Changelog

Happy New Year!

Along with the new year comes a new version of Nobara! We’re happy to announce that Nobara 41 has officially been released.

We have yet another fun list of changes that hopefully benefit everyone:

Base:

• Nobara base updated to Fedora 41

Calamares installer:

• Rebased on top of KaOS linux fork for more feature options as well as on-screen keyboard functionality.
• Toggle added for on-screen keyboard
• On-screen keyboard now comes up within the installer instead of taking up half the screen
• Network check has been removed. Nobara can be installed completely offline from any ISO downloaded.

Mesa:

• We have noticed with a few benchmark videos throughout the past year that sometimes games may not run with Vulkan at all (very rare). This can happen as a regression because we shipped Vulkan built from git. Moving forward we have changed that. Nobara will now ship with the latest stable vulkan drivers that come with the latest mesa release, HOWEVER, we’ve added mesa-vulkan-drivers-git to the driver manager so users can easily swap back and forth between the two whenever they please. This should allow benchmarkers on a fresh install to have more stable results while still allowing users the choice of using drivers regularly built from git.
• We’ve separated libgallium into it’s own package which ships as two versions — mesa-libgallium and mesa-libgallium-freeworld. The reason for this is to fix a bug where if mesa is compiled without x264/x265 codecs and then you add the mesa-va/vdpau-freeworld packages that provide them, there would be tearing in the recording. With mesa-libgallium-freeworld compiled with the codecs and provided alongside the other freeworld packages the bug is fixed.

Nvidia:

• We now ship the open nvidia driver by default. If your GPU is older than turing but still supported by the closed driver you will need to make manual changes:
  https://wiki.nobaraproject.org/en/graphics/nvidia/supported-gpus

Nobara-Updater:

• Detects if htpc packages are installed and disables grub boot timeout to provide smoother console-like htpc/handheld experience
• Corrects AMD ROCm packages to Fedora’s versions if installed. We now use upstream Fedora’s ROCm packages as they now work with Blender and Davinci Resolve
• We have changed the update checker systemtray icon from the ugly yellow to a simple black or white icon that users can change light/dark via its right-click options menu.
• We have implemented click-to-install on RPMs. If you download an RPM that is compatible with Fedora, double clicking it will now prompt the user with a very simple GUI for installing or updating the package.
  

Nobara-tweak-tool:

• This is a new tool that has been introduced which controls a few things:

1. It is able to control auto-mounting of partitions with a simple click of a check box. By default Nobara will attempt to auto-mount any partition for common partition types (ext2/3/4, btrfs, xfs, ntfs). We originally introduced the automounting in N40 without a tool to control it, only a config file. Several months later we held an ongoing poll to see whether it was useful or detremental to users, at first most power users disliked it, so we disabled it for mounting by default, however as time went on more and more users voted for it on the pole. Ultimately after discussion with the community it was decided that it’s good to have the automount, but to have an easier way to manage it, so we introduced the tweak tool a a way to handle it via simple check box. Not only that but over the months of use the automount script went through several renditions thanks to great community members providing helpful bug reports and submitting fixes as well.
   
   https://wiki.nobaraproject.org/general-usage/troubleshooting/mounting-automounting-disk-drives
   
2. It is able to control auto-updating on htpc/handheld systems. In late F40 we introduced an auto-update screen that runs auto-updating in the background. This is again for a more seamless console-like experience on the htpc/handheld editions. If you run one of those editions you can enable or disable auto-updates using the nobara tweak tool via check box.
3. It is able to control input controller packages on htpc/handheld systems. By default Nobara ships with InputPlumber enabled and used by default. This is the standard tool we use for handling handheld controls, but we enable it by default for normal systems as well because it has the capability to allow the users to fake a controller as a different type, which is very useful when you need to remap certain things or have offbrand 3rd party controllers. In the event that you decide you’d rather use something like HHD, nobara tweak tool has a box you can uncheck that will disable auto-reinstallation of inputplumber.
4. It is able to control auto-updating of DeckyLoader. In the htpc/handheld editions of Nobara we have installed DeckyLoader by default as well as several useful plugins. DeckyLoader is able to update itself internally, but in the case that you do not want DeckyLoader installed, you can use the nobara tweak tool to stop it from being reinstalled. We plan to continue to expand the tweak tool as needed for user purposes and hope it will make things easier for new users moving forward.

