Fedora 10 released with engaging new features

Fedora 10 codenamed "Cambridge" has been released. This new version of the community oriented, Red Hat backed Linux distribution comes with new features which enhance the end user experience.

Fedora 10 is built on Linux kernel version 2.6.27. It comes with improved support for a choice of webcams, improved infrared remote support, better Bluetooth support which incorporates a new, easier to use wizard for setting up keyboards, mice, and other supported Bluetooth devices, A new improved graphical boot system called Plymouth, OpenOffice 3, Firefox 3.0.4, GNOME 2.24, KDE 4.1, LXDE, GIMP 2.6, you got it all in Fedora 10.

The underlying audio system in Fedora is PulseAudio. In Fedora 10, the bugs found in PulseAudio have been fixed, thus making it glitch free. The audio system also consumes relatively less power.

In most Linux distributions including prior versions of Fedora, the graphical X loads in virtual terminal 7 (VT7) - which you can navigate using Ctrl + Alt + Function keys (1-7). But in Fedora 10, the developers have shifted the graphical boot to virtual terminal 1 which has helped make the transition from bootup to displaying a full fledged GUI, smooth and flicker free. The graphical boot process has itself speeded up because of the improved graphical boot system (Plymouth) which replaces the old Red Hat graphical boot.

For the developers and system administrators, Fedora 10 features an improved RPM which can stream components which are required to run already installed software - for example, a video or audio codec required to run a file in the video or audio player. And secondly, Fedora 10 comes with improved support for remote, hands off installation and management.

The new version of Network Manager utility in Fedora 10 now features built-in support for Internet connection sharing.

Fedora developers Adam Jackson and Ray Strobe have been interviewed at Fedora Magazine blog, where they reveal the nitty gritty details of Fedora 10's improved startup. Read what they have to say.

You can download Fedora 10 as a GNOME LiveCD or KDE LiveCD from the Official Fedora website. Also read the full Fedora 10 release notes to get a broader picture of what it offers.

Fedora 9 Sulphur released

It is yet time for another major release of Fedora Linux. The latest avatar of Fedora namely version 9 is code named Sulphur. If you are piqued by the strange names of Fedora, then you should read this article to get a better perspective. So what is in store for all Fedora fans out there ? Quite a few things really.

For starters, Fedora has got what is known as PackageKit. This is a cross distribution package management solution which has a complete Yum backend. Then Fedora ships with the latest and greatest Gnome Desktop namely version 2.22. KDE 4.0.3 is also in the repository and can be installed by the hard core KDE fans. But the greatest news is that Fedora now ships with the Sun's Java as Sun has released Java under an open source license. To know the full set of features, read this article which explains all the features in more detail.

And after reading through the features, if you are excited enough (which you will be), then visit the download page and start downloading your favorite Linux distribution aka Fedora 9 Sulphur.

Fedora 9 (Sulphur) Alpha released

The first alpha release of Fedora 9 (codenamed Sulphur) has been announced. An alpha release is similar to what Debian calls testing. An alpha release represents a sanitized snapshot of Fedora's development branch, which sees rapid changes and will become the next major release. Having said that, alpha releases should boot normally on most systems. By trying out an alpha release, the Linux users provide developers the much needed feedback on the changes and any bugs they encounter.

Fedora 9 Alpha release provides a peek into what to expect in the next major release of Fedora which is tentatively scheduled for late April. Some of the features and improvements in Fedora 9 are as follows :

• GNOME 2.21
• KDE 4.0 as the default KDE desktop
• Firefox 3 Beta 2
• Anaconda installer improvements - Now you can resize the Ext2, Ext3 and NTFS partitions among other things.
• PackageKit - This is to Fedora what Synaptic is to Debian based Linux distribution. PackageKit acts as a front end to Yum.
• Decrease the startup time of X window system.
• Linux kernel 2.6.24
• Ext4 filesystem support - Ext4 is more scalable and better performing than Ext3.
  

You can download the alpha 1 release from the Fedora web site. For more details, see the Fedora release notes, planned schedule and feature list.

Fedora 8 review

The first ever Linux distribution I used was not Debian or Slackware but Red Hat Linux. In fact, as I remember it, the version of Red Hat I used was ver 6.2. A couple of years back, Red Hat decided to demarcate its Linux offering into two separate entities namely the free as in beer and Free as in freedom Fedora and its paid version but still Free as in freedom offering namely Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The improvements that are made in Fedora, after they go through a period of severe whetting are eventually incorporated into Red Hat enterprise offering or so it seems.

