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Red Hat Software Businesses Software Linux

Fedora 9 Preview Cleared for Launch 158

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the free-bits dept.
According to a post made yesterday to the Fedora announce mailing list, a Fedora 9 preview has been cleared for launch. "This is a Preview release, it is fairly close to what the final product will be like. This is the most critical release for the Fedora community to use and test and report bugs on. This is the last major public release before the final GOLD Fedora 9 release on May 13th (we hope). [...] Live images, KDE Live images, CDs and DVD options are available. http://torrent.fedoraproject.org has a section marked 'F9-Preview.'"
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Fedora 9 Preview Cleared for Launch More

Fedora 9 Preview Cleared for Launch

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  • Anyone have a link, or know off-hand, the major differences between this and the latest Ubuntu release? I realize there's the APT/RPM difference, but aside from that, what is notable?

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Phisbut ( 761268 )

      Anyone have a link, or know off-hand, the major differences between this and the latest Ubuntu release? I realize there's the APT/RPM difference, but aside from that, what is notable?

      KDE 4 [fedoraproject.org], among other things.

    • Re:Differences (Score:5, Informative)

      by zedlander ( 1271502 ) on Friday April 18, 2008 @02:21PM (#23120642) Homepage
      Fedora vs. Ubuntu [polishlinux.org]
      • Thanks much, that was a very helpful link!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by arakon ( 97351 )
        That comparison dates from 2006... have anything more current?
      • Distro Kombat!!
        dundun..dundun..dundun..dundunDUNdun

        Fedora
        Ubuntu
        Slackware
        Gentoo
        SUSE
        Yellow Dog
        etc.

        dun.dun.DEN.dun.DEN.dun.dun.DUN
        Distro Kombat!!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by miro f ( 944325 )
        Can't people just show the default look?

        kind of ironic that the Fedora Core pic is all browns and oranges, whereas the Ubuntu pic is all blues.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by pembo13 ( 770295 )

      Major difference? Well I can't enumerate them, but I can generalize things you'll see in Fedora compared to Ubuntu

      • Continued work SELinux
      • Continued work NetworkManager
      • Continued work on PulseAudio
      • Some other stuff that will make its way to Ubuntu once the bugs get worked out within Fedora (and upstream)
      • Less specialization (ie. as a desktop) just a general operating system with utils and applications
      • Work towards upstart (something Ubuntu already has I believe)
      • Think I saw a few threads about ext4
      • Think I

      • Major difference? Well I can't enumerate them, but I can generalize things you'll see in Fedora compared to Ubuntu

        [...]

        • Continued work on PulseAudio

        Not sure what you mean by that. Both Fedora and Ubuntu use PulseAudio these days. But of course there might be differences between them in how well they use it.

        So, I just booted up the Fedora Preview to see just that, the reason being that in Ubuntu sound stutters if your CPU isn't very powerful (typically when you minimize/maximize a window or some other activity that causes a brief spike in CPU). Here is the bug [launchpad.net], which I guess won't be fixed before release.

        Sadly I was unable to test PulseAudio on t

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by QuantumRiff ( 120817 )
      the Apt/RPM is a huge difference. I used to love Fedora, and (still) run RHEL at the office on our servers. RHEL is fine, as I don't play and experement and try new things on it, but Fedora got to be a real pain in the ass with RPM Dependancies. I would find an RPM of something I wanted to install, it required me to first find and install another RPM, etc. Sometimes one of the dependant RPM's would not install, because I had a newer/older version for another program. Apt-get has worked flawlessly for m

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by QuantumRiff ( 120817 )
        after looking at the reply above to Fedora vs. Ubuntu [polishlinux.org] it appears that the package management has been drastically improved with Apt-Yum. I will have to play with Fedora again.

      • Re:Differences (Score:5, Informative)

        by Phisbut ( 761268 ) on Friday April 18, 2008 @02:54PM (#23121046)

        I would find an RPM of something I wanted to install, it required me to first find and install another RPM, etc. Sometimes one of the dependant RPM's would not install, because I had a newer/older version for another program. Apt-get has worked flawlessly for me, and the HUGE pool of apps that just work has made it so I almost never have to search for .DEB files.

        Comparing RPM to apt-get is apples to oranges. Either compare RPM to DEB, or yum to apt-get. I never had to bother with dependencies when using yum, just as you've never had to bother with dependencies using apt-get.