Nobara-driver-manager:

• As mentioned, AMD ROCm packages (rocm-meta) have been changed from upstream official AMD to Fedora-shipped versions.
• mesa-vulkan-drivers-git option now available as a choice instead of force-installed.
• Nvidia users will now have a ‘cuda-devel’ option for additional CUDA package support. This will install all the additional CUDA support packages.
• asusctl now provided to ASUS users
• xone driver is currently limited only to the xbox one wireless dongle as it currently has a bug upstream with the gip module that causes a system freeze: https://github.com/dlundqvist/xone/issues/14
• xpadneo driver has now been integrated as a kernel patch and is limited to xbox elite and xbox elite v2 over bluetooth. All other xbox controllers go through the standard xpad driver.
• broadcom wireless driver option added to driver manager

Nobara-welcome:

• Now offers discord-canary from the flatpak beta channel as the default offered discord option. This is because the canary version from the beta supports screen sharing under wayland.
• Now offers blender from fedora repository because it now allows recording h264 via ffmpeg.
• The Davinci Resolve wizard has been completely reworked and should make it much easier for users to both install and/or update Davinci Resolve while automatically performing the required changes to run it.

Nobara-package-manager (yumex-ng):

• Nobara package manager is now able to easily search/install/remove/manage flatpaks without issue and has been able to do so since N40. This is meant as a desktop-agnostic replacement instead of relying on gnome-software or kde’s plasma-discover

Flatpak:

• Flatpak-beta channel now added to the list of default installed and enabled flatpak repositories
• On the very first user login a simple flatpak search will run in the background, this is done to populate metadata for Nobara package manager.

HTPC/Handheld:

• Now installs with auto-updating enabled and provides a simple loading bar screen when auto-updating is being performed
• Now installs with no boot grub menu timeout, you won’t see grub. Again this is done for a smoother console-like experience
• Now ships with InputPlumber installed and enabled by default. The default settings should be fine for most users however if you prefer to have more control we recommend installing opengamepadui and using the controller configuration frontend within it for use with InputPlumber.
• Now ships with DeckyLoader installed by default along with the following plugins: Web Browser, Decky Terminal, Wine Cellar, MangoPeel, ProtonDB Badges, QuickLaunch, SimpleDeckyTDP
• “Host Remote Play” has been removed as it never worked properly. Instead we’ve added Sunshine+Moonlight: https://app.lizardbyte.dev/Sunshine/?lng=en-US

Theming:

• In the KDE-Nobara theme we’ve retired the win7showdesktop plasmoid and returned to the KDE shipped version, however we’ve swapped the icon with a simple white outlined circle or white filled in circle depending on which mode is toggled. It of course also uses black for light modes. Part of the reason we did this is because with the update to KDE6 the win7showdesktop bar just looks awful due to changes in default bar margins and the floating mode. There’s no need for it anymore.

• New N41 Wallpapers have been added:

Kernel:

• As noted we’ve added the xpadneo bluetooth driver as a kernel patch, however it is restricted only to xbox elite and xbox elite v2 devices because those devices do not work with the standard xpad driver. All other xbox controllers still use the standard xpad driver when connected via bluetooth.
• The lenovo legion patches have been temporarily disabled as we’ve found they caused ASUS laptops to lose fan curve controls. If needed it is available via DKMS module: https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/mrduarte/LenovoLegionLinux. We may add it to the driver manager for easier use in the future.

Wiki:

We’ve dumped our old wiki and troubleshooting feed in favor of a new wiki which is hopefully easier to navigate, search, and use overall: https://wiki.nobaraproject.org. All information from the previous sources has been migrated over to the new wiki and updated to reflect the current release information.

Upgrade instructions can be found in our wiki:

https://wiki.nobaraproject.org/general-usage/troubleshooting/upgrade-nobara

Better late than never eh?

