Fedora 7 Released

fedoraman writes "Fedora 7 has been released. With Xorg 7.3, KDE 3.5.6, GNOME 2.18, and version 2.6.21 of the Linux kernel Fedora 7 comes with all the latest and greatest open source desktop software. Fedora 7 drops the traditional 'Core' nomenclature, since it includes both what used to be termed the Core and Extra components by default. Fedora 7 is also the first release to be constructed with Fedora's revolutionary new build system, which is designed to improve the ease of developing derivatives and Fedora-based software appliances. As usual, extensive documentation and release notes are available. Torrents are also available and ISO images can be downloaded from mirrors around the world."

Nice but is it bloatware?

That's nice. I guess I'll try it out on a live DVD some time. I have been a Redhat/Fedora user for 9 years, but unfortunately FC6 was unable to load on my latest PC with an Intel 965 motherboard, so I had to switch to OpenSUSE 10.2 [opensuse.org].

OpenSUSE has taken some getting used to--YaST admin/update tool, Beagle instead of the locate tool, some interesting tweaks in the UI, European defaults for certain settings such as Ghostscript paper size that I had to track down and adjust. Furthermore, it seems to be a bit behind in its kernel versions. But it's worked great and the functionality is all there, especially after switching YaST's software manager to a set of European archives which include all the multimedia stuff like mp3, full xine codecs, and mplayer. It seems not to have as large a user base as Fedora, also.

I wonder how F7 compares to recent versions of the popular distros like Ubuntu, Kubuntu, etc. It seems to me they've fallen a little behind in the way they integrate the kernel and UI aspects of the Linux system, and Fedora has always required a fair amount of tweaking to get things like multimedia to work up to snuff. It's rather bloated actually. Anyway, will have to give it a spin before drawing conclusions. But I'm staying with OpenSUSE for the moment.

Re:Nice but is it bloatware?

The last version of Debian worked on a 486/133 with 32 MB RAM, I'm sure the current ought to too...

-uso.

Re:Nice but is it bloatware?

When the last version of Debian was new, wasn't that current hardware?

One nice thing about Fedora7 is the buildtools

The complete build process is FL/OSS!

The tool for taking all the RPM packages and composing them into an installation tree is pungi [fedoraproject.org]. It's FL/OSS.

The tool for taking source from CVS and turning it into packages is Koji [fedoraproject.org] and it's completely FL/OSS too

The tool for producing updated packages is bodhi [fedoraproject.org] and is FL/OSS

Be happy. The Fedora Project yet again has made major contributions to FL/OSS which can be enjoyed and improved by everyone. It means that Fedora is completely independent of Red Hat (apart from Red Hat's very generous donation of hardware and developers) and that anyone that wants to can easily produce a specialised "spin" of Fedora suited exactly to their own needs. That's one of the main innovations that Fedora is pursuing with the above: instead of being stuck dependent on the choices of a distributor you can benefit from the patched sources, even their packaging, yet diverge when needed. This should be the goal that every distribution follows, and the only thing that is similar in terms of flexibility is Gentoo, but that IMHO fails to provide an easy path for those that are happy with a distributor making the decisions for them.

I'll freely admit to being a Fedora and Red Hat fan, but I hope that the significance of the release of these build tools is not overlooked by people using other distributions.

WOW Xorg 7.3?!

Not even x.org has 7.3 yet! Fedora is really on top of things!

Not quite correct. Still nice.

It's not Xorg 7.3 that's packaged with Fedora, but Xorg 7.2 with the xorg-server 1.3.0 release. It still features very interesting software, like, for example, noveau [freedesktop.org], a free reimplementation of NVIDIA's hardware-accelerated 3D-drivers (still work in progress, of course), as well as a kernel patched with the all-new and highly anticipated mac802.11 [intellinuxwireless.org]-subsystem that whould yield much better compatibility and performance for all things WLAN. I also like this idea of "Revisor [heise.de]", an application easily allowing for building customized bootable (install-)media with specific packages only.

Slashdotted already!

Can't find the release notes, they're already 404'ed from slashdotting.

404 Not Found

release notes: 404 Not Found

Go slashdot Editors! Way to earn that paycheck! Keep up the hard work.

Release notes available (as Beats)

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Beats [fedoraproject.org] I'm pretty sure those are quite similar to what we would have found on the 404'ed Release Notes page.

EFI?

I don't see EFI boot in the notes. Is this really still not supported?

-Peter

Was already 404ed

The release notes page was already hosed before this hit slashdot. Go here. [redhat.com]

Anybody knows

Anybody knows where one can try that "revolutionary new build system"?

