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Fedora Core 6 Preview
An anonymous reader writes "Earlier this week Jesse Keating announced the availability of Fedora Core 6 Test 1. New items in FC6T1 include Intel Macintosh support (well, mostly), update notification applet, GNOME 2.15, KDE 3.5.3, and the Fedora Core 6 Extras development repository is already available. With FC6T1's availability, Phoronix has published their own preview of this release. The article is focused on an editorial about changes to come for Fedora Core 6, as well as images from Fedora Core 6 Test 1. The next Fedora Core 6 testing release (Test 2) is due out in July, while the final release is due out this September."
I started to use fedora a few months ago and really like it. The main problem I find with it is they seem too willing to update too quickly. I was speaking on a forum about the problems I was having (Kernel update 2107 had real problems) I was told "core 5 is very new, it will get more stable over the coming months"... I kind'a feel like they should make core 5 as stable and as good as it can be and keep it going for about a year or two from when it is completely setled. The only reason that I am a little worried is I'm pretty sure yum will update me to core 6 automatically if i forget to "--exclude" everytime I do a update
Still, it is a really lovely distro (I know it sounds like I slagged it off)... but give it a go : D
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
I think distros that disallow MP3 playback out of the box are being over zealous for 4 reasons:
1. All software violates patents
2. The patent holder says that FLOSS players are ok.
3. The patents are only valid in the US and Japan
4. The point is moot in 3 years anyway when the patent expires. So, there's no time to popularize ogg if that's what they're attempting.
I'm all for keeping things 100% FLOSS, but as long as a piece of software has source code and is freely licenced then personally I don't care if it violates patents. Its one thing being forced by law not to use MP3 playback, but voluntarily removing it preemptively...isn't that a little like jumping off a cliff to avoid getting pushed off?
The ridiculous hoop you have to jump through is to simply type:
rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-5.rpm
Why do I have to type something at the command line to get basic multimedia support? Can't they just make a button during the install that you can press to get 'illegal' software. The button could read:
'I want to play mp3 files and I don't care if it's illegal. I take full responsibility for my actions.'
or:
'Software patents don't apply in my country, give me an mp3 player already!'
Why do they make you use the command line? It doesn't make sense.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
Throwing my mod points away to respond to this :
I run FC5 at home and Ubuntu, Debian and Mandrake at work. Read this series of reviews of the latest Ubuntu release (6.06), they are not all positive. A significant number say Drake was rushed and not on par with the previous release.
I have tried many distros out there, everyone has their favourite, and in particular Ubuntu is quite good, but there is no clear winner. Most people I read tend to base their impression of Linux on the latest distro they've tried. Usually this shows some improvement over the one they had tried earlier and (incorrectlly) conclude this is due to the distribution being "just better".
In fact the whole of Linux is progressing at a rapid pace. Both Fedora and Ubuntu have quick and frequent release schedules, a large professional and dedicated team, and as a result they are quite solid, but the same is true of many distros out there. I've come to realize that by and large innovations by one distribution quickly permeate all. See the good work of Debian with apt, that of Ubuntu with their automounter and RH's work with sponsoring Gnome and SELinux.
Ubuntu and FC have different, incompatible aims. Ubuntu is not a testing ground for RHEL, they show little interest with SELinux for instance, whereas this is of strategic importance for FC. However strangely perhaps they cover much of the same ground as far as the end-user is concerned.
Saying that one particular distro among the big ones does something "much better" than any other is misinformed. Because of the nature of FOSS, none holds any permanent advantage over the others, as long as they all continue their development efforts.
That is not RPM's fault. Ubuntu/Debian are not any different. If you download a .deb of something and it has dependencies on packages you don't have installed, you will encounter the same problems. You may have heard of "apt" for Debian based distributions. There is also "yum" for RPM.
Knowledge is power.
Lord High Crapflooder The Right Honourable Vlad Craig Esther McDavenpherson III
Destroyer of Mercatur.Net
"With 1/5th the age of a distro"
Bullshit. Ubuntu is based off of Debian, and a very large chunk of the things Ubuntu uses were developed at Red Hat. Both are Gnome based distros, using Ubuntu is not easier than using Fedora, but Fedora comes with a lot of additional things that Ubuntu doesn't have. All of these Ubuntu supporters are simply falling right into Mark Shuttleworth's hands by building brand recognition so that his commercial side of tghe business will thrive. Mark Shuttleworth is a marketing genius.
Regards,
Steve
" Why not merge the Debian and Fedora development efforts? Is there any real difference of goals so large that the teams couldn't, over time, resolve the differences?"
Yes. There is one unsurmontable difference.
Fedora is the testbed tool from a company named Red Hat.
Debian is from users for users.