Slashdot Mirror

"Which are unique to Fedora that would compel one to chose it over one of the other distributions"

That's not really the point of Fedora features. Almost nothing is 'unique to Fedora' because that's not what we want with Fedora. We _want_ other distros to adopt the stuff that originates in Fedora and at RH.

"and I hope we are past the point of talking about installers"

Why would you hope that? The capabilities and interface of the installer are one of the major differentiators between distributions.

The major features that are affecting the F18 release schedule are the new installer UI and the new upgrade tool:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/NewInstallerUI

Features that are significant new code that's landing in Fedora probably before most other places:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/Virt_Guest_Suspend_Hibernate
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SystemStorageManager
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SecureBoot (Ubuntu 12.10 actually landed shim first, it was written by mjg59 as part of this Fedora feature and on RH time, though)
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/PackagePresets
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/RealHotspot
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/firewalld-default
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/DNF

there's probably others, I don't know a lot about some of the features at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/18/FeatureList .

"Which are unique to Fedora that would compel one to chose it over one of the other distributions"

That's not really the point of Fedora features. Almost nothing is 'unique to Fedora' because that's not what we want with Fedora. We _want_ other distros to adopt the stuff that originates in Fedora and at RH.

"and I hope we are past the point of talking about installers"

Why would you hope that? The capabilities and interface of the installer are one of the major differentiators between distributions.

The major features that are affecting the F18 release schedule are the new installer UI and the new upgrade tool:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/NewInstallerUI

Features that are significant new code that's landing in Fedora probably before most other places:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/Virt_Guest_Suspend_Hibernate
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SystemStorageManager
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SecureBoot (Ubuntu 12.10 actually landed shim first, it was written by mjg59 as part of this Fedora feature and on RH time, though)
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/PackagePresets
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/RealHotspot
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/firewalld-default
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/DNF

there's probably others, I don't know a lot about some of the features at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/18/FeatureList .

"Which are unique to Fedora that would compel one to chose it over one of the other distributions"

That's not really the point of Fedora features. Almost nothing is 'unique to Fedora' because that's not what we want with Fedora. We _want_ other distros to adopt the stuff that originates in Fedora and at RH.

"and I hope we are past the point of talking about installers"

Why would you hope that? The capabilities and interface of the installer are one of the major differentiators between distributions.

The major features that are affecting the F18 release schedule are the new installer UI and the new upgrade tool:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/NewInstallerUI

Features that are significant new code that's landing in Fedora probably before most other places:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/Virt_Guest_Suspend_Hibernate
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SystemStorageManager
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SecureBoot (Ubuntu 12.10 actually landed shim first, it was written by mjg59 as part of this Fedora feature and on RH time, though)
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/PackagePresets
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/RealHotspot
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/firewalld-default
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/DNF

there's probably others, I don't know a lot about some of the features at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/18/FeatureList .

"Which are unique to Fedora that would compel one to chose it over one of the other distributions"

That's not really the point of Fedora features. Almost nothing is 'unique to Fedora' because that's not what we want with Fedora. We _want_ other distros to adopt the stuff that originates in Fedora and at RH.

"and I hope we are past the point of talking about installers"

Why would you hope that? The capabilities and interface of the installer are one of the major differentiators between distributions.

The major features that are affecting the F18 release schedule are the new installer UI and the new upgrade tool:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/NewInstallerUI

Features that are significant new code that's landing in Fedora probably before most other places:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/Virt_Guest_Suspend_Hibernate
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SystemStorageManager
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SecureBoot (Ubuntu 12.10 actually landed shim first, it was written by mjg59 as part of this Fedora feature and on RH time, though)
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/PackagePresets
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/RealHotspot
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/firewalld-default
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/DNF

there's probably others, I don't know a lot about some of the features at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/18/FeatureList .

"Which are unique to Fedora that would compel one to chose it over one of the other distributions"

That's not really the point of Fedora features. Almost nothing is 'unique to Fedora' because that's not what we want with Fedora. We _want_ other distros to adopt the stuff that originates in Fedora and at RH.

"and I hope we are past the point of talking about installers"

Why would you hope that? The capabilities and interface of the installer are one of the major differentiators between distributions.

