Thursday, October 6, 2011

Fedora 16 beta Review




Fedora 16: Linux home for lost Ubuntu GNOMEs

What lies beneath the Jules Verne submarine art?

Review The Fedora Project has released the first beta of Fedora 16.
Dubbed "Verne" and sporting desktop artwork that echoes Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Fedora 16 is shaping up to be a worthwhile alternative to Ubuntu 11.10, particularly for those that aren't happy with Canonical's home-brewed Unity shell.
Among the big changes in Fedora 16 is GNOME 3.2, the latest version of the GNOME 3 shell Ubuntu ditched for Unity.
Fedora has always been a reasonably popular Linux distro, but now it is acting as a kind of flagship for the GNOME 3 desktop, since Ubuntu has gone its own way. Fedora releases are likely undergoing much closer scrutiny from the Linux community.

This first beta release is definitely rough around the edges, but if you want to check out the new GNOME 3.2, Fedora 16 is one of the best ways to do it. Indeed the main reason to install the new beta (something I suggest you do in VirtualBox) is to see how GNOME 3 is progressing.
This marks the second incremental update for GNOME and it is clear that there will be no new major features coming for some time. Instead the GNOME team has been focusing on polishing and improving the foundations of GNOME 3.
Perhaps the most noticeable of the smaller new features in this version of GNOME is the new integrated chat and messaging system that is now built in to GNOME. The new features mean you'll be able to automatically log in to your chat and messaging accounts without needing to launch a separate application. Thanks to a new set of notification options you'll be able to reply to messages, accept file transfers and even take calls, all from the GNOME shell.
The other fixes to GNOME 3's early pain points include a more permanent way to display the workspace switcher when you're in overview mode. In other words you can now actually get to the workspace switcher on the correct side of the screen when you need it. You also now get status bar notifications for external storage devices with options including mounting, browsing files or ejecting. Status bar messages can also now display a counter, for example to show the number of unread emails or new chat messages.

Comfort zone breaker

Perhaps more useful for those who would like to get real work done in GNOME 3 is the new "do not disturb" toggle switch in the user menu. While all the functionality of do not disturb mode is actually part of GNOME 3.0, there's no easy way to turn it on. Version 3.2 adds a switch in the user menu and, when enabled, do-not-disturb mode will set your messaging status to "busy" and stop the endless stream of notifications.
For those accustomed to GNOME 2.x, GNOME 3 is still a long way from comfortable. But, like KDE struggling from 3 to 4 before it, the GNOME team is slowly putting the bugs to rest and adding in the missing features.

Fedora 16 will be more than just a showcase for GNOME. The distro has quite a few new tools in its own right, including the Linux 3.0 kernel. There has also been some talk of moving to the btrfs filesystem as the default for Fedora 16, but at least for now the beta (and the alpha before it) use ext4.
Also new is support for the GRUB2 bootloader on x86 systems, which replaces GRUB legacy.
There are also some application updates in the Fedora 16, including the latest version of Blender, a 3D imaging tool, the latest Firefox beta and the usual updates for Perl and Python. It's also worth noting that Fedora has not followed Ubuntu's lead in moving to Mozilla's Thunderbird for email. Fedora 16 is sticking with the Evolution email client.
For a complete list of everything that's coming in Fedora 16 (not all of which is in the current beta release) be sure to read the change list on the Fedora wiki.
Fedora 16 will be making the leap to GNOME 3 not just for the shell, but for all the underlying system tools as well. That means there will be no way to boot Fedora 16 into GNOME 2.x. There is a simplified "fallback" mode for hardware that doesn't measure up to GNOME 3's requirements, but effectively, from here on out, GNOME 3 is GNOME.
For those who've already made peace with GNOME 3, Fedora 16 is looking like one of the best ways to run the new shell environment. Not only is the default theme nicely integrated, GNOME 3 feels extremely stable on Fedora 16, even as a beta build. ®

Fedora 16 Beta Released


The Fedora Project proudly announced last evening, October 4th, the immediate availability for download and testing of the Beta version of the upcoming Fedora 16 operating system, due for release in November 2011.

Dubbed Verne, Fedora 16 Beta is powered by Release Candidate 6 of the upcoming Linux kernel 3.1.0, it features GNOME 3.2 and KDE Software Compilation 4.7 desktop environments, lots of SELinux enhancements, updated Haskell, Perl and Ada environments, and much more.