        • Re:Differences (Score:5, Informative)

          by proxima ( 165692 ) on Friday April 18, 2008 @03:57PM (#23121806)

          Comparing RPM to apt-get is apples to oranges. Either compare RPM to DEB, or yum to apt-get. I never had to bother with dependencies when using yum, just as you've never had to bother with dependencies using apt-get.

          I completely agree. Since my distros of choice over the last 5 years have been Fedora and Debian/Ubuntu, I've had a fair bit of experience with both yum and apt-get. Yum, at least as of the Fedora 8 install on my desktop, is simply not as good (IMO) as apt-get in Debian or Ubuntu for two reasons:

          1.) yum is slow, horribly horribly slow. I think it may have gotten a little better in Fedora 8, and I've heard that they're putting serious work into it. Hopefully Fedora 9 will be better, but it never ceases to amaze me how long it takes to do a "yum search" to look for a package compared to "apt-cache search".

          2.) The package repositories for Ubuntu (which is derived from the huge repository from Debian) are larger and more complete, at least for the random software I tend to look for. Again, Fedora is gaining in this regard, the community-supported package setup is starting to rival Ubuntu's universe, making this a huge step up over the old RedHat 7/8/9 days compared to Debian at that time. When it comes to software outside of either repository, RPMs tend to be more common than debs, which is an advantage for Fedora.

          So yum (and the standard underlying repositories) are behind in those respects compared to apt-get, but the difference is shrinking. In yum's defense, I think they implemented package signing as a default requirement before Debian did, but I could be wrong on that.

          I've run Fedora on my desktop for a while, but Kubuntu on my laptop. I honestly don't know what I'll install on my desktop next. I usually skip every other release, and since I'm on FC 8, that means waiting until FC10. This might be good anyway; I'm a KDE user, and KDE 4.0 just doesn't look feature complete. Best to wait until KDE 4.1 polishes everything a bit more, perhaps. I'm debating whether to try out the latest Kubuntu on my laptop when it's released this month to try out KDE 4.0.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by init100 ( 915886 )

            it never ceases to amaze me how long it takes to do a "yum search" to look for a package compared to "apt-cache search".

            This is because apt-cache only searches the local cache, while Yum always ventures out onto the 'net to fetch the latest package and file lists.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by proxima ( 165692 )

              This is because apt-cache only searches the local cache, while Yum always ventures out onto the 'net to fetch the latest package and file lists.

              I know that used to be true, but when I just tried it yum gave no indication that it was going out and retrieving any file lists (but perhaps it still was in the background). For me, that seems like a dumb default setting. The "apt-get update" system seems to work well: update your repository info when you want to, and work with it from then on. That way if you d

      • The merging of core and extras has helped quite a bit with this. I personally never really had much problems with rpm hell. I've had even a less problem ever since apt-rpm and yum. Now I have even lesser problems with a single huge repository and a couple of extra repos for proprietary codecs and drivers. It's been *really* smooth for me.

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by cbart387 ( 1192883 )

          Now I have even lesser problems with a single huge repository and a couple of extra repos for proprietary codecs and drivers. It's been *really* smooth for me.

          I agree. The only issue I've had was with a livna package overriding a package from an 'official' repository and causing yum to not complete an update. If you use the extra repositories I'd recommend the protectbase [centos.org] plugin. It provides a way to give precedence over certain repos so that you don't make yum mad.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Znork ( 31774 )
            Even better, use priorities [centos.org] so you can protect repos you are more dependent upon over peripheral ones.

            After setting up yum priorities I don't think yum has had any dependency problems even with three or four external repos active.
            • It sounds like it accomplishes the same task. Is there a particular reason that you advocate priorities over protectbase?

              • It sounds like it accomplishes the same task. Is there a particular reason that you advocate priorities over protectbase?
                Priorities allows you to have a heirarchy of levels, protectbase is either on or off.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Znork ( 31774 )
                It can accomplish the same task, but it can also accomplish more. For example, say you have a mythtv machine with mythtv installed from ATrpms. In such a case you may want to protect the base OS from ATrpms, but also protect ATrpms from, for example, livna updates. Or you might have a music workstation running CCRMA packages and want to protect those from lower priority repos, while still retaining base protection.

