Fedora Planning To Introduce Major Package Management Changes Next Year

While during these crazy times it feels like Fedora transitioned from Yum to DNF yesterday, it's already been a half-decade since the DNF package manager has been the default on Fedora. Next year with Fedora 38 they are looking at further evolving package management by way of MicroDNF.

The new MicroDNF package management code aims to provide all the major features of DNF without losing its minimal footprint. The change proposal for this major upgrade of MicroDNF in Fedora 38 explains, "The new major Microdnf will provide huge improvements and in some cases better behavior then DNF. In the future, the new Microdnf will replace DNF. The new Microdnf will be accompanied by a new library (libdnf5) and a new DNF Daemon."

This package management evolution on Fedora would provide an improved user experience by better progressing reporting, better Bash completion, improved transaction table, and more. The upgraded DNF library (libdn5) is expected to provide better modularity, a unified user interface, plug-in improvements, a new daemon, performance improvements, and more.

But in this MicroDNF package management transition, the developers acknowledge that some behavior / command-line interfaces won't be kept 100% the same and the alterations will also result in internal database / structural changes. One notable change is that the removal of a package will no longer trigger the removal of unused dependencies.

This MicroDNF work is being planned for the Fedora 38 release due out in about one year from now, not the Fedora 37 cycle that will debut this autumn.

More details on these MicroDNF plans for Fedora 38 via the Fedora Wiki.