Slashdot Mirror
Fedora Core 1 Released
EvilAlien writes "The Fedora Project has released Fedora Core 1, aka Yarrow. The release was expected on November 3rd, but was briefly delayed. The release notes has quite a bit of good detail, and is worth checking out for any preliminary questions you may have. Download options include BitTorrent in addition to the traditional collection of FTP mirrors."
~~~
Usually, I'd just expect some vague headline, like "Fedora Core released", but our editors have gone ABOVE AND BEYOND the call of duty and attached a brief synopsis of what Fedora is and why this is an important news item. I'm glad they didn't just say "Fedora released" and call it that.
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
Bittorrent Link
Alternatively:i so.torrent
btdownloadcurses.py --max_upload_rate 350 --url http://torrent.dulug.duke.edu/yarrow-binary-i386-
A few installation screenshots
If you open yourself to the foo, You and foo become one.
I hear the desktop is pretty bad. I'll just stick with windows :)
Good, solid base of stable kernel, glibc, gcc and XFree86 releases. Not sure how the 8-month no-backport security fix policy is going to work though; it could be a right shambles having to update all sorts of stuff and dependencies just because of hole in nano requires upgrading to the latest version etc.
Still, looks like RH's first-rate QA has been put into place (unlike in Mandrake), and hopefully they'll keep that up as the community gets more involved.
M
64 MB minimum for text mode, 192 minimum for graphical? When did we get so bloated? It looks like we're catching up to MS with an OS that has always had efficiency of resources as a primary strength. What gives?
I looked around the website and they don't really explain how important a priority stability is.
/directly/ used by RedHat, or is there a "polishing" step?
They do have a QA "project", but they also say they want to "Be on the leading edge of open source technology..."
I take it we're not talking OpenBSD/Debian-stable level of reliability. That's fine. But what's the goal? Will this stuff be
-... ---
We're tired, we're droopy
We're all a little loopy
A Fedora Core Test Release
Is invading your PC!
New features - interesting!
The code could use some testing
That's why we are requesting
new bug reports quickly!
On our ftp site is the place where you will see
The stuff that we've been working on since 1993!
We're tired, we're droopy
We're all a little loopy
It's a Fedora Core Test Release
Come and join the fun!
-- http://lwn.net/Articles/50994/
> where can I buy a boxed set of it?
Simple. To purchase a boxed copy, simply mail your $699 to:
The SCO Group
355 South 520 West, Suite 100
Lindon, Utah 84042
USA.
this is a funny story. I have a new asus motherboard with firewire built in. I was running windows (just to test the hardware, mind you..) and then finally got around to trying to install linux on a separate hard disk.
;)
linux (redhat 6.x and latest gentoo) and even freebsd refused to install! huh? never saw THAT happen before.
well, turns out that I had my firewire camera (not a real camera but a canopus firwire media bridge that looks like a FW camera) connected and all I can think of is that the funny asus bios considered THAT a 'disk' and when linux and bsd scanned the 'installable devices' via a probe, it found the camera device but wasn't smart enough to know it wasn't a disk/storage device. so the install hung hard.
removing the firewire cable allowed the installs to continue (all of them).
the very thought of linux or bsd trying to install itself on a VIDEO CAMERA just makes me laugh. imagine the design issues of that - when the system boots up, does it display titles on the video camera eyepiece? if it fscks, does it have to rewind the tape often? does it have the 1024 cylinder limit if you boot from mini-DV?
just kinda funny, I guess. the new motherboard bios' are trying to abstract the media type and say 'disks are disks, no matter if ide or scsi or firewire'. ha!
One of the reasons for the name change from "Red Hat Linux" to Fedora is that everybody can sell CDs with the distribution now.
No need to rename it to "pink tie linux" or "green sock linux" any more, every cheap CD shop selling CDs with Fedora can call it by its real name.
You know, no one's forcing you to install any of what you listed.
Unless the Fedora installer has changed from what RedHat (free) used to have, you can pick and choose as little or as much as you want. Install just the core stuff and you won't even be asked for the 2nd and 3rd CDs.
Personally, I like it. Much easier than hunting around for online all day.