                The difference is probably most noticable if you run some of those high complexity mass-depend

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pembo13 ( 770295 )
        A discussion about RPM and DEB, and suprise suprise, you mention Apt but not yum. Here's a tip: `yum localinstall RpmIManuallyDloaded.rpm`. The size pool of apps have little to do with RPM v. DEB as far as I know.
      • It seems pretty accepted that RPM has "dependancy hell" issues. The HUGE problem with package management, for me, is that there are a lot of people saying RPM should be ditched in favour of Dpkg or some yet-to-be-made system, but ALL of those arguments are essentially arguing for a packaging standard.

        Well, RPM *IS* the packaging standard in the Linux Standard Base (see http://refspecs.linux-foundation.org/LSB_3.2.0/LSB-Core-generic/LSB-Core-generic/pkgformat.html [linux-foundation.org] ). Thus a standard Linux system should eithe

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Znork ( 31774 )
          "dependancy hell" issues

          Dependency hell isn't really a function of the package format, the issue is intrinsic to reasonably complex software dependency environments, and the hell is what you get for not using an automatic depsolver. Of course, as there originally wasn't one that handled RPM's (like apt for debs), it's tended to get the blame.

          When I used Fedora back in the Core 3 days I used Apt4RPM and Synaptic

          These days you'd probably use yum and yumex. Using yum-priorites for repos and you'll have very li

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nzeer ( 968326 )
        Comparing rpm to apt is just wrong. rpm is a packaging format, while apt is a package management system. Comparing rpm to deb would be fine. Comparing yum to apt would be fine. As a side note... yum is a very capable package management system nowadays.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by fyrie ( 604735 )
      First huge difference between the two is that Ubuntu has professional support if you want it. Another huge difference between the two is that Ubuntu typically only gets security updates and major bug fixes during a version lifespan whereas Fedora continually gets application updates over its version lifespan as new versions of individual apps are released.

      So you could say that Fedora stays a little more bleeding edge throughout the version lifespan, and Ubuntu stays a bit more stable throughout the lifes

      • Fedora continually gets application updates over its version lifespan as new versions of individual apps are released.
        You've described how Mandriva works. Does anyone other than me actually use that distro? It was released a few days ago an I must have blinked and missed any mention of it's release here. Still, installing the development branch to test applications or all of Mandriva before release is... interesting.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by DF5JT ( 589002 )
          "You've described how Mandriva works. Does anyone other than me actually use that distro?"

          Yes. I've been through all of the major distributions over the past 8 or 9 years and I think I finally found the one I will continue to use. Minimal pain in installing the distro, minimal pain in administrating it, minimal pain in switching both my GF's X60 and my own T60 over to Mandriva.

          Extremely helpful people in the forum and apart from SUSE's sucky yast the only distribution that has a central administration tool
      • Another important difference, is that Fedora is much closer to a server distro, RHEL, and so learning how to administer one will have you pretty much sorted on the other.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by morcego ( 260031 )
        Which is entirely expected, if you consider (I do) Fedora as the development version of RHEL.

  • Fedora 9 Not Ready (Score:5, Funny)

    by nmb3000 ( 741169 ) on Friday April 18, 2008 @02:19PM (#23120622) Journal
    I dunno. I hear that Fedora 9 is really lacking [redhat.com] in important functionality. Why would I want to install something so obviously half-baked like this?

    With serious issues like this, obviously 2008 won't be The Year of the Linux Desktop (Really This Time, We Mean It).

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by sfire ( 175775 ) *
      Actually, if you read the bug report, and https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=439858#c22 [redhat.com] It says they won't be shipping swfdec if FC 9.

    • selinux (Score:5, Funny)

      by Crispy Critters ( 226798 ) on Friday April 18, 2008 @02:52PM (#23121016)
      I really like selinux. The best part about it is this: Whenever something is broken, I uninstall selinux, and then whatever-it-is works again. I wouldn't know how to fix the system if I couldn't uninstall selinux.

      (I am not denying that it is important or useful. I just can't understand how to make it work.)

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by davidkv ( 302725 )
        Try using setroubleshoot, if I remember correctly it's even installed default in Fedora 8.
        Anyway, it pops up a notice saying what was denied access and why, and more or less how you can grant permission for that program or what have you.

        Then again, you could also run SELinux in permissive mode by running "setenforce 0 (or Permissive instead of 0)". Absolutetly no need to uninstall. Permissive will let you se what would have been denied.

