displayed correctly.
π Domain client requirements
These requirements apply to any system properly configured as a client of another system which is an active and correctly configured FreeIPA domain controller.
π Access control
- The system must honor the controller's HBAC rules for access control.
π Password changes
- Users with domain accounts must be able to change their passwords according to the password policy specified by the domain controller.
π Single sign-on
- It must be possible for users to perform passwordless single-sign-on between two properly-configured domain clients using GSSAPI.
π Server discovery
- When configured to use the domain controller for DNS services, the system must be able to use DNS to discover the domain controller address using SRV records.
π SSH host key validation
- When configured to use FreeIPA for host-key validation, an initial SSH connection between domain clients must not prompt the user to accept the SSH public key.
π Server Edition requirements
These requirements apply only to the Server edition.
π FreeIPA and PostgreSQL server requirements
All the additional Beta requirements for FreeIPA and PostgreSQL server systems must be met, without any workarounds being necessary.
π Cockpit management interface
All Cockpit functional criteria must be satisfied when the user is running any of the following platforms:
- Mozilla Firefox as shipped in the same Fedora release
- Google Chrome of the latest available version at compose time on the same Fedora release.
- At least one of a) Mozilla Firefox or b) Google Chrome of the latest available version on Windows at compose time.
- At least one of a) Mozilla Firefox or b) Google Chrome of the latest available version on OSX at compose time.
Manual testing will occur on the Firefox/Fedora platform. It will not be performed on the Chrome/Fedora platform nor any of the Windows / OSX platforms mentioned above, but if issues in code related to Fedora / Cockpit (and not third-party software such as the third-party browsers) in meeting the functional criteria are reported against those platforms, they may block the release. Workarounds to get around issues that are outside of our control (such as in third party browsers) will not be considered blockers but may be considered freeze exceptions.
π IoT Edition requirements
π Greenboot service
The Greenboot service must be present on all images and installed by default when using the ISO installer. The service must be enabled to run on boot and function as intended.
π Automatic partition decryption (Clevis)
When configured on hardware with a Trusted Platform Module (TPM), it must be possible for the Clevis utility to automatically decrypt any encrypted partitions on boot without any user intervention.
π Final Blocker Bugs
A bug is considered a Final blocker bug if any of the following criteria are met:
- A bug in a Critical Path package that:
- Cannot be fixed with a future stable update
- Has a severity rating of high or greater and no reasonable workaround (see definition of severity and priority)
- Bug hinders execution of required Final test plans or dramatically reduces test coverage
- Bug relates to an unmet Final Release Requirement
A Fedora Change being incomplete, in and of itself, does not constitute a blocker bug. The Change process is separate from this process. Changes are required to meet certain standards at certain points of the release cycle, but this is part of the Change process and managed, tracked and enforced separately from this process. However, if a proposed feature being incomplete causes any of the above criteria to be met, then the bug is a release blocker.
π Contingency Plan
- If all of the Final Release Requirements are not met by 20:00 UTC on Tuesday the week prior to release day, the release will be delayed by one week so that the Final Release Requirements can be met.
- One week will be added to all remaining tasks in the release schedule, including the final release date.
- This decision will be made at the Go/No-Go Meeting.
π Confirming Final Requirements
QA has the responsibility of determining whether the criteria for the release has been met (as outlined above) through discussion with Development and Release Engineering. QA's findings will be reviewed and discussed at the Go/No-Go Meeting.