The major features that are affecting the F18 release schedule are the new installer UI and the new upgrade tool:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/NewInstallerUI

Features that are significant new code that's landing in Fedora probably before most other places:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/Virt_Guest_Suspend_Hibernate
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SystemStorageManager
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SecureBoot (Ubuntu 12.10 actually landed shim first, it was written by mjg59 as part of this Fedora feature and on RH time, though)
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/PackagePresets
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/RealHotspot
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/firewalld-default
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/DNF

there's probably others, I don't know a lot about some of the features at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/18/FeatureList .

"Which are unique to Fedora that would compel one to chose it over one of the other distributions"

That's not really the point of Fedora features. Almost nothing is 'unique to Fedora' because that's not what we want with Fedora. We _want_ other distros to adopt the stuff that originates in Fedora and at RH.

"and I hope we are past the point of talking about installers"

Why would you hope that? The capabilities and interface of the installer are one of the major differentiators between distributions.

The major features that are affecting the F18 release schedule are the new installer UI and the new upgrade tool:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/NewInstallerUI

Features that are significant new code that's landing in Fedora probably before most other places:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/Virt_Guest_Suspend_Hibernate
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SystemStorageManager
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SecureBoot (Ubuntu 12.10 actually landed shim first, it was written by mjg59 as part of this Fedora feature and on RH time, though)
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/PackagePresets
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/RealHotspot
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/firewalld-default
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/DNF

there's probably others, I don't know a lot about some of the features at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/18/FeatureList .

"Which are unique to Fedora that would compel one to chose it over one of the other distributions"

That's not really the point of Fedora features. Almost nothing is 'unique to Fedora' because that's not what we want with Fedora. We _want_ other distros to adopt the stuff that originates in Fedora and at RH.

"and I hope we are past the point of talking about installers"

Why would you hope that? The capabilities and interface of the installer are one of the major differentiators between distributions.

The major features that are affecting the F18 release schedule are the new installer UI and the new upgrade tool:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/NewInstallerUI

Features that are significant new code that's landing in Fedora probably before most other places:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/Virt_Guest_Suspend_Hibernate
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SystemStorageManager
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SecureBoot (Ubuntu 12.10 actually landed shim first, it was written by mjg59 as part of this Fedora feature and on RH time, though)
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/PackagePresets
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/RealHotspot
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/firewalld-default
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/DNF

there's probably others, I don't know a lot about some of the features at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/18/FeatureList .

"Which are unique to Fedora that would compel one to chose it over one of the other distributions"

That's not really the point of Fedora features. Almost nothing is 'unique to Fedora' because that's not what we want with Fedora. We _want_ other distros to adopt the stuff that originates in Fedora and at RH.

"and I hope we are past the point of talking about installers"

Why would you hope that? The capabilities and interface of the installer are one of the major differentiators between distributions.

The major features that are affecting the F18 release schedule are the new installer UI and the new upgrade tool:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/NewInstallerUI

Features that are significant new code that's landing in Fedora probably before most other places:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/Virt_Guest_Suspend_Hibernate
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SystemStorageManager
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SecureBoot (Ubuntu 12.10 actually landed shim first, it was written by mjg59 as part of this Fedora feature and on RH time, though)
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/PackagePresets
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/RealHotspot
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/firewalld-default
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/DNF

there's probably others, I don't know a lot about some of the features at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/18/FeatureList .

"Which are unique to Fedora that would compel one to chose it over one of the other distributions"

That's not really the point of Fedora features. Almost nothing is 'unique to Fedora' because that's not what we want with Fedora. We _want_ other distros to adopt the stuff that originates in Fedora and at RH.

"and I hope we are past the point of talking about installers"

Why would you hope that? The capabilities and interface of the installer are one of the major differentiators between distributions.

The major features that are affecting the F18 release schedule are the new installer UI and the new upgrade tool:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/NewInstallerUI

Features that are significant new code that's landing in Fedora probably before most other places:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/Virt_Guest_Suspend_Hibernate
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SystemStorageManager
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SecureBoot (Ubuntu 12.10 actually landed shim first, it was written by mjg59 as part of this Fedora feature and on RH time, though)
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/PackagePresets
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/RealHotspot
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/firewalld-default
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/DNF

there's probably others, I don't know a lot about some of the features at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/18/FeatureList .

