Fedora Core 5 Available

Jan Slupski writes "New release day today. Fedora Core 5 CD images are now available for download (i386, ppc, x86_64) on the ftp servers or via the torrent page." Linclips also has a short screencast on some of the default functionality.

bug sorted?

[LiquidCoooled (634315)]

It appears as though FC5 contains a bug which prevents none GPL modules (read nVidia) from being used.
Has this been fixed in this one yet, or is it worth waiting a few more days for the fix to be rolled out?

(It was identified too late to be pushed to the mirrors)

Info about it is here [lwn.net].

Re:bug sorted?

[osvejda (799137)]

Fixed kernel is here. [redhat.com] It's not in official updates yet.

Re:bug sorted?

[skogs (628589)]

I believe you will find that the kernel that is autocompiled beforehand will not accept the binary drivers...just like any other non-custom-built kernel that leaves out that option.

Rebuild your kernel per directions found on several sites, install the drivers per nvidia's instructions...

game. xgl. whatever.

Re:bug sorted?

[MSG (12810)]

I believe you will find that the kernel that is autocompiled beforehand will not accept the binary drivers

Normally, they do. The Nvidia drivers are broken because the spinlock macros were accidentally made GPL-only. The first kernel update will fix the problem.

install the drivers per nvidia's instructions...

It's probably better if you don't. If you read the Fedora Projects notes on 3rd party drivers [fedoraproject.org], you'll notice that Nvidia and ATI both break X in subtle ways, and may leave GL in an unworkable state, even after uninstalling them.

Poor testing

[gr8_phk (621180)]

Never mind that they don't test with proprietary drivers. They applied a patch that affected the functionality of tainted kernels - normal development practice would natrually require *that patch* be tested with a tainted kernel regardless. Throwing a patch over and saying it's OK because the automated testing didn't find a problem is like saying "it compiled - ship it".

So if I wait for 2.6.16 kernel on FC5 is that going to break with nVidia too? I saw a comment in the 2.6.16 story saying that doesn't work either (may have been distro specific).

Damn people, I understood the 4K stacks thing - make a good decision for good reason and let nVidia catch up. This utter disrespect for drivers used by a large number of people is really unacceptable. Actually, when a disto fails to test with drivers used by a large portion of their userbase, it is the user who feels the disrespect. Please don't make excuses - that's disrespectful too. Just get FC6 right.

That said, I'm downloading FC5 now ;-)

Re:bug sorted?

[typical (886006)]

Actually, this *is* a bug. It was not intentional on the part of the Fedora folks.

Of course, I don't *like* binary drivers very much, but ATI and NVidia have agreed to stick with 'em if you want 3d support on their modern cards. I have a Radeon 9250 (with the 128-bit datapath), which is about as peppy a card as you can get and still have open source drivers.

If the Open Graphics Project [duskglow.com] ever releases any hardware, unless it's $400 or something like that, I'll buy it -- it'll be fully open source.

If one vendor would release even a half-decent card and support it fully with open-source drivers, I'd buy it in a moment (binary microcode is okay, but I want everything running host-side to be OSS).

I know that few people feel this way, and most gamers are happy just using binary drivers and the current NVidia or ATI cards, but there are a group of people who feel the same way I do.

Flash is Evil! Evil, I say!

[AKAImBatman (238306)]

Linclips also has a short screencast on some of the default functionality.

That screencast is in Flash, and we all know that Flash is evil.

Thus, Fedora must be evil by extension.

Fedora is the development branch for RedHat. If Fedora is evil, RedHat must also be evil.

Microsoft is well known for being evil.

We all know that RedHat is a competitor to Microsoft.

Ergo, RedHat is the next Microsoft.

QED

(Yes, this is a joke. Laugh.)

Screenshots?

[Orestesx (629343)]

I don't believe there is any power way to evaluate a linux distro than screenshots, except for maybe it's logo.

Re:Screenshots?

[Morrigu (29432)]

Version numbers. Don't forget the version numbers.

If it's not high enough, then it's not even worth booting.

Fedora Mirrors

[Brian The Dog (879837)]

Am I the only one that thinks it is awesome that playboy.com mirrors the distro? They should have 'customized' it. (Special backgrounds, prepopulated bookmarks, etc.)

Re:Fedora Mirrors

[Secrity (742221)]

Playboy.com also mirrors Firefox, Thunderbird, Apache, FreeBSD, and CPAN. Playboy uses FOSS in it's operation and wants to give back to the community by providing mirrors.

FC5 mirror

[Yenya (12004)]

The Fedora Download page, which is according to the announcement message supposed to redirect you to one of the mirrors, does not work - it redirects to ftp://download.fedora.redhat.com [redhat.com] which is (of course) busy. So let me allow to advertise my mirror - if you are in Europe, I have still about half a gigabit of bandwidth free at

ftp://ftp.linux.cz/pub/linux/fedora-core/5/ [linux.cz]

-Yenya

Upgrade via yum is easier

[Cosine0 (466566)]

Just download and install fedora-release.xx.rpm
Next, "yum upgrade"
And you don't even have to reboot...

Re:MP3's?

[Nighttime (231023)]

Short answer is no.

From http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ForbiddenItems [fedoraproject.org]

MP3 encoding/decoding support is not included in any Fedora application because MP3 is heavily patented in several regions including the United States. The patent holder is unwilling to give an unrestricted patent grant, as required by the GPL. Other platforms might have paid the royalty and/or included proprietary software. Other Linux distributions not based in a region affected by the patent might ship MP3 decoders/encoders or they might have included proprietary software. However, Fedora Core cannot and does not ship MP3 decoders/encoders in order to serve the goal of shipping only free and open source software that is not restricted by software patents.