ISO images? not so much

On the several sites I have so far explored, I see no ISO images. Moreover, the folders are labeled up through v6, with v7 apparently in the development folder. Score another point for the sloppiness of Linux distros....

Megaraid2 Performance

Does anyone know anything about the horrible performance issues with the Megaraid2 driver in FC6 (2.6.20 kernel performs at about 30% of the 2.4.31 kernel as far as Disk IO is concerned)? It appears to be a driver issue.

The hardware I'm running on is a Dell PowerEdge 2950/1950s with a PERC4 (LSI Raid Controller). Two SCSI drives that are mirroring (forgot which RAID level that is off hand).

I wonder if this issue has been resolved in the 2.6.21 Kernel.

Sorry CD Users

Fedora 7 is released with a DVD iso. If you need the set of CD isos, sorry. You'll have to wait to see if anyone is nice enough to create them in the future. You can try to use the rescue cd and a network install, but again, you'll have to wait until the bandwidth opens up enough for that. So, either upgrade your computer or stick with FC6.

Re:Sorry CD Users

The LiveCDs aren't CDs?

No. They are not. I want a set of CDs with all the RPMs on them (just as I had with FC2, 3, 4, 5, and 6). The LiveCDs have a minimal Fedora install. If you want to put it on your computer (and toss out the CD), you need to do a network install. I have 17 computers here. I don't want to wait hours and hours for a network install on each one.

Torrents rock!

The 64bit DVD torrent is going like shit of a shovel right now.

256kB/s as I type this...

Looks like I'll have it in 4 hours.

Fedora Security

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned one of Fedora's major strengths; security [fedoraproject.org]. This is the primary reason that I use Fedora. The combination of security layers has made Fedora immune to many (all?) of the compromises/exploits in recent history.

While distributions like Ubuntu are more popular with end-users, I'm concerned that an exploit across such a popular (but security weak) distribution will paint all of Linux with an unfavorable brush.

i386 cds torrent?

I'm not finding a torrent for the i386 cds... I have a few servers with old CD drives in them (only used for installs like this). So, I have to do CDs not a DVD.

Screenies

For those as lazy as me, the screenshots can be found here [fedoraproject.org]. The website navigation is unfortunately not overly intuitive.

Fedora 7 does look very polished tho - at first glance anyway. I might give it a go this weekend :).

FC5 should have been supported for 2 years!

I posted a somewhat trollish comment about this earlier today. Nice to see that the fanbois made it out in such good time on this one to defend the indefensible. Good to see we leap to attack people instead of considering the actions of the Fedora project and their associated projects.

What most people are completely missing in their ad hominem attacks on my earlier thread is that when a lot of people installed FC5, there was an expectation that it would be supported for 2 years through the Fedora Legacy project. On February 9 2007, this project ceased to exist, giving people just 4 months to migrate their servers.

If Microsoft suddenly halved the supported lifespan of products currently in production, they would be crucified by the very people attacking me on this site. But when an open source project does this, it's ok.

You can call the people who installed FC5 idiots all you want, but they're not. They trusted this 'community' that they kept being preached at about. "When a company goes under, you're screwed, but with community supported products, you're never forced to upgrade" - That sound familiar to anyone here? You ever told anyone that? You ever heard that line of bullshit from someone ?

A lot of people figured 2 years was an acceptable lifespan for the product because it fits well with hardware refresh cycles on older equipment. Then half way through their 2 year server lifecycle, they had the rug pulled out from under them. On a date when they thought they had about 11 - 13 months support left, they got told that they have 4 months to do a complete migration.

Calling people who trusted you an idiot for believing you does not convert people to Linux!

I made one mistake in my earlier post - I said that support for FC5 ends today. It turns out that it still has a month to go, so I'll apologise for that. But the Fedora community has let a lot of people down today and given Microsoft a load more useful FUD fuel.

Every time something like this happens, MS have some more examples of how this community will turn on you in a heartbeat. When the Tuttle Centos issue happened, MS were taking the response of the 'community' into sales meetings where Linux was a threat. When a Squirrelmail developer called for an end-user to be fired and belittled her in public for daring to use contact details posted on the Squirrelmail site when she didn't know where else to turn, MS smiled with glee (and a small white cat). And you can bet your bottom dollar that someone at MS will be pointing out this latest gaff to someone in the PR department and they'll be using this behind closed doors in the near future too.

You probably don't care - you probably know better. But somewhere, some PHB who could have been converted to Linux will become an even firmer closed source supporter because of the actions of the Fedora and Fedora legacy projects that come into effect today. And when you're fighting a monopolist, every sale or install that you give up through rudeness, through arrogance and most especially through broken promises and lies is one install too many!