After a long period which consisted of several delays due to various bugs/issues/waiting on different things (KDE 6.1.1, Mesa, GNOME 46, Nvidia 555 drivers, complete remake of our updater, just to name a few), Nobara 40 is finally released. The previous transition from 38->39 was a bit .. bumpy to say the least so we wanted to make sure 40 was as good and smooth as we could possibly make it, which of course took way more time than usual.

Below is a changelog of most of the major changes (I’m sure there are probably minor things I missed, apologies.)

System Updates, Flatpaks, and Snaps:

• The ‘Update System’ App has been completely remade into a python gui application. No more monolithic bash script.
• The ‘Update System’ App has been better integrated with Nobara Package manager (yumex-ng) and now provides a service which runs as a system tray app for receiving update notifications.
• The system tray app is fully configurable within Nobara Package Manager’s settings and includes options to hide the icon completely or change it’s update check interval timer.
• Nobara Package Manager can now fully search, install, and remove flatpaks in a user-friendly way on the GUI, obsoleting the need for kde-discover or gnome-software.
• The PackageKit plugin for KDE discover has been removed so that it does not manage system packages.
• KDE Discover does not come with the Nobara Official release, however it is still provided on the KDE release. If users intend to used KDE Discover we want them to use it for flatpaks only.
• The same goes for gnome software. It is still provided although it is not needed, and our intention is for users to use it for flatpaks only. Again, we want system packages to be solely managed by Nobara’s Update System app and the Nobara Package Manager. We have spent a lot of time and effort building quirk fixes and checks into our package manager that others normally would not be able to help with.
• Snaps should be better supported now. Issues have been fixed which prevented lxd and various other apps from operating in the past.
• We have now introduced Nobara Driver Manager thanks to the help from Cosmo and our friends over at PikaOS. It is limited in what it currently provides but we plan to grow it in the future for hardware that needs 3rd party driver support.

Theming:

• The Nobara KDE theme has been reworked, including fixes to allow it to no longer conflict with other themes or force settings if it is installed but not used.
• KDE-Rounded-Corners has been removed as a default from the Nobara KDE theme. We still provide it as a package but it is no longer a shipped default. Unfortunately we kept hitting repeated problems with it that affected the user experience too heavily. We may attempt to use it again in the future if those issues get resolved.
• The broken icons related to Papirus-Dark used in the Nobara KDE theme have been resolved. We now use the standard Papirus packages shipped by Fedora, and additionally provide papirus-folders for folder color management, as well as an auto color setting script that applies when the Nobara theme is used.
• A new set of standard wallpapers has been provided for Nobara 40, as well as a new extra “weebara” AI generated wallpapers to go alongside the previous penguin robots ones. The extra wallpapers are in kde-nobara-extras-wallpapers
• We now ship starship as part of Nobara’s default KDE theme and an additional package. Starship is a rust based command shell prompt interpreter. It provides a very clean and nice looking, theme-able shell prompt without having to actually change your shell to something different that may not be as reliable as basic bash. For example I can use bash alongside starship instead of changing my shell to fish or zsh solely for the sake of aesthetics.

Desktop Environments:

• KDE is updated to 6.1.1, following Fedora’s packaging.
• GNOME is updated to 46, following Fedora’s packaging.
• XWaylandVideoBridge has been removed from the default GNOME ISOs due to a bug causing a white border along the side of the screen:

Graphics:

• Current shipped Mesa is 24.1.3, with mesa-vulkan-drivers being updated regularly from git, current git commit is 4b36668
• Nvidia drivers shipped are proprietary 555.58.02

Gamescope/Gamescope Session/Steam HTPC/Deck/Handheld:

• Gamescope is built regularly from git with regular patching/backporting/fixups. Current git commit is 7b592ac. We follow bazzite with regards to patching/backporting/fixups.
• Gamescope Session follows bazzite as well
• jupiter-hw-support has now been broken into 3 different parts: jupiter-hw-support, gamescope-htpc-common, gamescope-handheld-common. This allows users to install gamescope-htpc-common without the need for the steam-deck specific jupiter-hw-support parts. This also allows clean installation and removal of jupiter-hw-support and jupiter-fan-control without breaking gamescope-session. gamescope-handheld-common is strictly just the sdcard/usb/external drive auto-mounting. We put this specifically into its own package so that it does not interfere with users running gamescope-session on an HTPC where automounting may cause interference with internal drives or automounting of external devices may not be necessary.
• The Update System App has quirk checks for Steam Deck, Steam Deck OLED, Legion Go, and ROG Ally and will install specific packages accordingly for them if detected.
• Steam Deck firmware packages have been updated which fixes a long standing audio crackling bug
• With the update to KDE 6.1.1, we gain libeis support in KDE, which means we no longer have to load libextest in steam via LD_PRELOAD. This allows the steam deck’s buttons/controls to work natively on the wayland desktop in KDE without a preloaded library subsequently attempting to be loaded into everything (woo!). xdg-desktop-portal-kde has been patched to auto-allow this connection from steam. Once tokens are corrected the patch will no longer be necessary.
• HHD (Handheld Daemon) has been updted to allow for better support of controls on other handhelds. Additionally HHD-UI is provided.

Gaming:

• Lutris is built regularly from git. Current git commit is 3d143a7
• umu-launcher is now packaged and provided in our repositories.
• mangohud is updated to version 0.7.2
• goverlay is updated to version 1.1.1
• protonup-qt has been replaced with protonplus
• steam is patched with the following tweaks to steam_dev.cfg:
  @nClientDownloadEnableHTTP2PlatformLinux 0
  @fDownloadRateImprovementToAddAnotherConnection 1.0

Content Creation:

• OBS Studio is updated to version 30.2.0
• OBS Studio is patched and provided with ‘Media Playlist Source’ plugin — an open source and distributable alternative to the VLC media playlist plugin
• OBS Studio background removal plugin is now shipped
• OBS Studio vk capture plugin now supports capturing HDR (you will still need to configure OBS itself correctly)
• Davinci Resolve Runtime is still provided via our welcome app and still works as of Resolve 18.6

Hardware Support:

• Shipped kernel is 6.8.12. We are testing 6.10. 6.9 was a mess with various issues so we skipped it.
• Kernel is patched with linux-surface patches for surface support
• Kernel is patched with LenovoLegionLinux patches for Legion devices
• Kernel is patched with t2linux patches for t2 macbook support
• Kernel continues to have all the usual patches we carry — tkg patches, zen patches, hdr patches and so on. These are detailed on our website.

Misc changes:

• We have returned to using Firefox as the default shipped browser. The kiosk mode issue has been resolved so it works now with EmuDeck.
• We have returned to shipping LibreOffice instead of OnlyOffice to avoid needing another external repository.
• kde-cli-tools has been patched to allow a few applications to work correctly when external links are used such as for authentication (slack, thunderbird, zoom). This has been broken since KDE 5 due to a bug:
  https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kde-cli-tools/-/merge_requests/99

Near the end of 39 we decided to put ALL of our package modifications and custom package sources on github to make them easier to access and accept contributions/changes:

https://github.com/orgs/Nobara-Project/repositories

• nobara-images — contains kickstarts for our ISOs
• rpm-sources — contains all of our modified package srpms and mock configs, as well as instructions
• nobara-core-packages — contains our core applications and theming.Things such as the welcome app, the updater, the driver manager, the kde theme, and so on
• steamdeck-edition-patches — contains the files used to build the gamescope-session used in steam ISOs
• nobara-repo-tools — scripts used on our dev server to sync our live repos to the snapshots we provide to users.

As mentioned there’s probably some more stuff I missed but hopefully that’s most of it.

Changelog:
– Downgraded Nvidia drivers to production 535.146.02. Unfortunately 545 drivers were not stable for all users and had various issues.
– Added ‘nobara-nvidia-new-feature’ repo, disabled by default. For users who want to try the 545 drivers you can do it this way:

sudo dnf update nobara-repos --refresh
sudo dnf4 config-manager --set-enabled nobara-nvidia-new-feature-39
sudo dnf update --refresh
akmods

then run the Update System app and reboot. It should sync you to the 545.29.06 drivers.

