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Fedora Core 6 Released

Posted by Zonk on Tue Oct 24, 2006 12:05 PM
from the i've-got-a-new-hat dept.
Shadowman writes "Fedora Core 6 has been released. Recommended download method is via BitTorrent. For more information, see the release notes or the Fedora homepage. Slashdot interviewed the Fedora Project Leader back in August."
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[+] Fedora Welcomes Women to FOSS 339 comments
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[+] Interviews: What's Fedora Up To? Ask the Project Leader 295 comments
Fedora Project Leader Max Spevack offered himself up for this interview because, he said, "I look at stories like [your] posting Ubuntu to Bring About Red Hat's Demise and many of the comments about Red Hat and Fedora seem very rooted in the world of several years ago, when the RHEL/Fedora split took place." This is a chance to clear the air, and get an up-to-date look at what Fedora is up to these days. So ask away; we'll send 10 of the highest-moderated questions to Max and (hopefully) publish his answers later this week.
[+] Interviews: Fedora Project Leader Max Spevack Responds 135 comments
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[+] Fedora Core 6 Review 205 comments
luna6 writes to tell us that they have posted a pretty thorough review of Fedora Core 6 with the installation procedure and even a few work arounds for the couple of bugs encountered during the process to help users get up and running smoothly. From the article: "To sum up Fedora Core 6, I will say that once you have it set up properly FC 6 runs very impressively. I had the impression that FC 6 may have been rushed, just because of the handful of minor bugs that appeared. The mixup of arches, i586 & i686 was weird and the first system update having a update conflict was a glaring error, even though it was easy to fix. Setting up the Nvidia drivers was way more problematic than it should have been. I should also note that Mandriva 2007 worked from the start with AIGLX and their 3D drake worked flawlessly. With that stated once the minor problems were fixed, Fedora Core 6 worked as well as any Linux distro I have tried and the visuals were second to none. Well except the default icons...but we have something to look forward to in FC 7 now don't we?"
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  • Honestly (Score:5, Funny)

    by suso (153703) * on Tuesday October 24 2006, @12:06PM (#16561292) Homepage Journal
    I literally just installed FC5 on a machine this morning.
  • Multimedia support (Score:5, Informative)

    by Nighttime (231023) on Tuesday October 24 2006, @12:09PM (#16561362) Homepage Journal
    As someone always comments on Fedora's (and by proxy, Red Hat's) multimedia support, here it is from the horse's mouth:

    15.3. MP3, DVD, and Other Excluded Multimedia Formats
    Fedora Core and Fedora Extras software repositories cannot include support for MP3 or DVD video playback or recording. The MP3 formats are patented, and the patent holders have not provided the necessary patent licenses. DVD video formats are patented and equipped with an encryption scheme. The patent holders have not provided the necessary patent licenses, and the code needed to decrypt CSS-encrypted discs may violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a copyright law of the United States. Fedora also excludes other multimedia software due to patent, copyright or license restrictions, including Adobe's Flash Player and and Real Media's Real Player. For more on this subject, please refer to http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ForbiddenItems [fedoraproject.org].

    While other MP3 options may be available for Fedora, Fluendo now offers a free MP3 plugin for GStreamer that has the necessary patent license for end users. This plugin enables MP3 support in applications that use the GStreamer framework as a backend. Fedora does not include this plugin since we prefer to support and encourage the use of patent unrestricted open formats instead. For more information about the MP3 plugin, visit Fluendo's website at http://www.fluendo.com/ [fluendo.com].
    • by Penguinisto (415985) on Tuesday October 24 2006, @12:28PM (#16561768) Journal
      No, seriously: Livna works just fine for me (And I think DAG should cover it as well; can;t remember the URL offhand, though). Both Livna and DAG have yum repos that will grant all the necessary tidbits needed to complete the install (including NTFS support for weirdoes like me who have to plug in HDD's formatted in that recover others' data on occasion...).

      /P

    • Fluendo now offers a free MP3 plugin for GStreamer that has the necessary patent license for end users.

      They mean gratis, not that this plugin necessarily gives you the freedoms of free software (for those of you who live in countries saddled with software patents). You could install and run this plugin but doing so would be installing non-free software on your machine. For the rest of you, the Fluendo GStreamer MP3 plugin is free software, licensed under the MIT X11 license. Richard Stallman, found

      • by pyros (61399) on Tuesday October 24 2006, @01:56PM (#16563452) Journal
        That depends on how they include the functionality. If they include unlicensed software, then U.S. ditribution of Mandriva (hosting ISO images on servers in the U.S., retail outlets selling boxed CD sets, etc) could be halted.
  • by croddy (659025) on Tuesday October 24 2006, @12:10PM (#16561404)
    But does it come with GNU Iceweasel? [gnu.org]
  • by Fry-kun (619632) on Tuesday October 24 2006, @12:20PM (#16561620)
    Come to me, son of Jor-El! KNEEL before ZOD!!

    Okay, I got it out of my system now...

    ZOD!!!!!

    • by Kelson (129150) * on Tuesday October 24 2006, @12:27PM (#16561758) Homepage Journal

      You should see the announcement they posted to the mailing list:

      This is the announcement of Zod. Zod permits you to call him "Fedora Core 6".