I'll say it again - If Microsoft suddenly halved the supported lifespan of products currently in production, they would be crucified by the very people attacking me on this site. But when an open source project does this, it's ok. Why?

Bizarre Install Failure on my Thinkpad

I've been running Fedora on an IBM Thinkpad R40 since Core 4 and have been able to upgrade without problems to the successive releases -- until now! Burned the Fedora 7 iso this morning, did the media-check, proceeded with the upgrade/install and it bombed: "Unable to read partition table on /dev/sda". Wow! Interesting, considering the Thinkpad doesn't have SCSI. It's got a 40GB IDE managed with LVM. Can't wait to see what it says on my home system (all SCSI with LVM). Let's just say my confidence in this distro drops way down with this experience.

Re:Does it use a "hacked" kernel?

While Linus and the rest of the Kernel's (play on "Peanuts") gang adhere to GPL, many distributions do not, and they patch the kernel with non-GPL patches or configure the kernel to work with old and outdated "drivers" from hardware manufacturers who refuse to open up their source.

Additionally, the big distros are usually some of the main contributors of code to the kernel. Sometimes they have modifications to the kernel that they feel should have been included in the mainline. Sometimes it turns out that they were right but that the changes haven't been tested thoroughly yet.

Lastly, some stuff, like Bootsplash, could easily remain a project on its own without having to be part of the mainline kernel.

-Benjamin Vander Jagt

Re:Does it use a "hacked" kernel?

It annoys me that of the big distros (hello Suse) seem to think that the standard kernel isn't good enough for them.

It annoys me that you don't know that this is the official method for distributing kernels today.

The same is also true of glibc.

Is there a good reason they seem to think they know better than Linus and all the other devs working hard on the standard kernel

You may choose the distribution you want to run. You could choose one without a pile of patches to the kernel. Several of the features of many of these distributions depend on those kernel patches. If you don't want those features, don't run those distributions.

You might just as well ask why Linus thinks he knows better than the users, who want those drivers.

Can you say Xen?

> Is there a good reason they seem to think they know better than Linus and all the other devs working hard on the standard kernel
> or is it just an ego trip for the developers at these distros?

Yes, there are lots of good reasons. We can start with Xen. All of the big distros support it but it isn't in the mainline kernel tree. So right there you blow away the ability to run the mainline kernel without breaking things. The list goes on from there. The latest device drivers that haven't yet made it upstream, bug fixes that are working their way upstream, etc. There are lots of other good reasons why a distro kernel gets patches.

SUSE, like RHEL is longterm stable. That means bug fixes and security issues get patched into the same base kernel that originally shipped with that version of the distro because revving the whole kernel would be a nightmare.

That said, Fedora does have a policy of trying to stay close to the upstream kernel, pushing their patches upline wherever possible and not being afraid to revv the whole kernel in the lifetime of a 'stable' release. But when it comes down to big patchsets like Xen that they really want to ship but that neither Xen nor Linus appear interested in seeing merged they don't really have much of a choice. Longterm, just as an interested bystander, I'd suspect Xen to disappear from Fedora once KVM gets stable enough to totally replace it for the non-enterprise workloads Fedora is aimed at.

Re:Does it use a "hacked" kernel?

I don't know about you, but all distro's I worked with, I have been able to compile a custom kernel. To make it really easy, usually they have the 'kernel-sources.rpm' (for SuSE and Fedora/RedHat) but you could just as well download the latest from kernel.org. The problem is usually, that when YOU compile a kernel, that YOU don't know which options should be turned on to make that particular distro work again (like SELinux or JFS/ReiserFS) but I have not heard yet that they develop their own kernel extensions.

Fedora use a hacked kernel?

Ummm.... The short answer is yes. The long answer is that there are a gigantic number of patches, but they seem to miss out on a lot of the key patches out there and I'm not impressed with some of the stuff they've included. In order to do a lot of useful things, I've got to roll my own kernel, but because the patchset provided with FC is so convoluted, I can't use any of their patches. Which means I lose all the functionality that actually is provided and actually is useful.

What I'd like is for Red Hat to build better diffs, develop some alternative scheme for merging in new code, or get as many of their patches rolled into the -mm tree as possible, then use the -mm tree exclusively. It may not be a true vanilla kernel, but at least -mm is openly maintained, heavily used, popular and actively folded into the mainstream.

Look at the article

The article tells the KDE version included.

Both KDE and XFCE [fedoranews.org] have been included in the test version repositories, so they should be in the final release.