If you want to downgrade back to 535.146.02, disable the repo:

sudo dnf4 config-manager --set-disabled nobara-nvidia-new-feature-39
sudo dnf remove kmod-nvidia*
sudo dnf distro-sync --refresh
akmods

then run the Update System app again and reboot.

– Added ‘update-grub’ alias for grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg. This should help users coming from ubuntu based distros
– Added gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free-extras package to the ISOs and to the media codec package fixups. This allows av1 playback in mpv
– Updated explicit sync patches for xorg-x11-server-Xwayland — this fixes the freezing happening in a VM with llvmpipe and chrome or zenity, and fixes xwaylandvideobridge freezing with llvmpipe as well.
– Updated xwaylandvideobridge so it runs on llvmpipe again (we previously patched it not to due to the Xwayland explicit sync patch bug)
– Updated to kernel 6.6.8. KERNEL CHANGES:
added all TKG patches except the iommu grouping patch (this patch is no longer needed and causes more problems than it fixes):

# tkg
ApplyOptionalPatch tkg-more-uarches-for-kernel-5.17p.patch
ApplyOptionalPatch tkg-0001-add-sysctl-to-disallow-unprivileged-CLONE_NEWUSER-by.patch
ApplyOptionalPatch tkg-0002-clear-patches.patch
ApplyOptionalPatch tkg-0003-glitched-base.patch
ApplyOptionalPatch tkg-0003-glitched-eevdf-additions.patch
ApplyOptionalPatch tkg-0007-v6.6-fsync1_via_futex_waitv.patch
ApplyOptionalPatch tkg-0007-v6.6-winesync.patch
ApplyOptionalPatch tkg-0008-6.6-bcachefs.patch
ApplyOptionalPatch tkg-0012-misc-additions.patch
ApplyOptionalPatch tkg-0013-optimize_harder_O3.patch
ApplyOptionalPatch tkg-BBRv2.patch
ApplyOptionalPatch tkg-0014-OpenRGB.patch
ApplyOptionalPatch tkg-cjktty-6.6.patch
ApplyOptionalPatch tkg-cjktty-add-cjk32x32-font-data.patch
ApplyOptionalPatch tkg-0099-fix-confdata.patch

disabled Red Hat hardening options to improve performance:

# See https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/redhat-rpm-config//blob/rawhide/f/buildflags.md
%undefine _package_note_file
%undefine _auto_set_build_flags
%undefine _include_frame_pointers
%define _build_id_flags -Wl,--build-id=none
%undefine _annotated_build
%undefine _fortify_level
%undefine _hardened_build
%global _lto_cflags %{nil}
%global _configure_gnuconfig_hack 0
%global _configure_libtool_hardening_hack 0
# See https://github.com/rpm-software-management/rpm/blob/master/macros.in#L471
%define _build_id_links none

Nobara 39 Officially Released, Happy Holidays!

Changelog:
Gamscope-session rebase + improvements:
– moved DM service restarts/reloads to /usr/bin/gamescope-session-plus so that the session can cleanly close before restarting. this is required for gdm
– added polkit policy for /usr/bin/gamescope-session-plus to reexec itself as root in order to restart DMs
– added full GDM integration to os-session-select
– added full SDDM integration to os-session-select
– os-session-select relocated to /usr/libexec/
– steamos-session-select modified to run os-session-select AND shutdown steam afterwards instead of OR. This is part of making the sessions close cleanly
– Added desktop Return shortcut which points to steamos-desktop-return script
– Added steamos-desktop-return script which cleanly shuts down steam, calls os-session-select to set the default session, then cleanly shuts down the gnome or kde session
– Removed symlink of gamescope-session to gamescope-session-steam — this symlink causes duplicate sessions to be listed in DM session lists.