"The Beta release is the last important milestone of Fedora 16. Only critical bug fixes will be pushed as updates leading to the general release of Fedora 16 in early November."

"We invite you to join us in making Fedora 16 a solid release by downloading, testing, and providing your valuable feedback." - said Dennis Gilmore in the mailinglist announcement.


Highlights of Fedora 16 Beta:
· Linux kernel 3.1.0 RC6;
· GNOME 3.2 desktop environment;
· KDE Software Compilation 4.7.0;
· GRUB2;
· Systemd services management;
· SELinux improvements;
· 1000 System accounts;
· Added Chrony NTP client;
· Removed HAL;
· Removed ConsoleKit;
· Automatic Multi-seat support;
· Support for cloud computing;
· Restored support for Xen;
· Enhanced Spice 0.10 app to manage virtual machines;
· Many improvements for developers;
· Aeolus Conductor;
· Blender 2.5;
· Boost 1.47;
· Glasgow Haskell Compiler 7.0.4;
· Haskell Platform 2011.2.0.1;
· GNOME Input integration;
· libvirt networking support improvements;
· New mkdumprd for kdump;
· Perl 5.14;
· Static analysis of CPython extensions;
· Sugar 0.94;
· TigerVNC 1.1;
· USB Network Redirection.



Fedora 16 Release Schedule:

August 23rd, 2011 - Fedora 16 Alpha release
October 4th, 2011 - Fedora 16 Beta release
November 8th, 2011 - Fedora 16 final release


Download Fedora 16 beta:-


Download beta Release 16


Download beta Release 16

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Fedora 16: Verne (Alpha) Review




Includes GNOME 3.1, GRUB 2

Fedora 16 (codenamed Verne) Alpha has been released today. This is the first official development snapshot for the popular Red Hat sponsored Linux distribution.

Among the many features of Fedora 16 is finally switching over to the GRUB2 boot-loader on new x86 installations, better integration with the systemd service manager, a development version of GNOME 3.2, SELinux enhancements, system account changes, HAL removal, cloud computing and virtualization enhancements, and much more. See this Phoronix news posting for more details on the planned Fedora 16 feature set.

After a one week delay from the scheduled release date, the Fedora Project has released the first alpha version of Fedora 16, codenamed “Verne”, earlier today. This alpha release is expected to be the only alpha release of Fedora 16. According to the release schedule, this release will be followed by a beta on September 27th and the final release on November 1st.

Fedora 16 Alpha brings a number of new features/updates. One of the main updates is the long overdue upgrade to GRUB 2. Although GRUB 2 is not officially considered stable yet, many other Linux distributions, like Ubuntu, Linux Mint etc., have been using it for some time, and it has been stable enough for normal use. With the transition to GRUB 2, users who dual boot Fedora with another distribution that uses GRUB 2 will not have to manually add the OS in the GRUB menu.

In Fedora 16 Alpha, two choices of desktop environments are available by default as always. For those who prefer GNOME, Fedora 16 Alpha comes with GNOME 3.1.5. This version of GNOME is not considered stable and it is expected that it will be updated to GNOME 3.2 before the final release. GNOME 3.2 will fix many of the quirks and annoyances from GNOME 3. For those of you who prefer KDE SC, Fedora 16 Alpha also has a KDE version that comes with KDE SC 4.7 alpha. Like the GNOME version, it is expected to be upgraded to KDE SC 4.7 before the final release.

Fedora 16 Alpha runs on the Linux kernel 3.0. With the release of Linux 3.1 expected in a month or two, the kernel is likely to be updated to Linux 3.1 before the final release.

One feature that did not make it is the switch to Btrfs. Btrfs is a new filesystem that is currently under development. Initially, there was plan to use Btrfs by default in Fedora 16. However the plan was scrapped because Btrfs is nowhere ready for such use. Btrfs will probably be used in Fedora 17 or Fedora 18.

Fedora-16 : Verne - Alpha Release


As always, Fedora continues to  develop and  integrate the latest free and open sourced software. The following sections provide a brief overview of major changes from the last release of Fedora. For more details about other features that are making their way into Rawhide and set for inclusion in Fedora 16, refer to the website:

Fedora Alpha Release 16

This release is an installable, testable version of the code and features being developed for Fedora 16 (Verne). The software has bugs, problems, and incomplete features. It is not likely to eat your data or parts of your computer, but you should be aware that it could.