I have not used Red Hat since version 4.2, but I think I'll give the live dvd a spin to see what they've changed since then. I'll probably stick with debian and Zenwalk as my main distro's though.

Re:Moonshine?

Sweeet! Using Fedora 7 is going to be more fun than I expected. Except I probably won't remember much of the experience the next morning.

Re:Does it use a "hacked" kernel?

Is there a good reason they seem to think they know better than Linus and all the other devs working hard on the standard kernel


Linus and the other kernel devs have different, but partially overlapping goals. Distributions value stable, well tested kernels with new features as a secondary goal. Kernel devs want new features, increased performance, etc, with stability perhaps a bit less of a priority.

So it's not that Redhat/SuSe/Ubuntu "know better", it's that the distributions work on kernel stability a lot more than the kernel devs. This is NOT anything new. The days of thinking you should go get "the latest kernel from Linus" and just expect everything to work properly went away years ago. Did I used to go re-compile my kernel from the vanilla source? Sure. Do I do it anymore? Hell no, and without a good reason to I never will. If you want that sort of thing, pick a distribution that values the vanilla kernel. Otherwise stop griping.

Un-hacked kernels (Slackware)

So it's not that Redhat/SuSe/Ubuntu "know better", it's that the distributions work on kernel stability a lot more than the kernel devs. This is NOT anything new. The days of thinking you should go get "the latest kernel from Linus" and just expect everything to work properly went away years ago. Did I used to go re-compile my kernel from the vanilla source? Sure. Do I do it anymore? Hell no, and without a good reason to I never will. If you want that sort of thing, pick a distribution that values the vanilla kernel. Otherwise stop griping.

Slackware (my favourite distro) uses utterly vanilla kernels. Want a new one? Download it from kernel.org, untar it, build it. No sweat.

I consider building a custom kernel to be an integral part of an installation: all the distro kernel does is bootstrap building the production one. All my systems run kernels that are a precise match to the hardware and my needs, with no superfluous junk. No superfluous security holes, either.

...laura

Re:What's the story with Extras?

Core and Extras have been merged into a single repository, so those names no longer exist. But what you are looking for DOES exist. It's all there in the "Everything" version of Fedora. That's an install tree that we provide at (for example):

http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux /releases/7/Everything/ [redhat.com]

Re:Does it use a "hacked" kernel?

Afaik, all distributions (except possibly Slackware, which I haven't used for awhile) have their own kernel patches. I use Gentoo, and gentoo-sources does have a lot of patches. I've never had any luck with any of the distro "custom" kernels. I've had stability issues with every one of them, Gentoo included. I've been running Gentoo as my primary OS on 4 computers for 4 years now, been using vanilla-sources (stock kernel) the whole time, without missing out on anything except possibly bootsplash, which I don't use.

Developers decided this

The Linux developers decided that all distros had to stabilise the kernel for them when they moved to the insane method of developing in the 'stable' kernel.

So if you want a stable API / ABI, you're forced to have some very hot staff on the payroll who can backport all fixes and drivers.

Re:Does it use a "hacked" kernel?

Actually, it's the *job* of a distro to make choices about what to include, and to adapt what they include to meet that distro's particular goals. That's not an ego trip.

That said, for the most part Fedora's mantra is "upstream". If you read the devel list, they frequently push away patches to the kernel that are not upstream.

Re:Yay! Fedora 5 is now...

No Fedora 5 gets another month. In fact they pushed out some updates today.

Re:Yay! Fedora 5 is now...

With respect you're an idiot. Fedora is NOT designed or distributed as a stable plateform with long term support, if you want that from a Redhat type install use Enterprise or CentOs. Fedora *is* however the cutting edge of Redhat development and I use it across all my (personal) servers and PCs/Laptops ungrading when nessesary.

Re:Does it use a "hacked" kernel?

Yes, Fedora and any sane distribution will have its own version of the Linux kernel.

No one think they're better then upstream developers, the point is that *this* *is* the recommend way to work, for several reasons:

1. Some patches that are important to customers, may not be in mainline yet due to the long process submit-review-fix-submit process (eg, xen) or even because no one cared of submitting it

2. The kernel is changing very fast these days, while distros usually has a longer release process. Then you end up by freezing an 'old' kernel that works for your distro

3. If you freeze a kernel, you'll have to backport things making the original kernel looks quite different

  Also, forks in the Linux kernel is not seem as a bad thing. On the contrary, forking is the recommended way to work: you fork the Linus' tree, work on it locally and then submit your changes. That's the way GIT works.

  And you CAN use /proc/config.gz from a modified kernel. The kernel build system will just discard any invalid symbol on a 'make oldconfig'.