        I'm running Fedora 8 here and most of the time SELinux does not complain

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by init100 ( 915886 )

        Please run SELinux in permissive mode instead of disabling or even uninstalling it. If you ever would like to activate it again, running in permissive mode ensures that the proper security labels are maintained, while disabling or uninstalling SELinux causes the system to perform a time-consuming relabeling of all filesystems if/when SELinux is re-enabled.

        Besides, if an application is giving you troubles, why not file a bug report in the Red hat Bugzilla? Post the output of setroubleshoot (the GUI applica

    • OMGWTFNooooooooo! YouTube won't work with one of the alternatives for playing SWFs that isn't even going to be shipped in F9 by default. What a tragic loss that will be

      If your life revolves around YouTube then what's wrong with going to Adobe and getting their Flash/Shockwave plugin? It works perfectly, it has the same version number as the Windows one, and it's basically the same process as Windows for newbies (download, install, use).

      As for half-baked - a quick skim of the thread seemed to imply that it'
      • There's no 64 bit version? At least the last time I tried, and had to dick around with ndiswrapper. I still don't know exactly what I did, but for now it works. I don't want to try and explain how to do it to anyone. And I'm not sure I want to try it again-- I don't even know if I'm using the swf alternative or the Adobe version. But for now, Fedora 8 works pretty fine for me.
        • There arnt many 32bit plug-in, its probably easiest to install a 32bit browser (hell even firefox aint going to break the 4GB limit).
    • He got moded informative? I thought he was going for funny tbh!

      Its not fedoras fault they cant package adobe flash and that gnu flash replacements arnt ready yet.
      If you want flash just install adobe flash32 to firefox32, all you need is tar, if anything flash is going to install easily on a fedora system because adobe offer a rpm, but even on a 64bit ubuntu system i have 0 problems setting up flash.

  • like it, but (Score:5, Insightful)

    by thermian ( 1267986 ) on Friday April 18, 2008 @02:27PM (#23120732)
    This issue of not having media codecs other then the free ones is a real deal breaker for me.

    Yes I know, they aren't 'free as in freedom'. Sad, but true. However, when I install desktop linux I don't want to fart about trying to find media codecs. They should be there, in the install, or immediately available via an obvious link once installation is complete. It should be a one click and done experience, has to be really.

    Yes I could find them myself, but I'm not really the problem, since I'm pretty much addicted to linux for everything but desktop. I'll remain a fan, and live in hope of a decent out of the box desktop experience.

    No, the problem is the vast numbers of techno numpties who won't use linux as long as it has this glaring hole in its out of the box state.

    Mark me as troll if you wish, but this is a serious issue that the purists don't want to confront. In spite of what they beleive, ogg is not enough...

    • Re:like it, but (Score:5, Informative)

      by fyrie ( 604735 ) on Friday April 18, 2008 @02:36PM (#23120838)
      Most of that stuff is available in the livna repository. Standard procedure is to install the livna repo immediately and download the non free packages.
      • Yup, but would the aforementioned person new to linux and uninformed of such things know about this? I'm not disputing that repositories exist, its more that they aren't made seamlessly available.

        The problem is that the desktop experience has become, thanks to the almighty Microsoft, (whose name we speak in hushed tones, lest they smite us with their stick of smiting), have defined the desktop as being a place where even a moron can get a decent experience with minimal work, or none, in some cases.

        It's that

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Nushio ( 951488 )

          Yup, but would the aforementioned person new to linux and uninformed of such things know about this?

          I'm sorry, but I highly doubt that a person "new to linux and uninformed of such things" would install linux.

          If indeed said person were to install linux, he'd follow a guide. There are plenty guides available that list as part of the installation instructions, instructions on how to get mp3, xvid, dvd, realplayer, java and flash running on your system, be it Fedora, Ubuntu or Mandriva.

          More often than not, its a "Linux-Hippie" the guy that ends up installing Linux. Said "Hippies" usually know their wa

          • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

            by thermian ( 1267986 )
            I'm sorry, but I highly doubt that a person "new to linux and uninformed of such things" would install linux.

            Yes, and they never will until it becomes so simple that a person with little or no knowledge can do it.

            This is what I'm getting at. Those people are in microsofts pocket, and will be until a fully media capable linux distro can be installed easily, without detailed knowledge.