Let me tell you a funny thing, even though I have been using Fedora for many years now, this is the first time I am putting down my thoughts on Fedora. The latest offering from Fedora namely Fedora 8 is in every respect an excellent Linux distribution past compare. As with all previous versions of Fedora, the hard work and quality which is the trademark of Red Hat shines through in Fedora 8 too.

There are numerous features that are incorporated into Fedora 8. Some of the most notable ones being ...

• Inclusion of an advanced sound server called PulseAudio which is compatible with nearly all existing Linux sound systems.
• A new Java environment called IcedTea which is derived from OpenJDK.
• Numerous improvements to tools which interact with other devices such as Bluetooth tool, network manager and so on.
  

Read the full list of features for Fedora 8 code named Werewolf in the official release notes.

But if you ask me, the pertinent aspects of Fedora which place it a cut above most other Linux distributions are for sure the seamless integration of GUI tools to accomplish complex tasks. For example, Fedora has a GUI tool to create and manipulate logical volumes on your machine. There are GUI front ends for setting up a firewall, a set of SELinux tools to view, create and modify policies and so on. And it has been Red Hat's and in succession, Fedora's aim to make sure the different desktops namely GNOME and KDE have a similar look and feel which is evident when you install GNOME and KDE on your Fedora 8 machine.

The installation as such was a painless affair - considering that (as far as I can remember) it was Red Hat which first developed a GUI installer for installing its Linux distribution. And Red Hat installer named "Anaconda" is a fine piece of software that has evolved over time and which does its job splendidly. Check out a slide show of the screen shots of all the installation steps.

Once you boot into Fedora 8, you come face to face with a new default theme called Nodoka which is both a refreshing change and a pleasure to the eyes. Fedora 8 also feature a spartan look and feel called Infinity. GNOME bundled with Fedora 8 is version 2.20.1 and KDE is version 3.5.8.

Shown below are a couple of well designed GUI front-ends which aid the end user in accomplishing a variety of complex tasks - these tasks can also be executed using the equivalent command line tools.

Fig: Dual head display settings

Fig: Advanced Firewall configuration

Fig: Logical volume management GUI tool

Fig: Printer configuration

Fig: SELinux management

Fig: Services configuration

Fig: SELinux troubleshoot browser

Apart from the GUI tools displayed above, there are also GUI front ends for user management, sound management, network configuration, setting up bootloader and so on.

Fedora 8 LiveCD comes bundled with Abiword word processor and Gnumeric spreadsheet which are clean and lean alternatives to OpenOffice.org Writer and Calc. Of course you always have the option of installing OpenOffice.org if you deem it fit via Fedora's Applications > Add/Remove programs interface.

The Fedora team has also been innovating its offering by releasing tools which allow you to roll out (remaster) your own custom Fedora distribution with just the features and software you need. Check out several different spins, which are variations of Fedora built from a specific set of software packages.

On the other hand, Fedora team aka Red Hat is obsessed with making sure that its Linux distribution stays as Free as possible - much to the delight of Free software enthusiasts. A side effect for the end user is that it is not possible to play proprietary audio and video files on a default Fedora installation. If you want to, there is a round about way of enabling some third party repositories (rpm.livna.org and rpmfusion.org) and installing their custom build of multimedia players which are compiled with support for these proprietary file formats. Fedora also comes bundled with a new tool called Codeina which allows you to buy licenses for various multimedia file formats from Fluendo. The prices range from 7 Euros all the way up to 16 Euros for each set of codecs. I haven't installed them so am not in a position to comment on the quality of these bought codecs.

Fig: CodecBuddy (Codeina) allows you to buy licenses for proprietary file formats.

Fedora 8 does feature a GUI tool to easily enable desktop effects (namely Compiz). But then I was faced with a conundrum of sorts which was that without the proprietary Nvidia drivers (My machine has a Nvidia GEForce 2 card), it is not possible to enable the desktop effects. At the same time, it is a round about and messy process to install the proprietary Nvidia display drivers in Fedora; which may be possible if you are running SELinux in permissive mode.

In conclusion, if you are looking for a robust, secure and stable Linux distribution which stands out from rest of the brood in providing an innovative set of GUI tools for system and network administration but at the same time, you are also particular that you would like to use only Free software, then you should seriously consider taking Fedora 8 for a spin. You will definitely fall in love it.