Steam package improvements:
– added libextest library override for using steamdeck and/or steam controller with wayland (needed for trackpad to work)
– the following steam download improvement is now added on installation: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/16e1l4h/slow_steam_downloads_try_this/

Nobara Welcome app changes:
– Under ‘Optional Steps’ We’ve added an ‘Install Steam Game Fixups’ entry which adds overrides for allowing broken Source games to work on LLVM 16+ (https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/165lk3r/llvm_16_breaks_valve_games_do_not_update/). This also adds a workaround which uses zink for payday 2 native, although these days most people just use proton for payday 2.
– Under ‘Optional Steps’ We’ve added an ‘Install Davinci Resolve Fixups’ entry which adds a small set of libraries ported from Fedora 37 as a runtime specifically to allow Davinci Resolve to work.
– The ability to install AMD Pro/Proprietary drivers have been completely removed. If we’re being blunt here it just isn’t needed anymore. Davinci Resolve doesn’t need it. AMDVLK also is not needed, and it just confuses people. Originally, it was only in place for AMF encoder, however that is no longer needed either. The FFmpeg vaapi plugin has matured greatly, and is now able to handle h264, h265, and AV1 encoding without any major issues as previously faced in the past (such as encoder overload or bad quality). Furthermore, the creator of the AMD AMF patch has explicitly stated they will no longer be maintaining the patch, and the same creator is actively working on the FFmpeg vaapi implementations instead. That same creator is ALSO actively committing to the encoder portions of the mesa driver stack. (Huge thank you to nowrep — you’ve done a ton of excellent work here!). To further add to that, using the firmware from the pro drivers often causes users more problems in the long run, especially when new hardware and kernels come out.
– We’ve removed the codec installer and instead integrated it as part of the ‘Update System’ app. The goal here was to streamline package updates into one place and give less popups for the user on clean installation. Now, when a user performs a new installation they will receive (1) one popup informing them they should update the system. Upon updating they will then be asked a few questions, including updating media codec packages, updating flatpaks, and updating snaps. There is still a popup for nvidia drivers if the user decides to change GPUs and/or did not install using an Nvidia ISO and has an Nvidia GPU.
– The layout picker has been removed as it was based around GNOME, and we are no longer focusing on GNOME as our primary desktop.

OBS Studio changes:
– The AMD AMF encoder patch has also been removed from OBS. As mentioned above the ffmpeg encoder in OBS has been updated greatly over the span of the last year and now performs on par and/or better than the AMF encoder, and is capable of H264, H265, and AV1 encoding, as well as 4k encoding.
– The gstreamer VAAPI encoder has been removed from OBS. Since the ffmpeg encoder is now working properly there is no need for a second encoder that does the exact same thing. We want to make things simple for people, not confuse them.

‘Update System’ app changes:
– The ‘Update System’ app has undergone a big rework. It now provides a cleaner viewable GUI while running update scripts, and creates a log at ~/.nobara-sync for the user when it finishes.

Nvidia Driver changes:
– Normally we follow Nvidia’s Production branch for driver releases, however we’ve added Nvidia’s 545.29.06 drivers from the New Feature branch for compatibility on wayland
– We’ve also added the required explicit sync patches for xwayland in order for this to work:
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland/wayland-protocols/-/merge_requests/90
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver/-/merge_requests/967
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/proto/xorgproto/-/merge_requests/59
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/merge_requests/3300
As of now the full driver set has been tested and working on wayland in both KDE and GNOME on at least a 2060 super, gt 1030, and gtx 960m with no major problems.
– There was a problem with a typo in the previous N38 ISOs which was setting nvidia-drm.modeset=0 instead of =1, that has been corrected in the 39 ISOs and is now working correctly.

Nobara Official has now be rebased on KDE instead of GNOME for several reasons:
———–
(1) VRR (Variable Refresh Rate/Freesync) functionality. Gnome currently still requires patched-in VRR functionality. The pending MR has been waiting 3 years, and even doing so still breaks the system tray.

See:
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/merge_requests/1154
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/issues/6955

(2) DRM Leasing functionality. This is a requirement for VR (Virtual Reality) in wayland. This is another pain point that has had constant back and forth on the gnome side, but is implemented already in KDE.

See:
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/merge_requests/3205
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/1743

(3) Fractional scaling functionality. This is what allows the desktop to be rescaled in fractions rather than whole percentages. This is still marked as experimental in GNOME even though it was merged in 2019, 5 years ago, while being implemented already in KDE.