They should never have merged in the new Anaconda in the state its in.

This looks to me like a failure of release management. Look at the "Contingency Plan" for the new anaconda UI. They basically said, "we don't have one" and the feature got accepted anyway. So, here we are today.

I don't blame the anaconda guys for finding out that the problem was harder than they thought. That happens.

But process is an important part of what makes Fedora Fedora - if anaconda is "too big to fail" then the process is broken, and Fedora is broken.

I hope the management team has realized that next time somebody says, "we can't have a contingency plan because of X," they respond, "we then you need to re-factor X so you can have a contingency plan."

Porting from sysVinit init scripts to systemd unit files.

It is not just the new installer, the conversion to systemd is also only at 70% complete. From their Release 18 Feature List. I am still using Fedora 16 at home as I had no real reason to move to 17 yet and will probably skip it. I am not entirely sure I want systemd instead of sys v init though and might do a review of the choices out there such as arch. I have used Fedora exclusively on the machine since early 2010 ever since the open source ATI drivers came along. Over all it has been a nice eco system.

There is no "linux userland" in the real world

Oh obscurant Android fan, please look here or here. Then tell me what percentage of that can run on Android.

I don't think you can replace Active Directory for things like Group Policy, etc. The functionality just isn't there, as far as I know. On the other hand check out the FreeIPA project in Fedora (and IPA in RHEL) - they now support creating trusts with Active Directory domains which allows sharing resources, etc. This is the gist of how it works: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:Testcase_freeipav3_ad_trust

When you talk about alternatives to Active Directory you need to be specific as to what features of Active Directory you refer to. Active Directory is a lot of things: Distributed multi-master database, Authentication provider, Authorization provider, Configuration management system, and more. The Active Directory infrastructure provides: File services, Print services, Group policy, LDAP, DNS, DHCP, and other services.

I haven't read in detail about Samba 4, and it appears that the Samba Wiki is down at the moment, but there is a decent description on the Fedora Project site. According to the Fedora site, Samba 4 includes the ability to be a domain controller and implements the Kerberos stack, but it is not clear that it provides the centralized configuration management that Active Directory does. This centralized management (Group Policy) and the ability to delegate administration (Organizational Unit based delegation) are very powerful features of Active Directory and what keep large organizations on the platform.

If what all you are looking for is a shared account database and the ability for multiple workstations to authenticate against it, Samba 4 may be just the ticket. If however you are looking for a replacement for Active Directory at an enterprise level, I doubt it is there yet.

On the other hand, RHEL provided hardening since a long time :
http://www.awe.com/mark/blog/200701041544.html

That's also a policy in Fedora ( https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines#PIE ). I guess for Debian, the issue was just to have someone do the job, and that likely mean "make sure this work on all platform", which can slowdown a bit. But as you say in the end, this was deployed.

There's a lot of reasons to switch distros. Everyone usually finds one that fits their way of thinking after two or three. People also find that the different distros work better at different tasks - you don't (generally) use Ubuntu for servers, for instance.

As far as what I run on "my" computer, it hasn't changed much: Slackware -> Debian unstable. I knew Slackware inside and out (back in the 3.x days) and now I know Debian very well (you have to, if you run unstable). I've hit a comfort zone, and I'm unlikely to change.

I switched from Slackware to Debian because Slackware was very, very far behind on switching from the libc5 C library to glibc (the second major change in Linux, the first being the switch to ELF executable format). A lot of software was being written that didn't work with the old libc5, and Pat (the maintainer of Slackware) was being stubborn on the point. He had his reasons, but I wanted new software, so I switched.

I tried Corel Linux back when it came out. That lasted about two days. It didn't live up to its promises, and when I found myself replacing the Corel repositories with Debian repositories, I knew it was in vain (BTW, doing apt-get update && apt-get upgrade from Corel to Debian is... interesting. It worked, after a lot of fixing, but I finally wiped and reinstalled Debian). It's just as well - there was only the one version of Corel Linux.

