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Fedora Core 4 Available
Limburgher writes "As of a few minutes ago, the torrents listed at duke went live. Nothing on the main site yet, however. The more people get on the torrents, the faster they will be. You all know the drill." Update: 06/13 19:07 GMT by T : Also in Red Hat-related news, halfbyte_hosting writes "CentOS 4.1 is now on the mirrors and ready for download."
I actually just did a new dual-boot install of Fedora Core 4, and Windows XP, and found Fedora Core 4 (the beta is the one I installed this past weekend) about 10 times easier to install than Windows XP. It was incredibly easier to configure after the installation, also.
3 /ctl/ArticleView/mid/575/articleId/319/Dualbooting WindowsXPandLinux.aspx
s n-new-in-fc
Here is that commentary about my process (I am a first-time user of Linux):
http://www.mygadgetbag.com/MGBCommentary/tabid/18
Also, for anyone wondering, here is a link to the newest updates that are in Fedora Core 4:
http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/release-notes/fc4/#
I am very happy with Fedora Core 4 (beta) after using it for a few days. The only thing I am having trouble with is connecting to the Yum repositories, as described on the Fedora FAQ.
The main Fedora site is updated now, also!
Managed to snarf a copy over the weekend from an unsecured official mirror. Four CDs, each about 630MB.
Installed it onto my ThinkPad T23, 733MHz/1.13GHz with 512MB RAM. Familiar graphical installation procedure, auto-detected everything in my laptop. Didn't expect it not to, as previous Fedora Core releases did so. When setting up the soundcard though, couldn't hear the test sounds but booting into KDE produced the familiar jingle. SELinux option during installation is Enabled or Disabled, no halfway house as in FC3. Compiling with GCC4.0 has made a noticeable speed difference, especially in KDE 3.4. Start-up time seemed quicker as well.
As always, read the release notes. They have taken the decision to move some stuff off into the Fedora Extras project. XMMS was the main one I noticed. And yes, this being Red Hat-influenced, there is no support for MP3 or DVD playback straight off the installation discs.
If you have a Matrox-based card that requires you to use the Matrox-sourced mga_hal module, you're not going to have much luck configuring X until they release a new version for X.org 6.8.2. I get lovely vertical bars every 1cm on my TFTs using a G550 DVI.
I've got a fever and the only prescription is more COBOL.
In short, no. /home and easy to back up and restore. But for those running servers on FC, ouch.
There is not even a supported way to upgrade from FC3 to FC4, or even from a FC4 test release. The reason being explained to me was that testing all that upgrading would greatly slow down the release process. Personaly, I'd rather have to wait another month or two for a release then have to fresh install. It's not as big a deal as it is with windows though, since all the user settings are in
Why is it so hot? Where am I going? What am I doing in this handbasket?
Er, no.
Rawhide is where things first get tested.
After that, Fedora Core 4 beta 1
After that, Fedora Core 4 beta 2
After that, Fedora Core 4 beta 3
After that, Fedora Core 4 beta 4
After that, Fedora Core 4
After that, Red hat Enterprise Linux.
Fedora works. It has a lot of texting. Report a bug, and someone will fix it. That someone probably works for Red Hat.
RHEL works too. And it's a lot more conservative - which yes, probably means it's a little more reliable, but doesn't mean FC is unreliable or a beta test. See bullet points above. Stability is a yes no thing, it's a more or less thing.
People don't buy RHEl cause FC is unstable. They buy RHEL so they can install a box this year and get 24/7 support, and training, and not have to upgrade, till 2011.
Mad Penguin published a "progress" review of FC4 not too long ago and it was a pretty good read.
Sorry, but no. Upgrades from any FC release to any newer FC release are supported. Upgrades from any RHL release (well, since RHL 3.0.3) to any newer FC release are supported
What's not supported is upgrades from tests (like FC4 test3) to stable releases (like FC4). That's it. Tests are not meant for use on production machines, or non-production machines by those who don't want to deal with the pain of actually, you know, testing stuff