            People can, and do, install newer verions of windows who fall into this catagory. It's them, the ones who want to upgrade, th

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by jd ( 1658 )
          I think conventional wisdom is that in Microsoft's case, it is a chair of smiting. It's not simply a Microsoft problem, however. It has a lot to do with software patents, price gouging and dodgy attitudes towards reverse engineering throughout the industry. Yes, it costs money to develop high-end codecs, and it is entirely reasonable for corporations to try to make a profit from their work, but that argument only goes so far and current practices go way beyond reasonable.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Phisbut ( 761268 )

          Yup, but would the aforementioned person new to linux and uninformed of such things know about this? I'm not disputing that repositories exist, its more that they aren't made seamlessly available.

          The aforementionned person new to linux will get Ubuntu. Fedora is not a distro aimed to ease desktop use at all cost, it is a general purpose operating system with lots of tools that happens to have a desktop. Ubuntu, on the other hand, is trying to deliver the full desktop experience to the user.

          • Re:like it, but (Score:5, Insightful)

            by techno-vampire ( 666512 ) on Friday April 18, 2008 @04:08PM (#23121950) Homepage
            The aforementionned person new to linux will get Ubuntu.


            I've been using Fedora along with Windows for a number of years now. My sister has an older machine (800mhz) and Win2K was getting slower and slower, even with all the firewall, anti-virus and anti-spyware stuph. In fact, it was the anti-virus that was slowing it down more than anything else; the daily scans took forever and made it almost unresponsive. Then, she tried a Live CD of Ubuntu. In less than 15 minutes she knew it was for her. The next morning, she installed it. The first time it rebooted, it let her know she needed proprietary drivers for her nVidia Geoforce video card and got them. It's now her main OS, and Win2K is the Dark Side to her. I'm happy with Fedora, and will be moving from 8 to 9 when the time comes, but I'd never have suggested it to her. Fedora's a geeky, bleeding edge test bed of a distro, and all she wants or needs is something that Just Works. That's why there are so many Linux distros: different people need and/or want different things, and no matter what you want in the way of Linux, there's at least one distro that's right for you.

        • They find out how to install MP3 by typing... "fedora mp3" into google which returns a webpage called "How to play MP3 files in Fedora" That gives you step by step instructions with screenshots.
          Hey did you know that people use to have to download winrar or winzip to unzip files? no no its true! people actually can figure out how to search the net for software. Windows users even can find things like divx on their own or what a pps, pdf or a .torrent file is or what a nero .nrg file is.
          sheesh people will f
          • sheesh people will figure out how to type in fedora mp3, or fedora faq into google.. its okay they will figure it out i promise
            Sorry, but you're wrong.

            You and I could, because we know about such things. However you are labouring under the misapprehension that most computer users even know you need extra software to run certain types of files.

            Thanks to the wonders of Microsoft Windows, many computer users don't even know about things as basic as partitions or folders outside 'my documents'. If you don't beli
            • im aware of that. i spent yesterday telling someone they dont have a 1 gb of hard drive, they have 1gb of ram. But _everyone_ knows what google is. And i made the point that the software to run powerpoints, divx movies, flash, pdf, torrents isn't included in windows they still figured out how to get it. they can do the same in linux. We're not talking about compiling or changing variables here. we're talking about running one command here rpm -Uhv http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-8.rpm [livna.org] that will give them
              • Don't get me wrong, I agree with you, people should know. I'm just constantly depressed by the level of stupidity that Microsoft products seem to actively encourage.

                A few weeks back I discovered that my son, 14 years old, who has used windows exclusively for five years, didn't even know what a sub-folder was.

                I'd often wondered why he kept so many files on his desktop. Turns out he didn't even know it was possible to move them elsewhere.

                Talking to some of his friends I have found that they also have a simila

        • Re:like it, but (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Richard W.M. Jones ( 591125 ) <{rich} {at} {annexia.org}> on Saturday April 19, 2008 @03:37AM (#23125906) Homepage

          The problem is that the desktop experience has become, thanks to the almighty Microsoft, (whose name we speak in hushed tones, lest they smite us with their stick of smiting), have defined the desktop as being a place where even a moron can get a decent experience with minimal work, or none, in some cases.

          Last time I checked, Windows out of the box couldn't create PDF files, display DivX movies, open tarballs, can display but not edit DOC, PPT, can't display web pages properly, can't create ZIP files [maybe it can do this one now?] etc. It doesn't have a system where you can install one of 1000s of programs just with a few clicks from a menu (and for free). It doesn't have virtualization or a SQL database or any programming languages at all.