I've had to use Red Hat (not Enterprise, but old school Red Hat Linux) on a few occasions for work-related reasons. This was back in the RPM dependency hell days, and it turned me off of any distro that doesn't maintain a decently large package repository. I used Fedora Core 4 and found it to be just as bad. Same goes for Mandrake (before they became Mandriva - I had friends who ran that because it was "user friendly" - I did not find it so. It might be better now, of course.

I've used Gentoo for shits and giggles on a server I run. I was just curious about it. I've since replaced it with OpenBSD because a) I didn't have the time to learn to admin it properly and b) compiling every package in the system on an Intel Atom chip is painful. (I already knew how to admin OpenBSD.) I liked Gentoo and if I ever replaced Debian as my main distro, it would be to go to Gentoo. I just don't have the time to learn a new system anymore.

I've done LFS. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about the underpinnings of Linux. It reminded me a lot of my Slackware days, back when you had to compile everything.

Ubuntu works, and I've run it on a few machines, but doesn't fit into my way of doing things. I like to customize my system a lot, and I like to log in as root when I'm doing admin stuff. You can do that with Ubuntu, but it's just easier with Debian.

Of course, there's the BSDs and Solaris as well, and these days I mostly do server stuff on OpenBSD (or FreeBSD if it's a fileserver). The BSDs make excellent servers and don't feel as "hacked together" as Linux does. I wouldn't use one as my main system, but if I had a technical job again I wouldn't mind a FreeBSD desktop.

So the rite of passage isn't to find the most obscure distro, but to find the distro that suits both you and your use case best. Experimentation never hurts, and you can learn a lot from running different distros.

Fedora (my distro of choice) is about as bleeding edge as you'll get (and still be relatively stable). It is of course based around YUM/RPM, though. I honestly love Gnome 3 on it; it needs polishing, but I find it much more efficient for my workflow than Gnome 2/XFCE/whatever. YMMV

Also, RHell repositories barely have any packages compared to Ubuntu.

Not if you add EPEL:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL

Fedora has had the "sandbox" command for some years which uses SELinux to set up a disposable sandboxed context for running a program.

Since Fedora 17 there is also a "virt-sandbox" command using LXC or KVM to do a similar job:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/VirtSandbox

Does Windows 8 have an opt-out feature?

Yes, they do

For now.

Does Windows 8 have an opt-out feature?

Yes, they do.

But even if you use those opt outs on your new computer you still pay the Microsoft tax.

Not necessarily. I got a euro100 rebate on each of the PCs I bought a couple of years ago, as compensation for getting them without Windows. Actually, they came without any OS, just blank disks on which Ubuntu was promptly installed (later converted to Xubuntu to avoid Unity).

For laptops, it's trickier, but supposedly still possible. I'll cross that bridge also, when my 8-year-old laptop no longer runs adequately with Xubuntu.

Does Windows 8 have an opt-out feature?

Yes, they do.

But even if you use those opt outs on your new computer you still pay the Microsoft tax.

Does Windows 8 have an opt-out feature?

Yes, they do.

I'd rather use Fedora 17.

From the FAQ:

It supports the Essex version and will support the next rev when released, but this part bothers me:

"What are the requirements for using the preview software?

A: The preview version of the Red Hat OpenStack software only works with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.3 or higher. You'll need a Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription for each server you install with the Red Hat OpenStack software."

It maybe less work than with Fedora 17- but 17 includes OpenStack and has a how to get started (some bash-ing required).

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Getting_started_with_OpenStack_on_Fedora_17

By, for example, have a small binary blob for DRM stuff

According to how I read a popular copyleft license and its FAQ, such a binary blob would have to be a separate process, and the program would have to be substantially functional without it: Because it is a separate process, anyone can insert a man-in-the-middle shim that "tees" the decrypted output from the DRM-secured process into another file. And how would one make the engine substantially functional without it? Because otherwise, "packages which are not functional or useful without code or packages from third-party sources are not acceptable for inclusion in Fedora." (Fedora Packaging Guidelines)

last year?

10959 http://en.opensuse.org/
11772 http://www.slackware.com/
11189 http://qa.mandriva.com/

What on earth could they have against Slackware, OpenSuSE and Mandriva? There are other entries:

11304 http://torrent.fedoraproject.org/
11312 http://torrent.ubuntu.com:6969/

but these could be explained by being torrents. No Debian, CentOS or Mageia in the list. Strange.

