Fedora Core Release 3 Released

anyweb writes "Fedora Core Release 3 is out now, Heidelberg, 2.6.9-1.667 kernel, Firefox included ! Gnome 2.8 and more. Here are some screenshots" New release includes Gnome 2.8, KDE 3.3, Kernel 2.6.9, Firefox PR1, Thunderbird 0.8, Ximian Evolution 2.0 and more. Here is a Mirror List and Bit Torrent

fiiiinally

[The Other White Boy (626206)]

now everybody kindly hop on the torrent so i can have this done by the time i leave work in six hours. =)

NFS

[soloport (312487)]

Three easy steps to installation bliss: 1) Put each ISO image into an NFS share on a remote computer. (You don't even have to unpack the images -- as some HOWTOs suggest.)

2) Burn only the first ISO to CD-R. Upon boot (from CD-ROM), when the "Linux:" prompt appears, enter the following:
linux askmethod

3) Profit! Uh... No. Actually, after a: selecting NFS from the list and b: requesting (DHCP-enabled networks) or specifying an IP address, c: enter the NFS server's IP address and the NFS path where the ISO images are located (not the mount point, the actual path from the root -- e.g. /var/local/nfs/fedora/tettnang/).

And that's it! If you're connecting over Fast Ethernet, your installation will be unbelievably fast -- and you can avoid having to swap CD-ROMs as you go.

Time to Upgrade

[a3217055 (768293)]

I wonder what is the bestway to upgrade to FC3 from FC2 ... Maybe just use apt and yum to upgrade :)

Re:Time to Upgrade

[by Anonymous Coward]

Maybe just use apt and yum to upgrade
The recommeneded way to upgrade is to use installer (annaconda), some people have reported problems using yum or apt.

Re:Time to Upgrade

[Oxide (92607)]

1) Download FC3 ISO images
2) Burn them to CDs
3) Put on the FC3 cd and click on upgrade

can't get any easier than that. I wouldnt want to use yum or apt because of the GCC upgrade.

Re:Time to Upgrade

[Mr_Icon (124425)]

I wouldnt want to use yum or apt because of the GCC upgrade.

It works very well. To upgrade from FC2 to FC3 using yum do:

• edit your /etc/yum.conf to point to fc3
• yum update yum
• yum upgrade

Then watch it churn. Of course, if you have third-party software installed, you may want to wait till your vendors catch up with FC3.

Re:Time to Upgrade

[batkiwi (137781)]

I asked about this on the list for FC1 to FC2, and the developers SPECIFICALLY said DO NOT DO THIS.

I trust them over you.

Competition

[Donoho (788900)]

Is it just me or are there enough high profile distros available now to keep them all pushing a little harder to stay current. I like it.

So....

[_undan (804517)]

Did they fix that little problem of the install process hosing drive geometry tables so that Windows won't load anymore?

IIRC, it was a kernel+parted issue

[wiredog (43288)]

and wasn't just a Fedora issue. I hadn't heard about it, as I don't run Windows on my home machine, until I had to install it here at work. The main thing is to not let it futz with the partition tables at all during an install.

Misunderstood feature

[jd (1658)]

That wasn't a bug, that was a virus prevention strategy. :)

Re:MOD Parent up, and answer

[by Anonymous Coward]

It was a problem specific to fc2, has been fixed forever in fc2 updates and non-existant in fc3.

Release notes

[bnavarro (172692)]

here [redhat.com]

Enterprise?

[Espectr0 (577637)]

If fedora is the base for which RHEL gets developed, why do they keep releasing new versions? When do they decide which fedora release gets frozen to develop RHEL 4?

Re:Enterprise?

[mattdm (1931)]

If fedora is the base for which RHEL gets developed, why do they keep releasing new versions? When do they decide which fedora release gets frozen to develop RHEL 4?

What do you mean "why do they keep releasing new versions"? They keep releasing new versions because that's the point of having a distribution. Fedora Core partly exists to support RHEL, but it has its own life as well -- think Mozilla and Netscape, OpenOffice.org and StarOffice.

And "when do they decide"? Well, market realities mean they need a new RHEL release every certain amount of time -- probably every year and a half or so. So when that "when" approaches, I imagine they look to see what the most solid current Fedora base, and develop along with this.

