Red Hat Begins Testing Core 5

Robert wrote to mention a CBR Online article which reports that Red Hat has begun testing on Fedora Core 5. From the article: "The next version of Raleigh, North Carolina-based Red Hat's enterprise Linux distribution is not scheduled for release until the second half of 2006 but will include stateless Linux and Xen virtualization functionality and improved management capabilities. Fedora Core 5 Release 1 includes updated support for XenSource Inc's open source server virtualization software, as well as new versions of the Gnome and KDE user interfaces, and the final version of the OpenOffice.org application suite."

better wireless hopefully... and install...

[taxman_10m]

My experience trying to setup wireless with Fedora Core 4 was brutal. Nothing I needed was in the initial install. With no net connection in linux I had to keep booting into my windows partition to search for any help at all on how to set things up and then download what I needed. And then go back into linux to toil and then fail. And then repeat the process. Eventually I got my card at least detected, but when I activated it the whole machine hung. So I gave up on Red Hat.

Ubuntu detected my wireless card. But has no WPA support.

It seems that Suse will also detect things, but also has no WPA support. They also have no Live CD. Why they can make a Live DVD but not a Live CD is beyond me. Just shave off some crap. All I want to know is if your distro will support my machine or not.

Linux on the Desktop? Not if the user has a wireless card.

The last time I installed Fedora Core 4 off a boot CD I was amazed that to do an ftp install I still had to punch in manually what mirror I wanted to do the install from. Computer games have been grabbing "master server lists" for some time now. Can't something similar be worked into the FTP install?

Re:better wireless hopefully... and install...

[ettlz]

I think you're being a little unfair. You can't simply install FC4 and expect everything to just go like Windows does, because the latter operating system often has vendor support — so Linux does damn well to get as far as it does! Sure, some post-install work is required, but once it's set up it works like a charm. I have WPA EAP/TLS working quite happily with my IPW2200. OK, I had to download and build the drivers and wpa_supplicant, but is that much less hassle than the rigmarole of sorting it all out in Windows? Once NetworkManager is completed, with full WPA support, things will be much smoother. Until then, be patient — or get hacking.

Re:Any chance of an English translation of this??

[MSG]

Calm down, dude. Stateless Linux [redhat.com] and Xen [xensource.com] are the actual names of projects included in Fedora Core. They are not buzzwords or marketspeak. "Open source server virtualization [redhat.com] software" was slightly redundant, but it is also a plain English description of Xen, which is exactly what you're asking for.

so the better alternative is to

[taxman_10m]

Give the user a complete non-working system?

At the point where the STABLE system does not detect the networking correctly or cannot configure the user should right then and there be able to grab the UNSTABLE stuff which in all likelihood will get their networking to work, albeit unstably.

Re:A little clarification?

[LnxAddct]

The Fedora devs are pretty involved with OpenOffice. When Core 4 was released it was shipped with OpenOffice.Org 1.979 or something like that. Obviously Core4 has since been update to 2.0, but they are either referring to 2.0 or maybe 2.1x which is still in development but will be more stable by release time (and Fedora will be undergoing a ton of testing and stability checks over the next 3 months now that the test releases are out). Fedora was the first distribution to have OpenOffice.org use a native interface, they tend to have the coolest stuff first, mainly because the Fedora developers code large portions of the code themselves (in contrast to many other distributions which simply package up other people's programs and call it a distro without really contributing any code back).
Regards,
Steve

I'm not a windows lover

[taxman_10m]

I keep trying to install linux because I've used it in the past and like it. At this point it's like battered wife syndrome.

You think wireless security is optional and call me an idiot?

I think getting networking working is fundamental. And if that means giving the user the option of using an unstable piece of software then that is what must be done.

Re:Congrats Fedora Core Team!

[zerocool^]

*Sigh*

The reason that I and many others don't like redhat is becaus they're not "making a buck", they're making millions and millions of dollars while screwing small business.

I worked at a place that used RedHat almost exclusively on our servers (and some of these were customer's servers, some were ours). We used 7.1-7.3, 8.0, and 9. We liked them all. Heck, I still really like 7.3.

But, all of a sudden, out of the blue, RedHat announced "no more free linux from us". Then, they released RHEL, and it was a couple of months before they announced Fedora Core was coming out. RHEL pricing is completely insane. It's VASTLY more expensive than freaking WINDOWS. $180 for a workstation version, with NO SUPPORT and ONE YEAR of software updates?? Jesus. WinXP costs $180, but it comes with support, and at least 5 years of updates, 10 for security fixes. Plus, Microsoft doesn't ask you to repurchase every year to get more support. Want RHEL Server? Minimum you're going to pay is $300+, and that's again, without phone support, whithout installation support, and only a year of software updates. People talk about them making money on support... I don't see any support coming from them excepting when you pay out the nose.

RHEL is the reason that there's a grain of truth to those studies about TCO of linux.

