Slashdot Log In
Fedora 9 Preview Cleared for Launch
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Fri Apr 18, 2008 12:54 PM
from the free-bits dept.
from the free-bits dept.
According to a post made yesterday to the Fedora announce mailing list, a Fedora 9 preview has been cleared for launch. "This is a Preview release, it is fairly close to what the final product
will be like. This is the most critical release for the Fedora
community to use and test and report bugs on. This is the last major
public release before the final GOLD Fedora 9 release on May 13th (we
hope). [...] Live images, KDE Live images, CDs and DVD options are available. http://torrent.fedoraproject.org has a section marked 'F9-Preview.'"
Related Stories
[+]
Technology: Fedora 9 "Sulphur" Alpha Released 62 comments
JonRob writes "The first development snapshot of Fedora 9 (Sulphur) has been released, providing both a KDE and a GNOME live CD. This is the first of three test releases before the final version of Fedora 9 this April. The alpha features many changes including KDE 4 by default, GNOME 2.21.4, support for creation of encrypted partitions and for resizing EXT2/EXT3/NTFS partitions during install, speed improvements to X, the Linux 2.6.24 kernel, and much more."
[+]
Fedora 9 a Bit Behind the Curve On Installation 110 comments
bsk_cw writes "Today, many Linux users are getting blasé about the ease with which they can install Linux. Possibly, they've been spoiled by distributions such as Ubuntu, which is actually easier to install than Windows. Unfortunately, Fedora 9, the latest version of this community edition of Red Hat, was a bit too much of a blast from the past for Computerworld's James Turner." (Except for bits about the installation, the review is actually quite positive.)
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Differences (Score:2)
Anyone have a link, or know off-hand, the major differences between this and the latest Ubuntu release? I realize there's the APT/RPM difference, but aside from that, what is notable?
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
KDE 4 [fedoraproject.org], among other things.
That's a similarily, not a difference. (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Differences (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Major difference? Well I can't enumerate them, but I can generalize things you'll see in Fedora compared to Ubuntu
Re: (Score:2)
Major difference? Well I can't enumerate them, but I can generalize things you'll see in Fedora compared to Ubuntu
[...]
Not sure what you mean by that. Both Fedora and Ubuntu use PulseAudio these days. But of course there might be differences between them in how well they use it.
So, I just booted up the Fedora Preview to see just that, the reason being that in Ubuntu sound stutters if your CPU isn't very powerful (typically when you minimize/maximize a window or some other activity that causes a brief spike in CPU). Here is the bug [launchpad.net], which I guess won't be fixed before release.
Sadly I was unable to test PulseAudio on t
Re:SELinux is a pain in the ass. (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Differences (Score:5, Informative)
Comparing RPM to apt-get is apples to oranges. Either compare RPM to DEB, or yum to apt-get. I never had to bother with dependencies when using yum, just as you've never had to bother with dependencies using apt-get.
Parent
Re:Differences (Score:5, Informative)
I completely agree. Since my distros of choice over the last 5 years have been Fedora and Debian/Ubuntu, I've had a fair bit of experience with both yum and apt-get. Yum, at least as of the Fedora 8 install on my desktop, is simply not as good (IMO) as apt-get in Debian or Ubuntu for two reasons:
1.) yum is slow, horribly horribly slow. I think it may have gotten a little better in Fedora 8, and I've heard that they're putting serious work into it. Hopefully Fedora 9 will be better, but it never ceases to amaze me how long it takes to do a "yum search" to look for a package compared to "apt-cache search".
2.) The package repositories for Ubuntu (which is derived from the huge repository from Debian) are larger and more complete, at least for the random software I tend to look for. Again, Fedora is gaining in this regard, the community-supported package setup is starting to rival Ubuntu's universe, making this a huge step up over the old RedHat 7/8/9 days compared to Debian at that time. When it comes to software outside of either repository, RPMs tend to be more common than debs, which is an advantage for Fedora.