Download it here:

Download Alpha Release 16

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

The Whole Story


Fedora 15 LXDE is a Fedora 15 Spin, an alternate edition of Fedora, “tailored for various types of users via hand-picked application sets and other customizations.” Presently, seven Spins have been released. These are, in order of popularity about the time I hit the Publish button, the KDE, LXDE, Xfce, Security, Games, Electronic-Lab, and Design-Suite Spins.
The Xfce Spin has already been reviewed here. This article presents a review of the LXDE spin, the first for it on this website.

Installation Process: Like other Spins, Fedora 15 LXDE is available for download as a Live CD ISO image. Unlike the main (GNOME 3) edition, there is no DVD or bfo installation image for this edition or for any other Spin.
The boot menu options allow booting into the Live environment, where installation can then be started. Installation is not possible without first booting into the Live environment. There is an option to “Boot from local drive,”
However, attempting to boot from the local disk always generates the error shown here. This happens not just with the LXDE Spin, but with all the Fedora releases, including the main edition.
All the Fedora spins share the same installation program with the main edition. Anaconda 15.31 is the version of Anaconda, the Fedora system installer, that ships with this latest release. The changes I see in this version are just cosmetic. The available disk partitioning methods are the same. Disk encryption is supported (see how Fedora protects your computer with full disk encryption).
LVM, the Linux Logical Volume Manager, is the default disk partitioning scheme. Ext3, Ext4 and XFS are the supported journaling file systems, with ext4 as the default, even for the boot partition. Fedora 15 is the first version to have built-in support for btrfs, the B-tree file System, but it is only available when installing from a DVD or bfo ISO image. (You might be interested in how to install Fedora 15 on an encrypted btrfs file system.)
Installation of the Fedora 15 Spins, and of the Live CD version of the GNOME edition, is not installation in the traditional sense, but rather, a copying of the Live image to disk. So, what you see on the Live desktop is what you get after installation.

Desktop: The LXDE desktop is a very simple and highly configurable desktop environment. Memory footprint is small and CPU usage is minimal. A new installation of takes up less than 2 GB of disk space, far less than a new installation of other Spins. The menu features all the necessary application categories except the Games category. Like the Xfce Spin, there are no games installed.

The file manager is PCManFM, named after the author’s online moniker. I find it a lot more fun to use than Thunar, the file manager on the GNOME and Xfce desktop environments. There is support for tabbed-browsing. Clicking on a folder opens it in place, rather than in a tab. Though not in this release, directory browsing on the side pane has been implemented, and should be available in a stable release soon.

When dual-booting with other operating systems and distributions, you can mount and browse their partitions. Out of the box, you can even read and write to ntfs partitions, that is, you can access your Windows files and folders from the file manager.

If you click on an image file in the file manager, the system will attempt to open it in GXine, the default media player, and even after changing the default behavior to open all image files in GPicView, the installed image viewer, the system would still attempt to open them in GXine. GPicView, by the way, is one of the best image viewers I have used. It has more features than the default image viewer on the Xfce spin.
The system will popup this dialog window when a video DVD is Inserted.
And this if it is an audio CD. The problem is that for some reason, the default application, GXine, is unable to play audio or video media, and the problem does not seem to lie with it because after installing Rhythmbox and Totem, I still could not play any audio or video media.

Attempting to configure a printer brought up this dialog window, and adding a printer was not an automated process. I found that using the printing utility (Administration > Printing) was a lot more involved than using the printing service’s Web interface (localhost:631). (Most distributions will auto-detect and configure a connected printer.)

Installed and Available Software: Some of the main applications installed by default are:
  • Firefox 4
  • Pidgin Internet Messenger
  • Sylpheed, one of the best email clients
  • Gnumeric, a spreadsheet application
  • Osmo, personal organizer
  • Abiword
  • Gxine
  • LXMusic, a music player for LXDE
There are, of course, many more applications that you can install using yum, the command line package utility, or Yum-Ex, the graphical package manager.

Friday, May 27, 2011

Fedora-15 Review and Features

The Fedora Project released the final Fedora 15 "Lovelock" distribution, the first Linux distro featuring the controversial new GNOME 3 desktop. Other Fedora 15 features include Linux 2.6.38, a dynamic firewall, the SystemD configuration utility, and new applications including LibreOffice and Firefox 4, says the project.