In fact, RHEL 4 is being developed in parallel with FC3. See this LWN.net article [lwn.net] for more details.

Fedora Core Release 3 Released?

[by Anonymous Coward]

Isn't that as redundant as "Hot Water Heater"?

Released?

[RealProgrammer (723725)]

Whenever I read that an Open Source package has been "released", I think, "Wasn't it already Free?"

firefox pr1

[by Anonymous Coward]

Why didn't they wait 1 more day for the 1.0 final?

Re:firefox pr1

[Soko (17987)]

Ummmm...

After the final of Firefox has actually been released, and been through the Fedora QA process, a simple "yum -y update" will get it for you.

Everyone has a schedule that they like to stick to.

Soko

Screenshots?

[Jukashi (240273)]

Whats with all these screenshots for distro releases - what exactly are people looking at? All I see is gnome or kde that could be running on anything. Are the distro-specific wallpapers that intresting?

Fedora Core 3 Thoughts

[jsav40 (614902)]

I had all three test versions of FC3 running and am very much looking forward to installing the release version.

Inpressions from the test releases

-selinux is enabled by default & *just works*
-firefox (finally) is included in Fedora Core proper
-automounting bahavior of usb keys, external HDDs etc. is greatly improved
-Totem has been added
-Yum has been greatly improved (faster)
-works well on the two laptops I tested it on
(IBM T20, CPQ Armada M700
-Better wifi support built in

Re:Fedora Core 3 Thoughts

[JianTian13 (525365)]

-Yum has been greatly improved (faster)

Really? I'd love for this to be true -- Yum is so dog-ass slow that it makes installing a new Fedora system from scratch a full-day's undertaking, because before it downloads any patches, it insists on separately downloading uncompressed headers for every fucking package in the release. And then it checks for new headers each and every time I tell it to install a new package. If they've fixed this behavior... Well, yum might actually start approaching the usability of apt.

Yes, that's a flame and a troll. But in all seriousness, can anyone point me to an explanation as to why yum was chosen as the update tool, over say something like apt-rpm? Are there any honest-to-goodness technical reasons why yum is the better choice? Or is it just inertia at this point?

Re:Fedora Core 3 Thoughts

[Pros_n_Cons (535669)]

Are there any honest-to-goodness technical reasons why yum is the better choice?

Because apt for RPM was a hack. Was not built from the ground up to work for RPM where as YUM was. Yum was nowhere near apt in functionality but it is getting there. Maybe Fedora is stubborn in using apt for the same reason Debian was stubborn in using anaconda. It was written by "them".

Re:Fedora Core 3 Thoughts

[Coryoth (254751)]

-selinux is enabled by default & *just works*

This is the major point that is being missed by many here. Even if you think other LSM systems are better, even if you prefer some non LSM Mandatory Access Control system like RSBAC is better, you have to agree that any MAC system is a huge step forward for Linux security.

It doesn't even matter that the default SELinux policy for FC3 is very permissive (mostly it only places constraints of various daemons), what matters is that a major distribution has a Mandatory Access Control system in place by default.

This matter because it helps get developer buy in. That means more applications fixed so they don't do silly things that break under such systems, that means more developers actually using such systems to compartmentalize and strengthen the security of the applications themselves. This matter because right now we already have the architecture - several implementations of it in fact (SELinux, LIDS, RSBAC), what we don't have is applications that respect such systems, nor applications that take advantage of the extra security such system provide. As long as that is the case, we really aren't that much better off. People need to be paying attention to SELinux, and systems like it, and programming to use, or at the very least respect, such systems. Once that happens the difference between security in Linux and Windows really will be a night and day comparison.

This is a huge win for Linux if we can get it up and running, so let's take the time to make it work! Congratulations to everyone on the Fedora SELinux project! You've done a fantastic job, Thanks!

Jedidiah.

why is it necessary to post screenshots?

[by Anonymous Coward]

when most of the time more or less of all linux distributions look the same,if they are all customized the same. And here on Slashdot I'm sure everyone already know what things look like in almost all the different window managers.

Despite this, we still decide to slashdot their screenies site!

Re:why is it necessary to post screenshots?

