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-The Fedora project recently pushed out Fedora 25, 
+The Fedora project recently pushed out Fedora 25, which is the first of the major Linux distros to use the new Wayland graphics stack by default.
+
+What's perhaps most remarkable about Fedora 25 is that the move to Wayland, which is one of the biggest low level changes for Linux distros in recent memory, is almost totally transparent. Provided your graphics card is supported you're unlikely to even notice that you're using Wayland.
+
+That's partly a testament to the Wayland project's efforts, but also, with Fedora in particular, a result of the Fedora developers decision to wait before making the switch. It's been disappointing to see Wayland postponed time after time for the past few Fedora releases, but the waiting has paid off in stability and seamlessness.
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+Suffice the say that the move to Wayland has been, for me anyway, almost totally unnoticeable in any negative sense. I haven't hit any major bugs or had any apps that won't work (some of this is no doubt due to XWayland, which is the fallback X server that runs in situations where Wayland isn't supported). I have, on the other hand, noticed that the default GNOME desktop in Fedora is considerably snappier, particularly animations.
+
+That doesn't mean everything is perfect under Wayland. I like to use Redshift or f.lux to tint-shift my screen at night as I find that much easier on my eyes. Neither application seems to work under Wayland thanks to changes in the security model of Wayland versus X. Fortunately it looks like Redshift-like features may be coming straight to GNOME itself. In the mean time if you want to get tint-shifting working in Fedora 25 with GNOME there's a COPR repo available that adds some new color profiles to GNOME and a dawn/dusk timer to switch between then. There's some good instructions <a href="http://www.thelinuxrain.com/articles/redshift-functionality-on-fedora-25-gnome-wayland-yes-its-possible">here</a>.
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+Also be aware that if you used GNOME Tweak Tool to get desktop icons in GNOME, that won't work anymore (it was always an unofficial hack so it's not terribly surprising that it stopped working).
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+Other than the tint-shift problem my transition to Wayland has been smooth and largely uneventful. Some people with other graphic card/driver combos have reported problems with video playback but I haven't run into that in my testing (mplayer works fine on my Lenovo and a Dell XPS 13 I happened to be testing with Fedora 25 came out).
+
+While the move to Wayland is definitely the big news in Fedora 25, it's not the only thing that's new by any means. There's a major GNOME update, a brand new kernel and the some changes in Fedora Next lineup.
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+The most visually noticeable thing in this release is the update to GNOME 3.22, which has some nice new features in the Files app (the application formerly known as Nautilus). There's a new batch renaming tool that makes it easy to add a prefix, suffix or do date-based renaming of files. Files also now includes a built in file compression tool so when you double-click a .zip file it just extracts the contents to a folder with opening File Roller. 
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+This release also sees the GNOME extensions API being declared "stable". That's mostly good news for extension developers, but it also means that updates will no longer run the risk of breaking all the extensions you rely on to customize GNOME Shell.
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+The GNOME Software app continues to improve as well. GNOME 3.22 seems Software adding better support for Flatpak apps. If you haven't had a chance to dive into the world of Flatpak apps yet, Fedora 25 makes a good platform to experiment on. Not only can you install Flatpaks using the GNOME Software app, with Fedora 25 you can even search or browse specifically for Flatpaks via Software. You'll now be able to see the source information and sandboxing status of Flatpaks before you install them. 
+
+Flatpaks are still a bit rough around the edges and the very tight sandboxing model that governs them can mean that Flatpak versions of your favorite apps are missing a few features, but they're getting closer to usable status.
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+The other big news in GNOME Software actually arrived in the previous Fedora release -- system upgrades from the Software apps. I was able to upgrade from Fedora 24 to 25 by clicking a button in Software and everything just worked. Long time Fedora users will know that this is nothing short of a miracle. I should note that I run a mostly stock install of Fedora with few GNOME extensions or other customizations. Most of the system update problems I've seen people mentioning on forums and bug reports around the web come from library conflicts so the more stuff you have installed the greater the chances GNOME Software won't work. Still, it's worth a try. From what I've seen it's one weak point is a lack of debugging messages when thing do go wrong. If it doesn't work I'd jump over to the terminal and try using DNF to see what's causing the problem before you resort to the old Fedora nuke and pave upgrade path.
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+Along with Wayland and a new version of GNOME, Fedora 25 is notable for the update to Linux kernel 4.8.6, which should go a long way to fixing many of the [Skylake bugs](https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1353103) that cropped up with Fedora 24. Kernel 4.8 was a major update with improvements for GPUs, networking, ARM support and file systems updates among other things. It was disappointing that Fedora 24 missed out by a couple of weeks, but at least it's here now.
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+It's also worth noting that Fedora 25 ships with MP3 support straight out of the box. Fedora probably won't be the last distro to do this since the United States patents covering the MP3 codecs expired earlier this year. Aside from possibly making you feel old -- yes, you've (possibly) been using Linux for longer than the lifespan of a U.S. patent -- that means you can play MP3s without a trip to the Fedora repos. There's no encoding support yet though, for that you'll need to install some software.
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+The final change worth mentioning in Fedora 25 is that the Fedora Next line up has been revised. Past release had three editions Fedora WorkStation, Fedora Server and Fedora Cloud. Fedora Cloud has evaporated and been replaced by Fedora Atomic. As the name suggests Fedora Atomic is built around Fedora's Atomic project and is tailored for those running container-based server systems. There's too much new to cover here, but suffice to say that there may be some very cool stuff headed toward CentOS in the near future, including a really nice GUI to manage SELinux.
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+Fedora 25 WorkStation is hands down the best desktop distro I tested in 2016. With Wayland, GNOME 3.22 and the excellent DNF package manager I'm hard-pressed to think of anything missing. The only downside is that Fedora lacks an LTS release, but now that updating is less harrowing that's less of a concern. I still run Arch on my main machine, but for people I'd recommend Fedora. And note that if you just can't stand GNOME, there's a MATE-based Fedora spin that's worth checking out. 
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