(4) Drag and drop from Archive manager functionality. As stupid as this is, GNOME file-roller STILL cannot drag+drop files into nautilus folders, while KDE’s Ark can. Again, another bug opened 5 years ago.

See:
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/file-roller/-/issues/4

(5) Better integration with Steam. By default the Steam Deck uses KDE as the desktop mode. This inherently means it receives updates from Valve in terms of desktop related fixes, and they are actively working with KDE developers to bring updates to KDE (https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/t2184m/is_there_any_cooperation_with_valve_and_kde/)

If you wish to switch from the previous GNOME based Nobara Official to KDE based, you can do so in N38 before upgrading. We have backported the KDE theming to N38 to facilitate this:

How do I switch from GNOME to KDE

Due to the shift from GNOME to KDE for Nobara official, the following Nobara-modified gnome shell extension packages have been either removed and/or reverted to their fedora-shipped versions:

gnome-shell-extension-dash-to-panel
gnome-shell-extension-desktop-icons
gnome-shell-extension-gamemode
gnome-shell-extension-custom-accent-colors
gnome-shell-extension-arc-menu
gnome-shell-extension-pop-shell
gnome-shell-extension-quick-settings-tweaker
gnome-shell-extension-blur-my-shell
gnome-shell-extension-gesture-improvements
gnome-shell-extension-wireless-hid
gnome-shell-extension-clipboard-history

Moving forward if you wish to use these on GNOME you will need to reinstall them yourself via the standard GNOME extension addon method:
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/gnome-shell-extensions/

What we are keeping in GNOME:

-Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) patches
-adw-gtk3
-gtk4 font metrics override (https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/3787)
-Nautilus patched with a toggle to turn breadcrumb navigator into typable search bar
-Nautilus patched to restore old typeahead functionality
-Nautilus patched to add ‘open as admin’ option to nautilus right click menu
———–

Additional misc changes:

-plasma-lookandfeel-nobara package has been added, includes wallpapers, sddm wallpaper, lockscreen, splash loading screen, extra gtk theming, app color palette, papirus icons, tinted panel with windows-like hide desktop bar on right side, rounded window corners (added via plasma-rounded-corners package: https://github.com/matinlotfali/KDE-Rounded-Corners).

-Additional bonus ‘mecha penguins’ wallpapers added via plasma-lookandfeel-nobara-extras-wallpapers package. This was an extra set of fun wallpapers we messed around with when working with AI generated wallpapers.

-plasma-lookandfeel-nobara-steamdeck-additions package has been added. Allows using nobara as ‘nested desktop’ inside steam gamescope-session, add ‘Add to Steam’ to right click menu.

-kernel patches have been added to allow full steamdeck OLED support. Please keep in mind this is still new and there are still bugs. Currently we know the frame limiter is not working properly on SD OLED in gamescope-session.

-kernel has been patched to set amdgpu.ppfeaturemask=0xffffffff as the default for users who want more control via applications such as corectrl or ryzenadj without having to mess with grub.

-we have upgraded our package manager to DNF5. There are still a handfull of subcommands that still do not work for DNF5, but most basic functionality is there, and it is much faster. If there is a command that does not work properly (such as ‘list installed’) you can use dnf4 as a fallback:

Ex:
dnf list installed
fallback:
dnf4 list installed

-we have added a second set of mirrors to our snapshot repositories for F39 onward which are hosted on Digital Ocean and use the Digital Ocean CDN. This is in addition to our already existing CloudFlare hosting and CDN. Between this and the upgrade to DNF5, updates should work significantly faster.

-we have switched from firefox to chromium for the default browser for the time being. this may change in the future, however currently the reasoning for this is because firefox’s ‘kiosk’ mode is broken — which is needed for EmuDeck compatiblity. Specifically in order to smoothly embed web pages as a full screen application. This is for things such as streaming services like netflix or jellyfin or crunchyroll, where EmuDeck creates a full screen kiosk version of the webpage when running in a gamescope session.

