Atomic Desktops: Drop FUSE 2 libraries
Summary
Remove FUSE 2 binaries and libraries from all Atomic Desktops as the FUSE 2 version of the project is deprecated and not maintained anymore.
Owner
- Name/Email: Timothée Ravier, siosm@fedoraproject.org
Current status
- Targeted release: Fedora Linux 44
- Last updated: 2026-02-03
- Announced
- Discussion thread
- FESCo issue: #3554
- Tracker bug: #2436474
- Release notes tracker: #293
Detailed Description
Remove the fuse and fuse-libs (FUSE2) packages from Atomic Desktops. No packages depends on it since they all moved to FUSE 3 during the Fedora 40 cycle. We manually kept those packages included to keep compatibility with old (type-1) AppImages. See:
- https://gitlab.com/fedora/ostree/sig/-/issues/50
- https://github.com/fedora-silverblue/issue-tracker/issues/589
AppImage that are built with the type-2-runtime do not require the fuse2 libraries anymore thus we can now remove them from Atomic Desktops.
Feedback
While we don't officially support AppImage nor recommend using it (as we recommend using Flatpaks), we manually kept those packages included to keep compatibility with old (type-1) AppImages for a while. Three Fedora releases have now passed since the initial reports thus AppImages would have likely been updated since then:
- https://gitlab.com/fedora/ostree/sig/-/issues/50
- https://github.com/fedora-silverblue/issue-tracker/issues/589
For old AppImages, users have some fallback options or they can layer the fuse2 packages.
Benefit to Fedora
Smaller images for Fedora Atomic Desktops and less legacy, unmaintained software included.
Scope
- Proposal owners: Remove the fuse2 packages from Atomic Desktops
- Other developers: N/A
- Release engineering: N/A
- Policies and guidelines: N/A (not needed for this Change)
- Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)
- Alignment with the Fedora Strategy: General improvement for Atomic Desktops
Upgrade/compatibility impact
Users that rely on old AppImages will have to update them, use a fallback option or layer the fuse2 packages.
Early Testing (Optional)
Do you require 'QA Blueprint' support? N
How To Test
You can get the runtime of an AppImage with the --appimage-version command line option (see AppImageKit#command-line-arguments). Example for the Krita AppImage:
$ ./krita-5.2.14-x86_64.AppImage --appimage-version AppImage runtime version: https://github.com/AppImage/type2-runtime/commit/2df896e
Remove the fuse and fuse-libs packages locally. Verify that AppImage applications still work or consider using the Flatpak version if it exists or report issues to the developers upstream.
User Experience
Users of old AppImages may have to update them or try fallback options.
Dependencies
None.
Contingency Plan
- Contingency mechanism: (What to do? Who will do it?) Revert the change. The Atomic Desktops maintainers will do it.
- Contingency deadline: N/A (not a System Wide Change) but Beta/Final freeze
- Blocks release? N/A (not a System Wide Change) but No, can be easily reverted
Documentation
See release notes.
Release Notes
FUSE2 librares and binaries have been removed from all Atomic Desktops. If you have applications (notably AppImages) that depend on those libraries, please update them, consider using the Flatpak version if it exists or ask upstream to update them to the newer AppImage runtime.
On Kinoite and Kinoite Mobile, Plasma Vaults using the EncFS or CryFS backends will no longer be accessible. You can either convert them to another backend before updating or layer the fuse-encfs or cryfs packages via rpm-ostree install to access them on updated systems.