There do not appear to be many notable changes to Fedora 15 since the beta was released last month. As promised, this appears to be the first shipping Linux distribution to offer GNOME 3, a major overhaul to the leading Linux desktop environment that has received far more brickbats than bouquets from the Linux community since its April release.

f it's any consolation to the GNOME Foundation, however, Canonical is getting just as much grief over Ubuntu 11.04's new Unity desktop. While the criticisms are varied and distinct, a general theme for both new environments is that the designers went overboard on trying to reach out to novice users, limited ease of configuration for more experienced Linux users.

Fedora users who agree with the GNOME 3 critiques can instead switch over to the rival KDE 4.6 (see image below), as well as the lightweight LXDE and XFCE 4.8. The latter features "a new panel, Thunar enhancements and more," says the Fedora project.

Fedora 15 builds upon Linux kernel 2.6.38, and adds Systemd as the default configuration utility. SystemD, which replaces SysVinit and Upstart for system and session management. helps produce a faster boot experience, says the project.

Other new features include a dynamic firewall feature, and a cloud-oriented BoxGrinder appliance builder. New applications are said to include Firefox 4 and the new OpenOffice.org clone LibreOffice 3.3.

Early feedback: thumbs up for SystemD, power management

First-look feedback on the final can be found at Ars Technica where Ryan Paul seems pleased, and even had some nice things to say about the much-maligned GNOME 3. Paul also takes a deeper look into the SystemD init system, and while he declines to pass judgment, he is certainly intrigued with its possibilities.

Meanwhile, at ZDNet Stephen Vaughan-Nichols is far more critical of GNOME 3, although he praises other Fedora 15 touches including the new LibreOffice, the dynamic firewall, and a nicely improved RPM 4.9.0 package manager. He also tested Fedora 15's touted power management improvements, and found them to be significant, delivering roughly 10 percent more battery life on a notebook computer.

Vaughan-Nichols also liked Fedora's implementation of Simple Protocol for Independent Computing Environments (SPICE) virtual desktops. Following a tradition of the Red Hat-sponsored Fedora featuring cutting-edge technology that later appears in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), RHEL will be getting SPICE soon.

Detailed Features List:

Download:

Fedora-15: FREEDOM. FRIENDS. FEATURES. FIRST.

FREEDOM. FRIENDS. FEATURES. FIRST.

Fedora 15 was officially released on May 24th.

  • Fedora 15's five best features
    zdnet: "Red Hat’s latest community Linux desktop distribution, Fedora 15, is now out and it wasn’t for GNOME 3.0, I’d love it."

  • First look: Fedora 15 arrives with GNOME 3.0 and systemd
    Ars: "The update brings an overhauled desktop user interface and a number of noteworthy architectural improvements under the hood."

  • Fedora 15 Released, GNOME 3 Looks Good
    OSTATIC:"Fedora 15 brings lots of goodies, but most just want to hear of GNOME 3. I'm usually a KDE person, but I too just had to test GNOME 3."

  • Fedora 15 with GNOME 3: better than Ubuntu 11.04 with Unity, but...
    DarkDuck:"Sure, debates between GNOME 3 fans and haters will inevitably heat up the atmosphere. But from my perspective GNOME 3 is decent software which deserves its future."

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Count Down starts for New Release: 15


Count Down starts for New Release: Fedora Core-15
Historically Test and General Availability releases happen at 10:00am Eastern US Time on a Tuesday, which is either 1500UTC or 1400UTC depending on daylight savings in the United States

Fedora Core-15

Fedora Core-15 Release

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Fedora 15 Alpha: Beta Finally Released!



As always, Fedora continues to develop and integrate the latest free and open source software. The following sections provide a brief overview of major changes from the last release of Fedora. For more details about other features that are making their way into Rawhide and set for inclusion in

The Purpose of the Alpha Release

This release is an installable, testable version of the code and features being developed for Fedora 15 (Lovelock).The software is going to have bugs, problems, and incomplete features. It is not likely to eat your data or parts of your computer, but you should be aware that it could.

You have an important part to play in this release. Either install or run a Fedora Live instance of the Fedora 15 Alpha release, then try using a few applications or activities that are important to you. If it doesn't work, file a bug. This release gives the wider community a set of code to test against as a very important step in the process of making a solid Fedora 15 release. You can make the Fedora 15 release better by testing this release and reporting your findings.