          Rich.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by fyrie ( 604735 )
        I do need to add that I do agree with the OP in the sense that it would be great if there was a way right out of the box to automatically go and download this type of stuff, maybe with a disclaimer saying that they aren't sanctioned as free that would be a CYA for Fedora.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by robmv ( 855035 )
          Fedora has exactly what you want http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/FeatureCodecBuddy [fedoraproject.org]

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by fyrie ( 604735 )
            I was under the impression that Codec buddy points the user to purchasable codecs, not the free (as in beer) codecs in the livna repo.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by robmv ( 855035 )
              you are right, it points to the Fluendo codecs, I do not think it will ever point to Livna, because they are not legal in some countries (stupid software patents)
        • The only problem with that is that it leaves Fedora in basically the same situation as shipping them. They ship as a "completely free" distro (i.e. no non-free software, including stuff they can't ship because they're US based and there may be patent restrictions) to keep clean and legal. If they started saying "press this button to get free codecs that may breach patents" then they've lost that position.

          At the end of the day there are two choices: 1) pick another distro (probably European based like SuSe)
          • Does Suse ship with codecs?
            I know ubuntu doesnt but they recently changed the default repos to include them, so end users who click though end up pressing a ""press this button to get free codecs that may breach patents" and dont complain.
            • I'm not sure. A guy at work uses it but I've never tried it much. From what I've picked up it might not ship with them but it's a bit closer to Ubuntu's "Restricted Packages" than Fedora's "they're out there, but because of potential legal issues and lack of freedom then we can't tell you where".

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by pembo13 ( 770295 )
          Will you contribute to RedHat and Fedora's legal defense if/when they are sued?

        • Re:like it, but (Score:5, Informative)

          by the COW OF DOOM (tm) ( 1531 ) on Friday April 18, 2008 @03:48PM (#23121692) Homepage
          Yeah. It'd be great, if it wasn't illegal.

          Here's the thing: it's not solely a matter of principle. Fedora has to play by a harder set of rules than Ubuntu. Fedora is backed by a public company, based in the US, so they answer to US law and Red Hat stockholders. And under US law, CYA just isn't enough, especially when there's multi-billion-dollar global megacorps who will take any opportunity they can find to sue you into oblivion.

          Everyone would dearly love to be able to include mp3 codecs and ffmpeg and all that non-Free stuff. But they can't. So Red Hat and Fedora keep fighting the good fight - lobbying against software patents, pushing for open standards - and still people give them shit because they have to click two places instead of one to get MP3 support.

          Way to focus on the big problems, people.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      As a fedora user, I'll bite.

      First, blame those that made the codecs non-free, not those who suffer because of it. There is nothing that they can do about non-free codecs and there's no use complaining.

      Beyond that, it's not exactly hard to add non-free codecs. Add the livna repository and you'll be able to get them off your package manager. There may not be any flashing banners telling you how and where to download non-free codecs, but it's not hard to do either.

      Finally, you shouldn't need non-free codecs as

    • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Then go buy a copy of Linspire, it has the non-free codecs installed.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by radl33t ( 900691 )

      It should be a one click and done experience, has to be really.
      I have feisty and the version before feisty on my 2 machines. I think they both presented me with an obvious link when I first played an mp3. Told me I should be aware of the laws of my country or some such nonsense.

      Have they taken this feature away? I think my ubuntu must be at least a year out of date.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It's not because of them being purists. The relevant codecs in fact are free software and all that.

      Fedora is based in the US. In the US, we are blessed with these lovely things called patent laws. In particular, it is legally iffy for Fedora to distribute things like MP3 codecs and such. Really, the way to fix this is to get rid of the stupid things altogether... software patents are ridiculous.

      (And a lot of the non-free stuff isn't re-distributable anyway, so they can't package it. Ubuntu's flash "package"
    • The times are changing ... for a lot of people, the web is their media player, and so long as they can access YouTube and the TV networks' websites they're good to go.

      By default Fedora does includes CodecBuddy, which explains the situation to new users and points them at Fluendo's webstore, where they can buy legit media codecs. Notably, the Fluendo .mp3 codec costs 0 Euros.

      Having said all that, I wouldn't recommend that a new user try out Fedora anyway, simply because there's so much setup work to be
    • Most media codecs are covered by US patents. That means that fedora cannot legally distribute them for free - as a US company, they have to obey US law. Most places outside the US do not allow the patenting of codecs, so places are available to download those codecs legally and easily for free - as long as you're also outside the US.