-OBS_VKCAPTURE=1 is enabled globally by default in /etc/profile. This prevents users from manually having to set it. Just open obs-browser, add game capture, and boom, done.

-we have patched glfw for native wayland support — this allows minecraft to run in native wayland rather than xwayland (and fixes the input lag that occurs on xwayland). In launchers such as prismlauncher just enable ‘Use system installation of GLFW’. You do not need to provide a path.

-prismlauncher for minecraft is now included in the nobara repos

New ISO for Steam Deck Edition released:
– Fixed wake from suspend being broken on Steam Deck after kernel 6.4+
– Updated HDR patches
– Added all necessary ROG Ally kernel patches, should work well ootb now
– Added Screen orientation fixups for Lenovo Legion Go
– Added udev rule to treat Lenovo Legion Go controls as xbox controller (works for now until we have real patches)

Lenovo Legion Go known issues:
– Power button short press does not put it in suspend, and 3 second hold does not bring up power menu, however manually navigating the power menu and putting it in suspend does suspend properly, and pressing the power button does wake from suspend as expected.
– “Guide” button or Legion button, whatever you want to call it, does not register — and since there’s currently no way to remap Steam’s ‘guide’ button — we have no way to bring up the in-game overlays (ie quick settings or to access steam while in-game)
– Color slider in gamescope session does not appear to do anything
– Currently no TDP controls have been added

– All standard ISOs other than Steam Deck edition updated with recent repository fixes. This means no more excludes are being used and no more uninstallable packages listed as “upgrades” in various package/software managers. GNOME Software and KDE Discover should be usable now. There may be a few packages that get downgraded after a fresh installation (such as llvm), but that will be fixed in another update.

Why wasn’t the Steam Deck ISO updated?
> I’m currently working on updating the kernel with new HDR patches, as well as updating gamescope. I wanted those to be done before refreshing the Steam Deck ISOs.

What about the repositories from previous installations?
> Nothing needs to be done on previous installations other than updating as you normally would (using ‘Update System’. The repository fixes have already been applied via package updates. Current Nobara users have already received the updates, the ISO refresh was simply to reflect the updates within the latest ISOs.

*NOTE: In Nobara Package Manager under ‘Updates’, if there is a package listed that you cannot install, please let me know. This means the package is coming from fedora or fedora-updates when it should not be.

– Fixed issue with Nvidia ISOs where Calamares GRUB options would not get written to /etc/default/grub during installation.

– Fixed GPG key error noted here on ISOs:

GPG key problems when updating

– Fixed systemd-userdbd.service failure:
https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/27028
– Mesa updated to 23.1.4
– Nvidia drivers updated to 535.86.05

Changelog:
– Fixed brightness control not working on Steam Deck Edition
– Fixed SD cards not mounting on injection in GPD devices and similar
– Bonus: USB storage devices formatted as ext4 will automount the same way as sd cards now.
– Fixed power button not working properly on Steam Deck Edition
NOTE: On standard Steam Deck the power button’s press and hold registers properly (event 1 on press, event 0 on release), so with Steam Deck short press is sleep, long press is power menu. On some other devices the button is not designed as a press and hold, (such as the GPD Win 4). Instead that device registers both event 1 and 0 on release. For these types of buttons the power script has been modified to just go into sleep mode upon release because there is no registration of the press action.

Changelog:
– Added new ISOs with embedded Nvidia drivers + out of the box driver installation. These ISO should allow Nvidia users to have an easier installation experience, as nvidia drivers are working on both the ISOs as well as fresh installation post-reboot. Nvidia users no longer need to worry about using nomodeset to boot.
– Reverted the nvidia driver wizard to use akmods instead of dkms, as dkms was having repeated leftover header issues after updates which would break for some people.
– Added a line to the nvidia installer to make sure kmods service was enabled at boot
– Updated GPG key for nobara-appstream. Added line in system updater to refresh keys before performing any updates
– Updated mutter to 44.3
– Added fix for mutter not giving mouse proper window focus (https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/2690)
– Added fix for mutter framebuffer test failures (https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/2848)
– Fixed bug in calamares installer where it would create useless initramfs-freebsd.img file in /boot