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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.''
Can that be done yet?
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Rock and Roll
Ubuntu? It's years behind Fedora in case of security... *sigh*
/ 2006-June/000150.html
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Security/Features
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-hardened
Do I still need to jump through ridiculous hoops to get mp3 support in rhythmbox and get *any* support in totem?
Out of the box, Totem can't play *anything*.. completely useless.
At least make it like Ubuntu, where I can add a repository that has all the stuff they can't ship in the box.
Red Hat view (or at least did when I was in Raleigh last September) FC as an incubator for RHEL.
I discussed the release frequency and period of support, and they were pretty unsympathetic to the user's point of view. Their requirement is fast turnaround of new releases to ensure a strong test of new technologies / versions of new packages.
This has some upsides, like the multipathing support in RHEL4, Update 3 which means we can finally do away with Veritas on most of our machines. But it can suck for the user.
On one hand it can suck for the user, however, on the other, it's pretty darned nice having the latest release of everything, integrated (mostly) tested and working. True, it's not for everyone - for those people there's RHEL or even Debian. For those of us that like the bleeding edge (in a desktop distro I don't mind, never would I use it for a server though) it's the best thing since sliced bread.
I am NaN
As someone whose been using Fedora since Core 1, this release seems more evolutionary. Even without major changes between releases, the accumulated bug fixes contribute to a desktop that 'works' better and has the functionality I need. We all remember the bad old days of manually mounting your USB peripherals.. well now I have suspend, easy networking (thanks to NetworkManager) and useful stuff like Beagle to play with, so thats quite good progress. This release will be worthwhile just to get the latest of everything, and it looks as if some nice eye-candy will be ready in GNOME 2.16.
I personally would like to see a general reduction in memory usage in GNOME and various apps; it's been moving in the right direction, I hope it stays that way. I believe there is an effort to remove various deprecated libraries to help here.
I know what you mean, and it's probably not worth an upgrade..but they said the same for the FC4-FC5 transition (with some differences)and FC5 is several light years ahead of FC4.
Is it possible to upgrade the kernel to FC6 without hurting my setup though?
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...
At least Ubuntu is moving in this direction. Consider also that Ubuntu is only what, 2 or 3 years old? And Fedora has the benefit of running upstream of a commercial linux distro where features like this are considered important. Ubuntu has been working backwards, hitting the desktop market first and only just now breaking into the server market.
With 1/5th the age of a distro that gets to exchange features back and forth with a commercial, enterprise linux if a few security features is all that you can complain about that's not too shabby. And according to it's creator Ubuntu will NEVER leave us hanging by commercializing and forking off into a crappier, less stable, free derivitive.
Besides, linux distros have not been including the technologies you link to for "years" and even if they have... Ubuntu is years behind simply by chronology yet still has managed to beat out fedora by making a professional desktop ready linux in a fraction of the time. Try to keep a little perspective and save your sour grapes *sighs* for apples vs. apples comparisons. Ubuntu is a baby in the distro market compared to redhat/fedora.
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.
Same here...I used fedora since FC2 then tried ubuntu...I also never looked back.
And your Ubuntu does not use GNOME 2.1x ? That is why it is so "different"...right.
Redhat hacks KDE beyond the feel and proper use of KDE. Fedora replaces a lot of QT applets with GTK ones to perform a lot of functions. KDEsu is a prime example although there is others.
If you are a KDE fan, than you're being shortchanged if you run Fedora or Redhat products.
SuSE used to be a great product, but 10.1 had so many problems I've lost confidence.
Give Mandrake, Gentoo, Kubuntu a try.
I would like to check this out, but I don't have a spare partition. Is there a live CD of the development snapshot available?
I run Fedora Core (from 2, now at 5) at home. What is this 'RPM Hell' you're talking about?
RPM hell? As a Red Hat Network subscriber I enjoy one-click installations of pre-configured software packages that you won't find anywhere else. Plus apt-get works as good as on Ubuntu. Like it or not, RPM is de-facto standard today. Having one more supported format helps, you know?
I just recently updated from 4 to 5 and did some updates and now gnome is totally hosed. My repo list is fairly conservative, updates-released, extras, and livna. I checked on fedora forums last night and apparently it has bitten some more folks as well. What seemed to happen is loss of PNG support (maybe something else as well), which means a lot of icons don't show up and some of the gnome apps simply don't work. It be real, real ugly, I know it is the worst I have seen with any of my linux installs. I'm still finding more stuff that is broken. I think I will be forced to reinstall or go with something else at this point.