Oh, and last time I checked, many other distros are even larger (iirc, Debian was up to 5 CDs a while ago), so I don't see where the RedHat bashing comes from.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Although this was silly of me in a certain sense, I originally interpreted "download options include bittorrent and..." to mean that the web browser in this release would include a bittorrent client. And then the obvious occurred to me that they just meant you could use torrents to download the iso. But really... It would be VERY nice to have an integrated torrent client. Mozilla Firebird people, are you listening? Just because you're the best browser around doesn't mean you shouldn't implement this. :)
That's really cool, and more useful than it sounds... I was looking for just this feature several months ago when installing RH on a laptop whose video card was supported by XFree but for some reason wouldn't work with the graphical installer. (Tweaks were required for the configuration file.) I know there's a text-based installer as well, but it's so much easier to select packages on the GUI install. It sounds like this will be a nice successor to RH 9.
.sig: file not found
My interpretation of their move is this:
1. They weren't making money on commercial RedHat releases. There are a few zealots like myself that run down to CompUSA (or whatever) to grab the latest release when it hits the shelves, but it was mostly to show our support for the company.
2. There is a lot of profit to be made in "support" in boxed product sales, and the enormous expense of Windows server licenses validate this proposition. They just need to be priced considerably below Windows support levels to compete.
3. Most desktop users want a bleeding-edge distribution so they can run the latest games and apps, and RedHat didn't want the tech support headaches and expense.
I think they just looked around at the playing field, saw that they could do little or nothing to prevent people from repackaging their product and selling it for a couple of bucks a CD, saw the numbers from their standard box sales versus the impressive revenue from comparatively few Enterprise Linux sales, and said "screw it, it's not worth our money to try to sell what everybody gets for free anyway".
Sad fact of life, that. Not enough freaks like me that like to buy the boxed set, I guess.
But I'm excited that Fedora is coming out with a release hot on the heels of the end-of-life announcements on RedHat boxed products. I think they'll find that the flexibility afforded them by a more open development model for their distribution, ala Mozilla.org, will help keep their server products competitive and "feed" the Advanced Server distribution with good ideas.
It remains to be seen how well it will take off, though... an awful lot of "mindshare" of hard-core Linux geeks is already invested in other distributions. As for me, I think they are doing it right, and although I'm certain they'll be off for 4-6 months of a rocky start, within a year they'll have a pretty solid volunteer contribution effort and a distribution that finally keeps up with cutting-edge features of other distributions. They've been behind the curve a long time (ugh "up2date" sucked vs. apt-get upgrade) on keeping their distro fresh; it is nice to see they've moved to a method that, perhaps, can keep it more current.
I wonder how they plan to handle RHCE's? I plan on taking the exam as soon as I finish reviewing for it, but I can't help but wonder if this move to Fedora on the desktop means that soon-to-be prospective RHCE's will no longer be able to just download the latest Redhat release and go, or if they'll need some special "student edition" of their Enterprise Linux product?
Matthew P. Barnson
I learn what I think when I read what I write
You don't honestly expect me to "upgrade" from Linux 9.0 to Linux 1.0 do you? At this rate we'll never catch Windows 2000.
What has *science* done?!? -- Dr. Weird (ATHF)
Look at the facts:
Support for Redhat 9 is good through April 2004.
You can download Fedora for free. Fedora has been specifically packaged to make 3rd party distribution easy, and looks like it's going to include all of the functionality of old redhat+up2date for free.
The new enterprise products have guaranteed 5-year support cycles. THIS IS HUGE. The low end, desktop-oriented enterprise workstation offering is 179$, including 1yr up2date support.
All of Redhat's software is still GPL.
I don't see what the anti-redhat has against one of their best neighbors and diplomats to the outside world.
Can't anyone on /. read? RedHat has simply said that they are not chasing the CONSUMER desktop for the time being. If you read the articles and if you go to RedHat's site, you will see that they are still quite interested in *corporate and business* desktops, where the application base is more controlled and limited, and there generally is not the need to support every consumer USB widget under the sun. Their "Enterprise Linux" offerings have versions tailored for both servers *and* (corporate) desktops.
Additionally, for individuals and small companies who want to do their own support, there is still Fedora, but it will have a shorter support lifetime.
