Fedora CoreOS 45 Enables systemd-oomd and zRAM Swap by Default

Fedora CoreOS, the container-optimized operating system, will enable new memory management mechanisms by default in release 45. The Fedora Engineering and Steering Committee (FESCo) has approved enabling the systemd-oomd daemon and zRAM-based swap by default. The decision was made unanimously.

Previously, CoreOS avoided these features due to Kubernetes not being compatible with swap on nodes, but this limitation has recently been lifted. CoreOS now catches up with other Fedora variants that already use these defaults. Details of the change are published on the project's wiki page.

systemd-oomd is a component that monitors memory usage and kills processes causing memory pressure to prevent system hangs. zRAM creates a compressed block in RAM used as a swap partition, speeding up data exchange compared to disk-based swapping.

Additionally, FESCo approved switching Fedora Atomic to the Anaconda WebUI installer, replacing the legacy GTK-based Anaconda interface. Web-based remote installation support for atomic desktops was also approved. These changes will affect future versions of the distribution.