That Isn't Right

(Yay! Fedora Core 5 is now) no longer updated and a liability on every single server that it is installed on.

Let the MS bashing begin... somehow.

Neat!

No one may be preparing software for your FC5 server but that is very different than what you are implying. If you still have a FC5 server, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from updating the software today with the latest source. What has stopped is someone doing the work for you. There is no legal or physical restrictions stopping a system engineer from grabbing the source for any software component and trying to recompile it where there is a fairly good chance it will compile "as is" without source modification on a FC5 machine. This seems to be a lot better support than Microsoft offers which is the same "as is support" but with less options because you can't modify the black box they sold you.

Re:Yay! Fedora 5 is now...

Fedora always has been and (looking like) always will be a fast-moving distribution. For servers, if you want the Fedora/RedHat style without putting up the RedHat money, use CentOS. CentOS 5 is also plenty usable as a desktop and there are as many addon repos for RHEL/CentOS as there are for Fedora.

Re:Does it use a "hacked" kernel?

Considering the 2.6 kernel releases are just one long string of development releases, I would hope that Fedora would ship with a patched and tested kernel.

If you want to update your kernel in distributions like Fedora and Suse, use the update manager. They're very quick to release security updates. If all you want is driver updates, you can build those outside of the kernel source (for example, Intel's e1000 driver).

Misidentification of liability

I'd say the liability is not Fedora, the liability is the idiot admin who used Fedora on a production server.

Re:Yay! Fedora 5 is now...

Take a reading comprehension class dickhead. No-one has any complaints filed against me. I have filed two criminal reports that are still pending.

Be careful with allegations like the one you just made. It's easy to be a coward behind a keyboard, but that shit can get you fucked up badly if you ever meet someone you've made those kind of statements to in real life.

Re:Yay! Fedora 5 is now...

Windows 98 was supported for more than 1 year. FC5 was not. FC6 won't be. FC7 won't be.

We'd crucify MS if they dropped support for something one year in.

Re:Distribution Wars?

Distrowatch [distrowatch.com], maybe?

I started out with RedHat 6.x, and kept with it until about Fedora Core 2, at which point I started looking around at some other distros. I settled on Ubuntu, and while I think Fedora is great for certain people, I think Ubuntu is a better general-purpose distro.

There's one install disc, which contains everything most users need to get started, then users can use the "Add/Remove Programs" app or Synaptic to get whatever else they need from the repos. Fedora on the other hand, has 5 or 6, unless you use a dvd iso (hope you don't run into bandwidth cap problems), and if you try to skip burning one CD, but the installer decides it needs one package off that CD you're screwed (I don't think there's even a way to cancel the install at that point, or go back and change which packages you want installed). On the other hand, it looks like Fedora offers a network install option, which would be very handy, I think.

I don't know about Fedora 7, but I do know that the latest Ubuntu has put a lot of effort into making it easy to get binary drivers and proprietary codecs if you want them, whereas past versions of Fedora didn't include those.

Ubuntu, on the other hand, doesn't include any development packages by default, so if you want to even consider building anything from source, you have to install the build-essential package. Fedora includes most of the common development stuff by default (or at the very least, you can choose to include it during the install).

For me, I just prefer the look and feel of Ubuntu's default Gnome setup over Fedora's. The default Fedora desktop gives me a headache. Same goes for the respective KDE desktops.

So, in all, I think Ubuntu is a better all-purpose user distro, especially for those new to Linux. Fedora would probably be better for developers, or for someone who wants to customize their installation more, to get exactly the type of system they want.

Re:Yay! Fedora 5 is now...

That's unfortunate, but isn't Fedora supposed to be more of a cutting-edge system not really aimed at "production" servers? Seems like Red Hat Enterprise, CentOS, or Debian (just a few examples, not a full list of course) would be more appropriate for environments that need updates over a long time frame.

Re:Yay! Fedora 5 is now...

You can upgrade from Fedora 5 to Fedora 6 via yum

http://www.ioncannon.net/system-administration/99/ upgrade-fc5-to-fc6-with-yum/ [ioncannon.net]

Re:Moonshine?

Moonshine? you have got to be kidding me!

That's because the DSL modem support only works with Speakeasy.

Re:Yay! Fedora 5 is now...

Actually, any version of Fedora will have FedoraLegacy support for the current version plus two back:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legacy/FAQ [fedoraproject.org]

Using Fedora on production servers isn't wise, unless you plan to upgrade yearly. As others have pointed out, use CentOS 5.0. EL 5.0 will have patches for 7 more years (2014!).