[sapped (208174)]

when most of the time more or less of all [linux distributions|women] look the same,if they are all [customized|dressed|undressed] the same. And here on Slashdot I'm sure everyone already know what [things|insert favourite part of anatomy here] look like in almost all the different [window managers|bikinis|lingerie|nothing].

Yeah, no idea why people like looking at pictures.

Re:why is it necessary to post screenshots?

[Goo.cc (687626)]

Look dude, Screenshots equals geek porn.

Firewire Support?

[leinhos (143965)]

Can anyone comment on the level of Firewire support in FC3? I tried to get FW working with FC2, but eventually gave up...

Try again

[bill_mcgonigle (4333)]

I tried to get FW working with FC2, but eventually gave up...

There were kernel issues initially that were fixed a while later.

I installed FC2 from .iso's on a machine last week - no firewire. Did a yum update. Reboot. Perfect firewire.

when will we have FC4?

[by Anonymous Coward]

could it be next week because I'm thinking these guys are a bit too slow. I'd like them to move the pace up a bit that way I really don't have time to get used to their distro before the next comes out.

Linux Screenshots

[stratjakt (596332)]

It's always a fancy desktop with cute icons, a shot of OpenOffice, one of GIMP, and then the rest are all of a thousand xterms opened up.

They end up showcasing the lack of good linux desktop applications, it's pretty funny if you're not a zealot.

Mirror in Europe

[Yenya (12004)]

Mirror whore mode on:

If you are in Europe and looking for a fast mirror, try this one [linux.cz] (i386; x86_64 is here [linux.cz]).
80 minutes after the release and my bandwidth and HDD speed is still not maxed out ...

(IAAAOTS - I am an administrator of this server).

kernel.org stats

[hpa (7948)]

From this morning...

570 Mbit/s (about 540 Mbit/s of which are mirrors.kernel.org, i.e. mostly Fedora); load average 232.44.

Does FC do net installs?

[meanfriend (704312)]

Is it possible to install FCx with some sort of net installer so you dont need to download the full iso set? ie. get a small iso that contains a bare install and download the rest as you go?

If you want to set up a thin desktop with only a limited number of apps (GUI, browser, openoffice, email client, XMMS), it seems a waste to download 2+ GB of iso's full of stuff you will probably never use. And because FC is so bleeding edge, by the time you do need package XYZ, there is likely an updated version in the repository anyways...

Other distros (eg. Debian, Suse) do this and it's very convienent. I like to try out different distros but the idea of downloading a full CD set for something I'll only kick around for fun turns me off.

Re:Does FC do net installs?

[by Anonymous Coward]

Yes, just get the "boot.iso" (about 5MB) and use that, point it to an FTP/HTTP server with the RPMs, and it will pull them down.

That's the point

[3770 (560838)]

They are using you to test the system so that their enterprise customers will get the quality that they expect.

It is a really cheap way of doing quality control.

Re:That's the point

[LnxAddct (679316)]

Pretty much any company that releases both consumer and business software uses the consumer software to test the waters and once it seems okay they make the fixes and sell it to businesses along with 5 year contracts. Thats just business, get over it. At least Red Hat isn't ripping off the consumer, the Fedora development model isn't too much different then it was with the RH desktop distro... but the community kept complaining that it wasn't free and Red Hat made very little money (something like 3 million dollars) from its desktop version so they released it to the community as Fedora. Now the consumer gets probably the highest quality linux distribution avaialable, along with a huge supporting community. I use Fedora because it is stable, but has the latest and greatest. It is the only distro that runs on my laptop, and it is the only distro that I have been able to reliably install on just about any machine. If you haven't had the pleasure of using it, I would suggest you do so.
Regards,
Steve

Re:That's the point

[cpn2000 (660758)]

Thats one way to look at it.

The way I look at it is ...
- I get a free OS (beer & speech).
- Updates from a source I can trust (Redhat)
Now, if it does help RedHat get some things done for their paying corporate customers it seems like a fair deal to me.

Re:That's the point

[gormanly (134067)]

Hmm, in my case they're using me to test both. Shame bugzilla reports on FC get ignored. As for quality control, Fedora seems to bypass the concept - FC2 sucks worse than any distro I've ever used, and I've been running everything on RH since the 4.2 days. If FC3 doesn't improve things I'll ... bitch some more on Slashdot.