No software goal would be complete without having at least two or three separate open source projects working towards it.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
I looked around the website and they don't really explain how important a priority stability is. They do have a QA "project", but they also say they want to "Be on the leading edge of open source technology..."
I take it we're not talking OpenBSD/Debian-stable level of reliability. That's fine. But what's the goal? Will this stuff be /directly/ used by RedHat, or is there a "polishing" step?
If you are talking about this stuff ending up in RH Advanced Server, then yes, this will be heavily polished before release.
If you are talking about RH Linux 10, well, that won't be happening. This is the new world right here.
Speaking as someone who runs Mandrake Cooker (someone pick up that reader who just fainted) stability concerns really don't worry me too much as I can hack the problems as they occur :-) However, this stuff has gone through basic Redhat QA so it can be assumed that it won't eat your dog or sleep with your wife :-)
This is a distribution for the release early, release often crowd. The primary release (which this is) should be treated as being a reasonable base to build on. Once you hook up the apt-get or yum tools to the respective repositories, upgrading broken packages should be easy enough. Fedora will be making an appearance on my laptop in the next week or so - time will tell whether Fedora is stable enough. If you are nervous about being an early adopter, sit back and watch the forums, newsgroups and mailing lists for show stoppers that might hit your configuration.
I'm happy to see Fedora hit the streets. I've been running RH 8.0 on this laptop for a while now and I miss the absolute bleeding edge that the Mandrake Cooker tree gives me. Running Fedora on this laptop will allow me to track the latest stable release series. Mandrake Cooker allows me to track the latest developer releases on my desktop box.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
Red Hat have always had a bit of a reputation for lousing up the release process of a distribution when it comes to getting mirrors ready before the release.
Fedora has taken this to new and astounding heights. I got the notification that Fedora was ready to mirror 31 minutes before the supposed official release time. The download.fedora.redhat.com name wasn't in the DNS. The permissions on the repository prvented us rsyncing, and there were no pre-release torrents in place.
So at release time there were no mirrors and no torrents available. Worse, the mirror list their download page points to are the old Red Hat mirrors which use a different directory heirarchy to the new Fedora tree, so those links are both wrong and to machines that don't have the damn software.
Its now 4.5 hours after release time. I have had a torrent client set running for most of that time (as soon as I got a torrent URL), and the torrents have not completed. The immediate throwing open of the release to the general public means I can't get rsync access to the main site. So my mirror, and I guess many other are not anywhere near synced.
Frankly I'm pissed off and will probably not bother to mirror in future.
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux /core/1/i386/os/images/boot.iso
Banu
Believe me "do we just join Debian" was a seriously asked question in planning Fedora. But Fedora is about somewhat slightly different things like regular and rapid releases and so the idea of merging into Debian didnt look like it would work out.
RH 10 == FC 1
Red Hat still puts resources into Fedora.
Red Hat still puts QA into Fedora (in fact they caught flack for delaying it).
Red Hat opened up the development to outsiders through Fedora.
Red Hat changed the products name into something everyone can use and sell.
We get a more open, supported, release often OS.
So far this sounds great. In the coming months we will see if this really is a win/win.
It's never too late to change your mind. Debian is fairly gung-ho on the idea of multiple maintainers for packages, which makes for a reasonable entry point for folks from other distributions to join the fun. Another good hook is Debian's Testing distribution. The basic idea is to have a usable software collection with a time granularity between Unstable (daily) and Stable (roughly two year cycle). Testing doesn't currently get the tons of programmer nourishment it so richly deserves, and instead relies on automated QA programs and a few gallant human efforts. With some additional manpower, this would be a great layer in the distribution/maintenance system for something like Fedora to emerge.
Significantly, you couldnt sell CDs with 'Red Hat Linux' on them and call it 'Red Hat Linux'.... The product included support, and RH was getting lots of calls from people who had bought 'Red Hat Linux' out of the back of a van (or whatever :P)
With 'Fedora', OTOH, anyone can burn off CDs and call it 'Fedora'.. Well, more people can, there are still some restrictions Im sure.
I know this is true. I heard it from a guy on the internet.