      On this basis, the 'vast number of techno numpties' won't use windows either, as the set of modern codecs you get to start with are a rubbish mp3 decoder and WMA/WMV support. No

  • what about youtube ? is it working ? (Score:5, Funny)

    by C0vardeAn0nim0 ( 232451 ) on Friday April 18, 2008 @02:27PM (#23120734) Journal
    if it doesn't work tove may end up killing linus... and since she's 5 time finnish karate champion, that'll be pretty damn easy for her.

    like he said: youtube no workee, wife no happy.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      YouTube functionality works just fine once you add the adobe-linux repo and install flash-plugin-9.0.124.0. It does on occasion flip out, but thats been the case with the adobe linux port for quite some time.

      What is broken in Fedora x86_64 variants is Java plugin support from Sun. The icedtea plugin works great in most circumstances for small stuff, however larger java applets wont run without the Sun JRE. That JRE works fine in i386 but breaks because Sun has not released a 64 bit port for it yet.

  • 'looks' good (Score:3, Interesting)

    by linuxbeta ( 837266 ) on Friday April 18, 2008 @02:53PM (#23121034)
    some screenshots over at The Coding Studio [thecodingstudio.com]
    • I wish they'd do something better for the window titles. Yes, I know it's different to the other distros, but it just doesn't look good. It may just be the compression on those images, but the new version looks even stranger.

      On the plus side, at least they ditched some of the original 'Sulphur' desktops [fedoraproject.org]. Those would have just made the default desktop look terrible.
  • There was talk of a yum-based upgrade path that cleanly updated the necessary libraries first and then the executables. Was that implemented with this tag?

  • Release Candidate? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by IBBoard ( 1128019 ) on Friday April 18, 2008 @03:33PM (#23121530) Homepage
    I'm a bit confused about the "final release" thing at the moment. I was going to wait for the RC ("22 April 2008 - Release Candidate 1" according to the schedule [fedoraproject.org]) and possibly install that, but now they're saying

    This is the last major public release before the final GOLD Fedora 9 release on May 13th

    which implies the Release Candidate might not be a 'release' as such, just a specially tagged nightly build.

    Oh well, I guess at least it'll get the spit-and-polish it deserves. I just need to wait until May to install it now.
  • I'm serious: What's the big deal?

    What does Fedora offer?

    Does Fedora have a neat zero-fuss hardware recognition and will it install and run out of the box just as fritionless as Ubuntu or Knoppix?

    And what about switching desktops and WMs? Can I switch from Gnome/Metacity to KDE/Kwin to Fluxbox to Enlightenment with zero fuss without the Fedora desktop manager (whichever it chooses) looking like shit or X-Free, X-Org or whatever fucking up my screen-resolution?

    Will multi-source audio work out of the box? (wet
    • For me, it's simple - it gives me an idea of what RHEL might look like in a couple of years. I have access to a couple tens of thousands of servers which run various RHEL derivatives. I have access to none that are Debian derivatives.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by 427_ci_505 ( 1009677 )
      >Does Fedora have a neat zero-fuss hardware recognition and will it install and run out of the box just as >fritionless as Ubuntu or Knoppix?

      Multiple monitor setups are problematic, but other stuff works well.

      >Will multi-source audio work out of the box? (wether with esound demon or whatever ... gosh, just asking this >question brings back those memories ... )

      If by this you mean multiple programs can output sound at the same time, then yes.

      >What about generic wireless stuff and e
  • When fedora beta didn't make slashdot (not even linux section) and ubuntu beta was front page 2 days later i thought slashdot had a bias. Was kinda surprised to see this.

    I been using this release fedora 9 since alpha and everytime I updated i saw alot of improvement. Still need to report a laptop bug (with mouse pads not working right) but other than that this release should be good to go on my box by release date.
  • It seems that Fedora 9 uses ath5k instead of the good old madwifi for Atheros chipsets. Given that ath5k is far from stable [madwifi.org] yet, I wonder why?

    • Fedora 8 is currently defaulting to ath5k as well. Fortunately, atrpms provides madwifi including regularly updating the kernel modules.

      To use it though you have to force the ath_pci module to load for the card. The way I did it was to start by locating the card in the /sys filesystem. If you do lspci you should be able to find the card pretty easily then look for the matching number in /sys/bus/pci/devices. An ls of that directory will show a list of symlinks to the real device directories. Find the m

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