Re:Fedora moves too fast

[tuffy (10202)]

The dissapointing thing is how often Fedora major releases come out. Makes the lives of those of us who have to keep up with it quite difficult. We just got used to FC2 and now FC3's out! :-)

Six months. It's always six months. [redhat.com] You need to download them sooner, perhaps. ;)

Re:Fedora moves too fast

[pomakis (323200)]

The dissapointing thing is how often Fedora major releases come out. Makes the lives of those of us who have to keep up with it quite difficult. We just got used to FC2 and now FC3's out! :-)

Then upgrade every two versions (e.g. RH9 to FC2 to FC4). That's what I do. There's no requirement for you to upgrade with every release that comes out.

Re:Heidelberg?

[afd8856 (700296)]

The name of a German city. Insightful, huh? :-) Actually, it's Fedora 3' release name.

Re:Oh, the irony!

[stratjakt (596332)]

Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 With 60 Hotfixes Installed.

You need service pack 4, that's your problem.

I don't believe that either "stabler" or "securer" are words.

Re:Question:

[A Boy and His Blob (772370)]

Yes, you can either download the CD and use it to boot, then do a network install through an FTP or HTTP server (just make sure you find a server before booting because it doesn't give you a list or anything). If you can't even get the CD to boot and you already are running Linux just mount the iso as a "virtual drive." This is how I installed mine. [216.239.41.104]

Re:2.3GB?

[Sunspire (784352)]

The Fedora Core 2 DVD image also included the source discs. With Fedora Core 3 the DVD only contains the same binary data as on the 4 regular CDs. Makes more sense this way in my opinion.

Re:DVD iso is a convenient size

[Alan Cox (27532)]

We couldnt fit the sources and binaries on one DVD either.

Re:Fedora

[pyros (61399)]

Wierd since, Fedora decided to copy Debian's mistaken policy of offering three software troves called stable,testing and unstable.

Uh, no .... Have a look here [redhat.com] and tell me where it mentions stable/testing/unstable. The official Fedora package set contains exactly one version of each application. Third party packagers like Fedora.us and Livna.org have adopted the stable/testing/unstable split, but they are separate entities from Red Hat, and are not official Fedora packages.

I'll readily admit that I won't use Fedora without adding Fedora.us and Livna.org to my yum/apt sources, but you're either mistaken in your understanding of the Fedora community or spreading FUD.

Re:Time for standard kernels in these releases

[Sunspire (784352)]

This is completely the opposite of what Linus himself thinks. We've got a new kernel development process since the last kernel sumit, and the final stabilization is now explicitly left to the vendors.

2.6 is now both the stable and development branch for the foreseeable future. New features are rapidly integrated and 2.6.x.y versions are optionally released for stability, but a lot of the testing and QA is being offloaded to the distributions.

I personally want Red Hat to tweak their kernels. That's what a distributors job is in my opinion, pulling software from all sort of sources and integrating them into a coherent product. I want Red Hat to include fixes for ACPI, CD recording, and basically do everything to assure that I don't have to compile my own kernel. Red Hat employs some of the best core kernel developers, over the years they've earned my trust and that of my company's. So in a sense, yes, they can do better, and we expect it of them. Perhaps that's not the kind of vendor you're looking for, in which case just stick to Slackware.

Re:Time for standard kernels in these releases

[Antique Geekmeister (740220)]

Me too. I want them to backport clear kernel fixes and driver additions to the older kernel, rather than publishing a fresh-off-the-presses and not yet stable kernel and forcing me to do a forklift upgrade of my kernels or hand roll my own patches. This is what RedHat gets paid for.

Re:Two things, please answer.

[Antique Geekmeister (740220)]

Use yum. Make a copy of your yum.conf called yum.conf.update, and replace the $releasever everywhere with the number "3". Then run "yum clean; yum -c yum.conf.update check-update" to pre-load the header files files, and "yum -c yum.conf.update yum; yum -c yum.conf.update update" to actuall do the updates. The new version of yum has some nice pre-downloading features, which is why I recommend updating it first.