And people point to Fedora... Well, fedora is only supported for 6 months at a time, and then you go through a violent upgrade cycle if you want to stay current. Plus, I'm not going to do their beta testing for them. Screw that. Test your own damn product; you sure are making enough money.

There's also issues about the effort put into it. For one: I keep hearing people say that redhat contributes "Millions" to the open source community. Where? And is it significant compared to the return they get on it? Are they only doing it because it benifits them? I know they pay the salaries of several people who are "RedHat employees", but really just kernel hack, but Millions? Really? For two: They DIDN'T EVEN WRITE THEIR DAMN SOFTWARE. As bad as Windows is (and it is), at least Microsoft wrote it. Redhat took the same shit that everyone else has in their distros, packaged it, and added a few configuration utilities and a logo.

Maybe it's just that all of a sudden, when I worked in Webhosting, the razor-thin margins that were there on servers dissappeared when we realized that we were going to have to pass along $600+/yr to our clients in order to give them the support they needed, or leave them in the lurch with an unsupported redhat 9.0 that had only been out for 8 months... but, really... screw redhat.

"If you have to ask, you don't know Linux or Open Source". Right. I know redhat. And no thanks.

~w

Re:Too Little, Too Late

[Anonymous Coward]

I started my Linux Forays with Fedora Core 2. Since then it has given me not a small portion of grief. Yum in paticular is a huge letdown. It is SLOW.

Yum switched to using a different python library for XML parsing, and is using SQLite for storage in FC4. It is much faster and takes much less memory than in previous releases.

Fedora packages are quite simply broken. I'm not even talking about the whole DVD/mp3 issue. Most apps requiring GTK2 won't install as Fedora has labeled it as gtk+.

Fedora Core packages work well with other Fedora Core packages, and packages from Fedora Extras. I've never had problems with package names in Fedora. Are you using some goofy third-party repository, or packages for another RPM-based distro? That doesn't work. If you try to use a Fedora package on Mandriva or SuSE, it's the same problem.

The complete lack of GUI admin tools was also a serious letdown.

Specifics? There are many GUI config tools in Fedora, quite a few added since FC2.

It seems you have formed many opinions from an old versin of Fedora, and never checked newer releases to see if the specific problems you had were solved.

Re:They should be farther along

[utnow]

He's not saying that the GTK optimisation was the problem that caused the delay... he's saying that the GTK speedup is needed NOW instead of 9 months from now and that's a problem BECAUSE of the delay.

Re:They should be farther along

[sp0rk173]

Er...i think what's more apparent is YOUR stupidity. He wasn't saying the optimizations in GTK and Gnome is what was slowing Fedora's release cycle down. He way saying that BECAUSE of things slowing the release cycle down (like those you listed) Fedora users will have to wait until the next release to get all the nice things that are now going into GTK and Gnome. Unless they want to install "unstable" stuff.

Re:Congrats Fedora Core Team!

[killjoe]

"But, all of a sudden, out of the blue, RedHat announced "no more free linux from us". Then, they released RHEL, and it was a couple of months before they announced Fedora Core was coming out. RHEL pricing is completely insane."

All they said was that they wer eno longer interested in trying to support mom and pop with redhat. There is nothing wrong with that. They didn't take anything away from you, you still have fedora core.

If you want EL without paying for it there is centos and others too.

Red Hat is in the support business. When you pay for RHEL you are paying for support and in order for them to deliver credible support they have to have a known good quantity to support. RHEL is simply a support package against a known good snapshot of Fedora Core.

By the way if you think that when you buy windows XP MS will answer all your questions for five years you are in for a big surprise.

100% FUD

[bani]

strange, I work at an ISP and we've had used exclusively redhat, from RH5 all the way to FC4 without problems.

For one: I keep hearing people say that redhat contributes "Millions" to the open source community. Where?

http://sources.redhat.com/ecos/ [redhat.com] http://sources.redhat.com/redboot/ [redhat.com] http://sourceware.org/jffs2/ [sourceware.org] http://cygwin.com/ [cygwin.com] http://people.redhat.com/mingo/exec-shield/ [redhat.com] http://sourceware.org/insight/ [sourceware.org] http://sourceware.org/cluster/ [sourceware.org] http://sourceware.org/systemtap/ [sourceware.org]

and don't forget ext3 is largely bankrolled by redhat.

there's lots more. just because you're unaware of it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

And is it significant compared to the return they get on it?

why don't you ask them?

Are they only doing it because it benifits them?

why don't you ask them?

I know they pay the salaries of several people who are "RedHat employees", but really just kernel hack, but Millions?

yes. sure, redhat employs kernel devs like alan, ingo and arjen. redhat also pays to employ gcc and gdb developers. and others.

Really?

yep.

For two: They DIDN'T EVEN WRITE THEIR DAMN SOFTWARE.

really? who wrote rpm then? should you not then lambast mandrake and suse for using rpm, because they didn't write it?

sure there are legitimate gripes about fedora. that's no reason to make stuff up.