So yum (and the standard underlying repositories) are behind in those respects compared to apt-get, but the difference is shrinking. In yum's defense, I think they implemented package signing as a default requirement before Debian did, but I could be wrong on that.
I've run Fedora on my desktop for a while, but Kubuntu on my laptop. I honestly don't know what I'll install on my desktop next. I usually skip every other release, and since I'm on FC 8, that means waiting until FC10. This might be good anyway; I'm a KDE user, and KDE 4.0 just doesn't look feature complete. Best to wait until KDE 4.1 polishes everything a bit more, perhaps. I'm debating whether to try out the latest Kubuntu on my laptop when it's released this month to try out KDE 4.0.
Parent
calling 2005 (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Now I have even lesser problems with a single huge repository and a couple of extra repos for proprietary codecs and drivers. It's been *really* smooth for me.
I agree. The only issue I've had was with a livna package overriding a package from an 'official' repository and causing yum to not complete an update. If you use the extra repositories I'd recommend the protectbase [centos.org] plugin. It provides a way to give precedence over certain repos so that you don't make yum mad.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Dependency hell isn't really a function of the package format, the issue is intrinsic to reasonably complex software dependency environments, and the hell is what you get for not using an automatic depsolver. Of course, as there originally wasn't one that handled RPM's (like apt for debs), it's tended to get the blame.
When I used Fedora back in the Core 3 days I used Apt4RPM and Synaptic
These days you'd probably use yum and yumex. Using yum-priorites for repos and you'll have very li
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
So you could say that Fedora stays a little more bleeding edge throughout the version lifespan, and Ubuntu stays a bit more stable throughout the lifes
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Feature List (Score:3, Informative)
Fedora 9 Not Ready (Score:5, Funny)
With serious issues like this, obviously 2008 won't be The Year of the Linux Desktop (Really This Time, We Mean It).
selinux (Score:5, Funny)
(I am not denying that it is important or useful. I just can't understand how to make it work.)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Please run SELinux in permissive mode instead of disabling or even uninstalling it. If you ever would like to activate it again, running in permissive mode ensures that the proper security labels are maintained, while disabling or uninstalling SELinux causes the system to perform a time-consuming relabeling of all filesystems if/when SELinux is re-enabled.
Besides, if an application is giving you troubles, why not file a bug report in the Red hat Bugzilla? Post the output of setroubleshoot (the GUI applica
Re: (Score:2)
If your life revolves around YouTube then what's wrong with going to Adobe and getting their Flash/Shockwave plugin? It works perfectly, it has the same version number as the Windows one, and it's basically the same process as Windows for newbies (download, install, use).
As for half-baked - a quick skim of the thread seemed to imply that it'
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Its not fedoras fault they cant package adobe flash and that gnu flash replacements arnt ready yet.
If you want flash just install adobe flash32 to firefox32, all you need is tar, if anything flash is going to install easily on a fedora system because adobe offer a rpm, but even on a 64bit ubuntu system i have 0 problems setting up flash.
like it, but (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes I know, they aren't 'free as in freedom'. Sad, but true. However, when I install desktop linux I don't want to fart about trying to find media codecs. They should be there, in the install, or immediately available via an obvious link once installation is complete. It should be a one click and done experience, has to be really.
Yes I could find them myself, but I'm not really the problem, since I'm pretty much addicted to linux for everything but desktop. I'll remain a fan, and live in hope of a decent out of the box desktop experience.
No, the problem is the vast numbers of techno numpties who won't use linux as long as it has this glaring hole in its out of the box state.
Mark me as troll if you wish, but this is a serious issue that the purists don't want to confront. In spite of what they beleive, ogg is not enough...