Fedora Suggests: If possible, use patent unrestricted formats such as Ogg Vorbis (a lossy audio codec that has better quality than MP3), or FLAC (a lossless audio codec).

Re:MP3's?

[pyros (61399)]

The problem isn't distributing a codec, the problem is you can't legally have a GPL implementation in a jurisdiction where the patents on those formats applies (like the US). In the example of MP3, the patent holders grant free license for ditributing a decoding implementation, I believe. But that's not liberal enough to be compatible with the GPL, because the license could be revoked.

Re:Fallacy

[Crispy Critters (226798)]

"For a start both Ogg and FLAC are encumbered by patents just like every other compression technology out there."

Then why does the Ogg Vorbis FAQ [vorbis.com] say, "it is completely free, open, and unpatented"?

Why does the Flac FAQ [sourceforge.net] describe it as an "open patent free codec"?

Please explain in what sense they are encumbered.

Re:MP3's?

[Listen Up (107011)]

For years I have used The Unofficial Fedora Faq located at http://www.fedorafaq.org/ [fedorafaq.org] to install all of the software missing from the Fedora Core downloads.

I agree with everything on that page, except for Java support. I develop Java and suggest that anybody who wants to develop serious Java applications use the official Java JDK from Sun. Otherwise, everything else is spot-on to help make Fedora a serious Linux desktop distribution.

Re:Upgrading

[/ASCII (86998)]

No, all you need to do is get the CDs or DVD and boot from them - you will be presented with the alternatives of overwriting the current install or upgrading it to FC5. It is a very good idea to backup your data just to be sure, but I've never had any problems going from one RedHat/Fedora version to a newer one.

Re:Redhat Naming

[AKAImBatman (238306)]

I never understood why Redhat chose Fedora.

Fedora is a hat. You see the "Red Hat" logo? The type of hat the guy is wearing in the logo is called a Fedora [wikipedia.org]. Given that the hat is named after a Frech play, I don't think that anyone is really worried about what it means in Portugese.

Fedora is on a fast development cycle

[winkydink (650484)]

If you prefer something that looks like RH but evolves at a more stately pace, may I suggest CentOS [centos.org]. This is RHEL built from the the Open Sources.

To the tune of a Dire Straits song...

[jd (1658)]

I want my.... I want my KDE....

I want my.... I want my KDE....

I want my.... I want my KDE....

Now look at them desktops, that's the way to do it

You get your DCOP from your KDE

That ain't working, that's the way to code it

Widgets for nothing and your glyphs for free.

Bow that ain't working, that's the way to code it

Lemme tell ya, them guys ain't dumb

Maybe get a glitch in your brand-new icon

Maybe get a glitchy core-dump.

We gotta install ISO 9000

Custom language packs

We gotta move those partition boundries

We gotta move that Berlin GUI

Fedora is a hobbiest OS

[skogs (628589)]

This is a hobby OS. It is the developement tree for RHEL. What is so hard to figure out here? It is not a beginner distro, it is a testing ground for new ideas and functions. The entire point is to test things, and separated by name so that people like your professor cannot sue RedHat when something doesn't work as it should.

Point release version numbers don't really apply to something that is perpetually beta. There are dozens of Fedora based distros...ever notice that they all make changes/mods for better security/hardwaredetection/userinterface/etc..

I know this is a flame, and some fedora fanboys will mod be down for this and flame me, but please...do look around> this is a perpetual beta. If you want the 'good stuff' pay for it, or download something that has another couple of steps of tweaking built in.

Re:Fedora is a hobbiest OS

[Nermal (7573)]

While it's true that Fedora is a proving ground for new technologies, it's a mistake to say that it is in "perpetual beta". Rawhide, the development branch of Fedora, is in perpetual beta. Fedora Core is the stable branch of Rawhide. If it's not stable then something is wrong. So while on the one hand Fedora is not intended to be enterprise-grade and I'm not necessarily disagreeing with the GP, on the other it does have its own test process and its own devel/stable release cycle.

Also, Fedora doesn't have point releases because point releases are old-fashioned. There's no need to wait for bug fixes to accumulate before making them available anymore because tools like Yum can be used to make them available immediately. New features are added every six months or so in a new major version, but it serves the same purpose as what used to be called a point release. The only difference is in the numbers.

Kernel version

[jd (1658)]

Fedora 5 comes with Kernel 2.6.15 with Red Hat patches. The latest official kernel is 2.6.16, which includes some important bugfixes. At the time of writing this, Fedora Core does NOT have 2.6.16 in the development tree, so it may be a few days before this upgrade is available.

Just as a personal note, I compile my own kernels, using the vanilla kernel patched with Andrew Morton's patches first, then with whatever of Red Hat's will still apply cleanly. Andrew Morton's -mm patches adds a lot of extremely useful functionality, for me, so that's my patchset of choice. (There are some nice real-time patches out there, too, but they're generally not compatible with other patchsets, making them a pain.)

Re:Zen

[Shawn is an Asshole (845769)]

You currently can't run Windows under Xen as Xen requires the OS to be modified to run under it. Until the new CPUs with virtualization are out you can't use Xen to run Windows.

Right now, though, there is a good free (beer) alternative: VMWare Player [vmware.com]. I've been using it with a Win2k guest and it works great. A bit sluggish on Athlon XP's (2500+) and lower, but it feels almost native on an Athlon 64 (3200+).

To create a disk, install qemu and use the following command to create the disk:

qemu-img create -f vmdk disk.vmdk 15G

To create your *.vmx file use VM Builder [dcgrendel.be] (it's a webapp).

Open the VMX file in VMWare Player and install Windows normally.

To install VMware Tools, just download an old version (tar.gz, not the rpm) of the Workstation or the betas of the Server. There is a "windows.iso" file in the archive that has everything you need.