To hire major contributors, or just to put people to work on feature. For example, take openstack. There is people working on this on the interoperability with various RH stack softwares ( http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/OpenStack_using_Qpid ). By making sure standard are respected, there is less lock-in, and better software for everybody. Better for RH, since their clients can use their usual stack ( ie, the RH one ), better for the client cause they have more choice, better for the community, cause they can offer easier integration with others users, and because they have more contributers. I guess the only one losing are rabbitmq in this case ( rabbitmq being property of vmware ), and even, they can use interoperability like RH did to get people on their software by competing on features or anything.

( of course, that's a almost ideal example )

Are you sure you got the right site for fedora? Did you type in fedora.org? In which case, tasteless is correct, unless you like the taste of puppies.
Try http://fedoraproject.org.

General advice: read https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2012-June/168684.html .

It covers just about every objection raised here, and in general why things aren't as easy as some commenters seem to think.

And just to make the point everywhere people may see it - this _only_ affects updates via the graphical updater. If you want to keep updating on the fly with yum, you can. Nothing will stop you.

From: Fedora 18's features page

"Note that this feature does not prevent you from using yum and other commandline tools to install updates whenever you want to. We also differentiate updates of 'OS components' (which we want to do in this offline fashion) from application updates and installations, which should still be possible from the UI without restarting the system. The differentiation between 'OS components' and applications is necessarily a heuristic, since Fedora only knows about packages. The initial heuristic is that a package is considered an application if it installs a desktop file that is shown in the menus. This is not perfect and can be refined when additional metadata becomes available. Also note that this feature is about implementing offline updates for GNOME. Other spins are not affected, although they could choose to use the same systemd and PackageKit infrastructure, and provide a similar experience. "

So we will still be able to do "yum update", and packagekit will remain behaving "normally" on the KDE Spin (at least for a while). So if it's just an option for GNOME users, it doesn't seem to be a big deal.

What is scary is the logic behind these changes, which seems to be: "Windows and OSX have nice screens to update and reboot so we must reboot too"

Gnome specs on software update

Note that this feature does not prevent you from using yum and other commandline tools to install updates whenever you want to.

So, this really is a non-issue.

There's the <reboot_suggested/> flag in updateinfo.xml.gz , which is set in the bodhi updates system (and also a hardcoded list).

However the proposal to use systemd updates refers only to the desktop file hack.

Assuming you don't want to RTFA, how about the the feature page itself.

Official feature page

Do not want. Will not accept. Have a nice day and bye. Fix stupid apps and libs; don't cater to lowest denominator. Yeah I understand in the proposal there is still an option to do updates the old way, but how long do you think that will survive?

This idiot is progressively turning linux into a cesspool. Don't take my word for it. Take the word of 18,600 guys. This guy is a one man engine of destruction.

It's possible to convert to the new unified filesystem without using anaconda, as described here and in the original reference here.

I can say from personal experience that the method described worked, without evidence of any problem, when I upgraded via yum from F16 to F17 on a hard drive dedicated to Fedora.

Also note that this feature is about implementing offline updates for GNOME. Other spins are not affected, although they could choose to use the same systemd and PackageKit infrastructure, and provide a similar experience.

[emphasis mine]

I guess you could just use a spin that doesn't require this or just not use GNOME.

It looks like Fedora 17 is available for this processor series also:

http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/publiclist/Fedora/17/ppc/

http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/publiclist/Fedora/17/ppc64/

It looks like Fedora 17 is available for this processor series also:

http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/publiclist/Fedora/17/ppc/

http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/publiclist/Fedora/17/ppc64/

I'll take a stab at "community".

"Open source" software actually predates "closed source". Proprietary? Sure, there have been many proprietary open source programs.

For example, back in '76, I was with the company that produced "MicroChess" (I wrote the I/O routines for the TRS-80 and the Commodore PET).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microchess

MicroChess was a proprietary program, and was the first program to sell over 10,000 copies. It came with full source code.

The "community" here is composed of people who care about the software that they run, who are interested in it, and can make use of the ideas embodied in the source.