Re:like it, but (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
At the end of the day there are two choices: 1) pick another distro (probably European based like SuSe)
Re: (Score:2)
I know ubuntu doesnt but they recently changed the default repos to include them, so end users who click though end up pressing a ""press this button to get free codecs that may breach patents" and dont complain.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:like it, but (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the thing: it's not solely a matter of principle. Fedora has to play by a harder set of rules than Ubuntu. Fedora is backed by a public company, based in the US, so they answer to US law and Red Hat stockholders. And under US law, CYA just isn't enough, especially when there's multi-billion-dollar global megacorps who will take any opportunity they can find to sue you into oblivion.
Everyone would dearly love to be able to include mp3 codecs and ffmpeg and all that non-Free stuff. But they can't. So Red Hat and Fedora keep fighting the good fight - lobbying against software patents, pushing for open standards - and still people give them shit because they have to click two places instead of one to get MP3 support.
Way to focus on the big problems, people.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:like it, but (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that the desktop experience has become, thanks to the almighty Microsoft, (whose name we speak in hushed tones, lest they smite us with their stick of smiting), have defined the desktop as being a place where even a moron can get a decent experience with minimal work, or none, in some cases.
Last time I checked, Windows out of the box couldn't create PDF files, display DivX movies, open tarballs, can display but not edit DOC, PPT, can't display web pages properly, can't create ZIP files [maybe it can do this one now?] etc. It doesn't have a system where you can install one of 1000s of programs just with a few clicks from a menu (and for free). It doesn't have virtualization or a SQL database or any programming languages at all.
Rich.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, and they never will until it becomes so simple that a person with little or no knowledge can do it.
This is what I'm getting at. Those people are in microsofts pocket, and will be until a fully media capable linux distro can be installed easily, without detailed knowledge.
People can, and do, install newer verions of windows who fall into this catagory. It's them, the ones who want to upgrade, th
Re:like it, but (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been using Fedora along with Windows for a number of years now. My sister has an older machine (800mhz) and Win2K was getting slower and slower, even with all the firewall, anti-virus and anti-spyware stuph. In fact, it was the anti-virus that was slowing it down more than anything else; the daily scans took forever and made it almost unresponsive. Then, she tried a Live CD of Ubuntu. In less than 15 minutes she knew it was for her. The next morning, she installed it. The first time it rebooted, it let her know she needed proprietary drivers for her nVidia Geoforce video card and got them. It's now her main OS, and Win2K is the Dark Side to her. I'm happy with Fedora, and will be moving from 8 to 9 when the time comes, but I'd never have suggested it to her. Fedora's a geeky, bleeding edge test bed of a distro, and all she wants or needs is something that Just Works. That's why there are so many Linux distros: different people need and/or want different things, and no matter what you want in the way of Linux, there's at least one distro that's right for you.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
First, blame those that made the codecs non-free, not those who suffer because of it. There is nothing that they can do about non-free codecs and there's no use complaining.
Beyond that, it's not exactly hard to add non-free codecs. Add the livna repository and you'll be able to get them off your package manager. There may not be any flashing banners telling you how and where to download non-free codecs, but it's not hard to do either.
Finally, you shouldn't need non-free codecs as
what about youtube ? is it working ? (Score:5, Funny)
like he said: youtube no workee, wife no happy.
'looks' good (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
On the plus side, at least they ditched some of the original 'Sulphur' desktops [fedoraproject.org]. Those would have just made the default desktop look terrible.
Release Candidate? (Score:3, Interesting)
which implies the Release Candidate might not be a 'release' as such, just a specially tagged nightly build.
Oh well, I guess at least it'll get the spit-and-polish it deserves. I just need to wait until May to install it now.
Re:Release Candidate? (Score:4, Informative)
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA [fedoraproject.org] is a good place to start if you're interested in testing Fedora.
Otherwise, the next major public release is F9 final, scheduled for May 13.
Parent
Re:Did the yum-based upgrade make it into the tag? (Score:4, Informative)
You're probably thinking of PreUpgrade, which is like a yum-based upgrade but without the insanity.
See the interview here for more info:
http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2008/04/15/interview-fedora-developers-seth-vidal-and-will-woods/ [redhatmagazine.com]
Parent