The Fedora Project has announced the beta availability of Fedora 33. In addition to Fedora Workstation and Fedora Server, Fedora 33 Beta also formally adds Fedora IoT as a supported edition.

It also includes the use of BTRFS as the default file system for Fedora Workstation to offer more modern features.

Geared towards edge devices, Fedora IoT supports a range of hardware platforms based on x86_64 and aarch64, including Raspberry Pi and Pine64.

Based on ostree technology for safer updates and rollbacks, Fedora IoT also includes Platform AbstRaction for SECurity (PARSEC). The open source initiative focuses on providing a common, hardware-agnostic API for hardware security and cryptographic services.

According to the company, Fedora 33 Workstation is aimed at helping developers be more productive and efficient in an increasingly cloud-native applications world. It leans on GNOME 3.38 to help make this goal a reality.

The latest version of the GNOME desktop environment adds a welcome tour after installation, helping new and experienced users alike understand the enhancements of GNOME 3.38. It also delivers improved screen recording and multi-monitor support.

Moreover, Fedora 33 Workstation also adds better thermal management and performance on Intel CPUs with the inclusion of thermald in default installations. It also includes animated backgrounds by default for desktop users.

Another significant change for all desktop variants of Fedora 33 Beta, including Workstation, is that BTRFS is now the default file system. This is claimed to be “a significant shift” for the community, which has used ext file systems since the early days of Fedora Core 1.

BTRFS offers “compelling features” for Fedora users, including transparent compression and copy-on-write. For now, only the basic features of BTRFS will be delivered by default for Fedora 33.

However, the project team plans to continue adding to these capabilities in future versions.

Fedora 33 is expected to officially make its debut at the end of October.