Fedora 8 code named Werewolf officially released

Fedora 8 code named Werewolf has been officially released. There are a number of features which makes it a better distribution than its predecessor Fedora 7. They are as follows :

• Inclusion of PulseAudio sound daemon. PulseAudio is a networked sound daemon which allows you to set say, individual volumes for different applications, mixing of multiple audio streams, allowing an application to play back or record audio on a different machine than the one it is running on and so on.
• Fedora 8 makes it possible to let you legally purchase proprietary codecs from Fluendo via its Codeina utility.
• A new default theme for GNOME called Nodoka has been released.
• PolicyKit - This tool allows you to provide specific powers to users and applications to carry out privileged operations without diverging the root password. For instance you can allow every family member to format removable media without giving them the root password. PolicyKit is expected to completely replace Gksudo.
• Compiz packages has been included but they are in a disabled state and have to be enabled by the user.
  

There are a number of other features too such as support for Nepali language, improved and completely free Java environment for Red Hat derived from OpenJDK, Bluetooth enhancements and so on. Check out the full feature list of Fedora 8 to know more.

Fedora 8 is made available in multiple formats such as a DVD image which carries the install version and LiveCD images of GNOME and KDE. You can download Fedora 8 from the following location. Do try downloading using torrents because it is much faster than directly downloading from a mirror site and it saves the bandwidth of the mirrors hosting the Fedora 8 images.

Installing Fedora - a video tour

Are you thinking of installing Fedora 7 on your machine ? If you are, then you should take a look at the Fedora 7 installation screenshots I had posted previously.

But if you need something even better such as a video of the installation steps then you should check out the three part video put together at linux.com.

Roblimo Miller the chief editor at OSTG has put together a series of three videos demonstrating all the steps needed to get up and running in Fedora 7. The videos explain the full installation of Fedora 7 from start to finish, First boot after the install and lastly Adding and removing software in Fedora 7.

The videos are made available in two formats ie. Flash and Ogg files and have been released under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. So you are free to download and share the videos with anybody.

I found all three videos to be clear, precise and to the point in explaining and showing each tasks. In short a must watch for all Linux neophytes interested in installing Fedora 7.

You can view the Fedora 7 video tour here. On a different note, I also found the Kubuntu 7.04 video tour equally interesting.

Fedora 7 installation screenshots

As you know, the Fedora team has released the latest offering of Fedora which is Fedora 7. It has been released as a liveCD as well as in the DVD format. These are the steps you go through while installing Fedora 7 using the liveCD installer.

Fig: Fedora LiveCD installer

Fig: Select the keyboard for your system

Fig: Choose the partitioning layout

Fig: Optionally, partition the hard disk by hand.

Fig: Install the grub boot loader

Fig: Choose to install grub either on MBR or on the first sector of boot partition (Optional step)

Fig: Configure and activate network devices.

Fig: Choose the time zone

Fig: Set the root password

Fig: Click the next button to begin installing Fedora 7

Fig: Installation in progress...

Fig: Installation complete.

Fedora 7 - latest offering from Red Hat

The latest offering from Red Hat, Fedora ver 7.0 has been released. This time round, Fedora team has mearged the core packages with the Extra platform components which is why you see the title of this post to contain "Fedora 7" instead of "Fedora core 7".

Some of the new features found in Fedora 7 are as follows :

• The ability to create appliances to suit very particular user's needs.
• The latest versions of Gnome (2.18), KDE 3.5.6, Xorg 7.2 .
• Latest Linux kernel with integrated KVM (Kernel Virtualization) support.
• Different Fedora 7 images to suit different users needs such as Gnome and KDE live CDs with accompanying installer, an all encompassing DVD image, A regular image for desktops, workstations, and server users and so on.
• NetworkManager presents a graphical interface that allows user to quickly switch between wireless and wired networks for increased mobility. NetworkManager is installed by default in both GNOME and KDE Live CDs.
• A new comprehensive graphical administration tool for SELinux, system-config-selinux is available by default in this release.
• Integrates the experimental nouveau driver within Xorg and the kernel. The nouveau driver aims to provide free and open source 3D drivers for nVidia cards.
  

You can download Fedora 7 from the list of mirrors and also view the full release notes.