      Tremble, Earthlings, for Zod is released from the confines of testing. Zod intends to hammer the servers of the world ... starting TODAY! For those who chose the world-domination-acceptance package in your last installation, you need do nothing -- Zod is beaming itself to your computers already. If your keyboard begins to get hot, back away ... very ... slowly ...

      For the rest of you minions who failed to do Zod's bidding previously, this is your ONE AND ONLY CHANCE to redeem yourself. Go quickly! Download the torrent NOW. Obtain the ISO immediately. Zod's minions know to back up their /home directory and to begin immediate installation of the GREATEST version of Fedora Core EVER.

      When you are done genuflecting, listen carefully. Zod now delivers an important message to Zod's predecessor, the Fifth Iteration of Fedora Core, known to some as Bordeaux:

      "KNEEL BEFORE ZOD, for Zod has many improvements that convince users to upgrade and abandon you! Ph34r me! Mwahahahaha."

      Zod accepts that the Fedora Project continues to provide software and security updates for Bordeaux, as per the policy of Zod's minions. Zod chooses to permit this action to continue.

      It goes on to link to release notes and such, then adds this note:

      Massive downloading of Zod is known to melt servers worldwide, so Zod commands all who are able to use bittorrent.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        It's interesting that they chose to call this release "Zod." The traditional Red Hat maintainer of XFree86/Xorg, Mike Harris, for a long time went by the alternate nickname of "zod" on IRC support channels and the like. He left Red Hat a little while ago, and now this release bears this name. I have no idea if there was any intentional connection.

        ObTrivia: In case you missed the other fifty explanations, General Zod is the leader of the Krypton villains in Superman II.

  • by SlashdotOgre (739181) on Tuesday October 24 2006, @12:31PM (#16561816) Journal
    Here's a mirror of the release notes: ftp://limestone.uoregon.edu/fedora/6/i386/os/RELEA SE-NOTES-en_US.html [uoregon.edu]

    Things I'm finding interesting are:

    Section 9 (Desktop Effects) Looks like its just AIGLX, not Xgl (in fact there's no mention of Xgl).

    Section 17 (Virtualization) FC6 uses Xen 3.0.2, I know Xen was in FC5 but I haven't had a chance to play with it. The release notes mention something about it being connected with the installer, so perhaps I'll get a chance.

    Section 22 (Package Changes) Interesting removals IMHO are: mozilla, xscreensaver, gkrellm. I'm sure all can be found in the Fedora Extra's Repo or some place similar. I'm not a big fan of where some of the desktop apps are going (eg. I hate gnome-screensaver), but the beauty of Linux is it's quite simple to solve this problem.

    • by TheOrquithVagrant (582340) on Tuesday October 24 2006, @12:45PM (#16562112)
      > Section 9 (Desktop Effects) Looks like its just AIGLX, not Xgl (in fact there's no mention of Xgl).

      Fully-implemented AIGLX pretty much makes Xgl obsolete. Compiz runs on top of AIGLX now, and compiz is shipping with Fedora. That means all the "bling" normally associated with "Xgl" is available.

      > Section 17 (Virtualization) FC6 uses Xen 3.0.2

      Xen 3.0.3 was released on the 17th, in time to get included. The release-schedule slippage had a silver lining.

  • Who cares? (Score:3, Informative)

    by slashdotmsiriv (922939) on Tuesday October 24 2006, @12:45PM (#16562098)
    Ever since I installed Kubuntu i threw a black stone to the dark days of Fedora Core Installations ... Since then i can completely install linux systems on any laptop and PC without writing a single script and without having to compile my own kernel modules.
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      Agreed. I used to be a long time Red Hat user but dropped it as soon as they stopped support for their desktop version. I moved to Suse and then Ubuntu (besides trying dozen of other dists and bsds). Although I had never used Linux as my primary desktop OS (it has however been my primary application server at work and home for years), thanks to Ubuntu's ability to take away the headache of spending countless hours fetching for obscure modules, compiling unsupported libraries, etc, in order to get my hardwar
    • Yes, they're sure. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Kelson (129150) * on Tuesday October 24 2006, @12:23PM (#16561672) Homepage Journal
      Torrents are up. The Fedora websites seem to be down (fedora.redhat.com) and overloaded (fedoraproject.org), but if you can get the latter to load, it does announce "Download Fedora Core 6"

      Through the magic of Bittorrent I'm downloading the official release faster than their server can manage right now.
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      "The vast majority of experiences that I and every other person I have met with Fedora have been profoundly negative on some level." /TROLL MODE ON
      That only means that you and almost every other person you know is dumb enough not to read documentation about the tools they try to use. /TROLL MODE OFF

      "When is the Fedora project going to start fixing its bugs instead of just pushing out bleeding edge packages?"

      Plain simple: never.

      It is not as if it were a deeply hidden fact; it's even on the fundational papers
    • by Phisbut (761268) on Tuesday October 24 2006, @01:50PM (#16563344)
      When is the Fedora project going to start fixing its bugs instead of just pushing out bleeding edge packages?

      The whole point of Fedora is to be bleeding edge, not to be 100% stable. Fedora introduces bleeding edge features, and Red Hat fixes the features, that's how it is, and that's how it is supposed to be. If you can't cope with bleeding edge features that are not guaranteed to be stable, then Fedora is simply not for you.

      Ubuntu makes Fedora look like useless because those teams work hard on bug fixes.

      Ubuntu aims for usability and stability, Fedora aims for bleeding edge. Different distros, different goals. Use the right tool for your job.