The "community" is large enough to allow me to run my netbook with GPL software ONLY. Now, I do have some "closed-source" software on my netbook as well (Skype, Adobe Flash and Adobe Reader), but I really don't depend on any of these.

How large is this "community"? I use Fedora, and here are some statistics.

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Statistics

I seem to be in a "community" of at least 2 million, and maybe much higher (it really is hard to tell).

I like the page that links to: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Markdude

...don't turn yet another Fedora release thread into a GNOME Shell argument, people. It's just a desktop. We have lots of them.

Usually I'd agree with you but any argument surrounding GNOME Shell is partially Fedora's own fault. Alternative spins are not really advertised on fedoraproject.org. IIRC it was different in the past and https://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora had at least a big "Looking for KDE?" button instead of being hidden under "More download options". Compare that to http://software.opensuse.org/

...don't turn yet another Fedora release thread into a GNOME Shell argument, people. It's just a desktop. We have lots of them.

If you don't like GNOME, don't use it. You can pick GNOME, KDE, Xfce, LXDE or Sugar right from the package customization screen of a Fedora 17 DVD install, or you can download any one of those desktops as a live spin at https://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora-options#desktops or https://spins.fedoraproject.org/ .

If you don't like GNOME, don't use it, but that doesn't mean you can't use Fedora, or that Fedora is bad.

...don't turn yet another Fedora release thread into a GNOME Shell argument, people. It's just a desktop. We have lots of them.

If you don't like GNOME, don't use it. You can pick GNOME, KDE, Xfce, LXDE or Sugar right from the package customization screen of a Fedora 17 DVD install, or you can download any one of those desktops as a live spin at https://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora-options#desktops or https://spins.fedoraproject.org/ .

If you don't like GNOME, don't use it, but that doesn't mean you can't use Fedora, or that Fedora is bad.

Luckily "Spherical Cow", which is much more sensible. won the vote for Fedora 18. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/announce/2012-April/003067.html

I find it amusing that as a result of this name, I think this kicked off:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Future_Release_Naming

After several tries at getting 'Beefy Miracle' in, and the leadership seemingly forced to accept it. Hence a new naming process.

In order for this not to happen again do the following:

Stop using Windows and MacOSX.
Download and install Fedora F16.
When installing, encrypt the harddrive with a really hard to break password.
Install pidgin and off the record like this: 'yum install pidgin pidgin-otr'
Generate keys and verify them before communicating.
Be _very_ careful if who you usually talks to changes their key, they might have been arrested.
Never ever communicate in the clear.

Using this strategy you will not be immune, rubber-hose-cryptanalysis with still defeat this. Also you can be tracked so your oppresive government can see that you communicate, they will just not be able to read what you are saying. And not using major OSes will keep you away from the most common exploits and trojans.

Also, try to use TOR, HTTPS-everywhere and other good tools.

References:
https://fedoraproject.org/
http://fr2.rpmfind.net//linux/RPM/fedora/16/x86_64/pidgin-otr-3.2.0-4.fc15.x86_64.html
http://www.cypherpunks.ca/otr/

Good luck.

Why prefer Mint's KDE version to other distros' versions? Of all the KDE-oreinted distros I've tried, I've found Fedora's KDE spin to be the best, better even than Mint's.

Don't try dropping a new kernel source tar-ball onto RH Enterprise Server, Fedora, or even Ubunto -- it will break your system, and your $$$$ support agreement.

Are you aware of why people buy Redhat support agreements? If so, do you think Redhat could offer such agreements for the same kind of money if they supported every possible software version combination? Do you think buying into Redhat's system in involuntary?

As far as Fedora, the 3.3 packages are already built for 17 and 18; 16 should be along in a day or two. But if you're impatient odds are very good that you can rebuild the 17 package on 16 with a simple 'rpmbuild --rebuild' command, and install it with 'rpm -i kernel-foo....'. Fedora folks care about engineering, so if something doesn't work as it should, they want to know about it - you won't hear them using "it's not supported" as an excuse.

But, hey, I used to run Slackware too - it was my favorite distro on the InfoMagic set.

Already available in Fedora, of course.