Metric equivalent of Microsoft fonts for Linux

Visit any random website and chances are the website expects your machine to have a set of fonts which have become the de-facto standard on the Internet. The fonts being Arial, Times New Roman, Courier New and so on. While it may not be illegal to install these fonts on a Linux machine, they are propritery and are owned by Microsoft. And Microsoft does not licence third parties to redistribute these fonts - a reason why you don't find these commonly used popular fonts installed in Linux by default.

This is going to change once and for all. Red Hat in association with Ascender Corp has developed a set of fonts which are the metric equivalent of the most popular Microsoft fonts, and they have released it under the GPL+exception license. Three sets of fonts have been released, them being:

1. Sans - a substitute for Arial, Albany, Helvetica, Nimbus Sans L, and Bitstream Vera Sans
2. Serif - a substitute for Times New Roman, Thorndale, Nimbus Roman, and Bitstream Vera Serif and
3. Mono - a substitute for Courier New, Cumberland, Courier, Nimbus Mono L, and Bitstream Vera Sans Mono.
   

The advantage for Linux users is that now you don't have to explicitly install Microsoft fonts anymore as the web sites or documents which use Microsoft fonts will display flawlessly using the metric equivalent fonts which can be included in all Linux distributions by default.

The work on the fonts is yet to be completed and so will be released in two stages. In the first stage, all the fonts are released as fully usable but will lack the full hinting capability provided by True Type/Free Type technology. In the second phase of the release which will happen some time in later half of 2007, the fonts will have full hinting capability and will be at par with or excel the Microsoft fonts in quality. For now Red Hat has made available all the fonts for download so that you can test it on your machine.

Creating good quality fonts - ie. fonts which retain its quality even in smaller sizes is a very tedious and time consuming process. And buying good quality fonts is a very costly affair with each set of fonts costing anything upwards of $100 . By taking the initiative to develop good quality fonts which are the metric equivalent of Microsoft fonts, and releasing them under a Free licence, Red Hat has done a very good deed for the Free Software and Open Source cause.

Eric.S.Raymond forsakes Fedora Linux and embraces Ubuntu

Eric.S.Raymond is best known for authoring the famous essay "The cathedral and the bazaar" where he discusses the theories of software engineering in terms of two fundamentally different development styles - the cathedral model of most of the commercial world versus the "bazaar" model of the Linux world. This essay has become so popular that it has also been published in a book format (By O'Reilly). One of the most often used quotes from his essay is - "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow". He is also a board member of Freespire.

In the past, Mr Raymond has been in the limelight for the push to allow proprietary codecs into Linux. His surmise is that the Linux community need to start integrating more proprietary software in order to get market share. ESR points to proprietary multimedia codecs as an example, where Linux distributions should step away from Free software ideology in order to get more users. He states that this will succeed in bringing those users back to open source later on which will lead to gaining more influence with manufacturers and media distributors thus helping make Linux a properly supported platform. And this idea he put forward was met with ridicule from a major section of the community.

Now again he has succeeded in grabbing the headlines by stating his intention to switch to Ubuntu from Fedora which he has been using till now. And he supports his move by listing the following reasons - and I quote :

• Chronic governance problems.
• Persistent failure to maintain key repositories in a sane, consistent state from which upgrades might actually be possible.
• A murky, poorly-documented, over-complex submission process.
• Allowing RPM development to drift and stagnate -- then adding another layer of complexity, bugs, and wretched performance with yum.
• Effectively abandoning the struggle for desktop market share.
• Failure to address the problem of proprietary multimedia formats with any attitude other than blank denial.
  

While I agree with him on his statement on the performance of Yum - I have myself found it quite slow - a reason attributed to it storing all the details in an XML file and then reading from it, I do not agree that Red Hat/ Fedora is in the wrong to flatly deny to incorporate proprietary multimedia formats in their distribution.

Alan Cox has given a reply to ESR's letter in the Fedora mailing list.

Ironically, another news that is being just aired is that Microsoft has been asked to pay 1.52 Billion dollars in a patent case against Alcatel-Lucent concerning the use of MP3 technology in WMP [Source: BBC].

So the risk factors concerning incorporating proprietary / patented formats in GNU/Linux is clear for all to see. Can Red Hat / Ubuntu or any other distribution survive if they are asked to pay such a huge sum for alleged patent infringement ? I doubt it.

On another note, considering that he is a board member at Freespire, and given his stand, shouldn't he be embracing Freespire instead of Ubuntu ?