What's New in Fedora 15 Alpha

GNOME 3

GNOME 3 is the next major version of the GNOME desktop. After many years of a largely unchanged GNOME 2.x experience, GNOME 3 brings a fresh look and feel with GNOME Shell. There are also many changes under the surfaces, like the move from CORBA-based technologies such as GConf, Bonobo and at-spi to dbus-based successors.

Since the requirements of GNOME Shell on the graphics system may not be met by certain hardware / driver combinations, GNOME 3 also support a 'fallback mode' in which we run gnome-panel, metacity and notification-daemon instead of GNOME Shell. Note that this mode is not a 'Classic GNOME' mode; the panel configuration will be adjusted to be similar to the shell.

The fallback will be handled automatically by gnome-session, which will detect insufficient graphics capabilities and run a different session.

LibreOffice

LibreOffice is an office productivity suite that will replace OpenOffice. It will be completely open source and driven solely by the community supporting it. It has a word processor, presentation creator, spreadsheet creator, database creator, formula editor, and drawing editor.

systemd

Fedora 15 has replaced Upstart with systemd. systemd uses services files located in /lib/systemd/system for services, and /etc/systemd/system for configuration. A dozen desktop daemons [list them] have been initially converted to use systemd service files and small number of programs have been patched to take advantage of it. systemd is compatible with legacy SysV init scripts and rest of the migration will happen incrementally over time.

Dynamic Firewall

Fedora 15 adds support for the optional firewall daemon, that provides a dynamic firewall management with a D-Bus interface.

DNSSEC for workstations

NetworkManager now uses the BIND nameserver as a DNSSEC resolver. All received DNS responses are proved to be correct. If particular domain is signed and failed to validate then resolver returns SERFVAIL instead of invalidated response, which means something is wrong.

KDE 4.6

This release uses KDE 4.6 by default as the KDE Desktop environment. KDE 4.6 offers new features such as it will be HAL-free (featuring udisks/upower Solid and Power Management backends), systemd password agent, improved bluetooth support using bluedevil bluetooth framework. Also in the works is kde-integration to libreoffice and switching the default phonon backend to gstreamer.

BoxGrinder

BoxGrinder is an easy to use command line tool to create appliances (virtual images) for various platforms (KVM, Xen, VMware, EC2) from simple plaintext application files.

Ecryptfs in Authconfig

Fedora 15 brings in improved support for eCryptfs, a stacked cryptographic filesystem for Linux. Starting from Fedora 15, authconfig can be used to automatically mount a private encrypted part of the home directory when a user logs in.

Indic Typing Booster

Indic Typing Booster is a predictive input method for ibus and scim. It suggests complete words based on partial input, which can then simply be selected from a list, and boost one's typing speed for more enjoyable input.

LZMA for Live Images

By using LZMA for the live images it will allow for more packages to be shipped on the live image, allow the space constrained images to be better and for the smaller images faster to download.

LessFS

LessFS is a data deduplication project. The aim is to reduce disk usage where filesystem blocks are identical by only storing 1 block and using pointers to the original block for copies. This method of storage is becoming popular in Enterprise solutions for reducing disk backups and minimising virtual machine storage in particular.

Xfce 4.8

Xfce 4.8 has a number of improvements and new features including the Xfce menu will support menu merging, allowing graphical menu editors like alacarte to work in Xfce, the task list windows can now be filtered by monitor and improved multi-head support. Also Thunar has been ported from thunar-vfs to gvfs, PolicyKit support in xfce4-session, multilib enhancements for xfce4-panel plugins and the run dialog now runs with the users full session environment.

Tryton

Tryton is a three-tiers high-level general purpose application platform under the license GPL-3 written in Python and using PostgreSQL as database engine. It is the core base of a complete business solution providing modularity, scalability and security.

RPM 4.9

RPM has been updated to 4.9 with improvements like a pluggable dependency generator, built-in filtering of generated dependencies, additional package ordering hinting mechanism, performance improvements, and many bug fixes all over the place.

Sugar 0.92

Provide the latest Sugar Learning Environment (0.92), including an enhanced activity set to provide an stable demo environment for Sugar as well as an environment for developers.

New Package Suite Groups

The Graphics suite group has been renamed to the Design group and the Robotics SIG has created the Robotics Package Suite which is a collection of software that provides an out-of-the-box usable robotic simulation environment featuring a linear demo to introduce new users.