Fedora 7 Released 186
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? (Score:1, Insightful)
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? (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't think they have fallen behind at all. The lack of mp3 support and other non-free software is a policy decision and I think it is a good one. I have tried Ubuntu and the only difference I can tell as an end user is the inclusion of the non-free software and drivers. This is very convenient for the free as is beer crowd but does is detrimental to free software in general.
Re:Does it use a "hacked" kernel? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Yay! Fedora 5 is now... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Does it use a "hacked" kernel? (Score:2, Insightful)
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
Re:Sorry CD Users (Score:3, Insightful)
Fedora Security (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
FC5 should have been supported for 2 years! (Score:3, Insightful)
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?
Re:FC5 should have been supported for 2 years! (Score:1, Insightful)