I think fast release cycles are *too fast*. Once a year ought to be fast enough. 2-3 releases.....I don't see a need anymore, we have a ton of functionality, what needs to be there is stable and secure functionality. Teh grand supreme fedora overlords council might want to think on that some.
I'm amazed there's no mention of this yet, with all the fuss about XGL and Compiz recently...
The FC development repo (so I assume FC6T1 has it as well) includes AIGLX, a different approach to the accelerated desktop thing. The metacity that comes with Core has support for a few effects (like wobbling windows), but if you want to try the cube and othe compiz goodies, Kristian has an RPM of compiz for AIGLX here. Just install it and voilá: eye candy goodness.
When I went from FC3 to FC4, I was in an excited rush only to be disappointed by some bugs with sound and stuff. I was already accustomed to tweaking and figuring things out, but over the past couple of years, I have grown weary of it and prefer things to just work. As FC5 grew near, I was really hopeful that they learned lessons from the problems of FC4. But somehow, in my continuous updating of my laptop, ATI had finally gotten around to fixing their proprietary driver to allow for suspend to RAM/Disk. I had all but given up on ever having successful hibernation on my laptop, but when I discovered that it worked, I became very excited by the announcement of FC5test#.
I downloaded and installed it on another hard drive. Went straight for suspend and it just worked out of the box flawlessly. I think I might have wet my pants... it was some time ago and my memory is hazy on the details, but there was urination at some point immediately surrounding the event... maybe I closed the lid on my laptop, took a piss and came back to find that the laptop was able to resume where it left off. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was it. Anyway, I decided FC5 wasn't coming fast enough for me.
When FC5 arrived, I was not disappointed in the least. And with only one problem with periodic "yum" updates, FC5 scores an almost perfect record in my opinion.
Now there's FC6 around the corner? Why? I'm REALLY happy with FC5. I don't need FC6. Of course I will upgrade though. FC5 development will slow down and stop eventually. But I doubt I will scramble for FC6 without something really compelling. The improvements from the summary don't indicate anything compelling to me.
As for competing distros? Ubuntu is the name being used most. I still haven't tried it. It's not what I'm used to, and that's reason enough for me... for now. Maybe one day I'll bump into an Ubuntu user with the OS on his laptop and I'll get a demo I can appreciate. But where Fedora Core is concerned, I feel very well supported with RPMs available for everything I can think of. Only on rare occasion do I find myself stealing RPMs built for other distros because it's not available for FC5. And that's mostly due to the "I don't want to get sued" mentality coming from RedHat.
So yeah, that's the only beef I have with Fedora Core -- the "we don't support MP3 because we're scared" thing. Did the patent on GIF run out already? How much time left on MP3?
WOW, I can't believe you prefer the look of Ubuntu to Fedora!
One of my main reasons for not even looking at Ubuntu for longer than about install+1 hour is that it just looks plain ugly compared to Fedora. How weird.... I mean I really hate the brown/orange thing and the Gnome icons and text seem to look years behind Fedora, more like RedHat before Bluecurve or SUSE's Gnome, it's just unfinished.
I was considering putting Ubuntu Dapper LTS on my new fileserver as I don't want to wait for CentOS 5 (RHEL5) and would like to brush up on my Debian skillz, but after playing with Dapper for a bit I'm just not impressed.
I mean, there seems to be so many options for installing software and configuring Ubuntu that it's actually a become a A Bad Thing(tm). With Fedora you install software using YUM and there's one or two "best practice" ways of doing things. Fedora is to Ubuntu as Python is to Perl in that way.
#include <sig.h>
All of that may be true, but it doesn't answer the question. Will FC6 address the problem of updating. Will it be more seamless, effortless (will I still have to manually install the NTFS kernel mods to access my legacy windoze discs) etc etc. Will this version 'just work'.
Some people just don't seem to understand that hoards of developers hacking away on two or three different distros that are trying to fill the same space is crazy, and that all that duplicated effort is wasted.
To fuller illustrate what I am talking about, Gentoo is sufficiently different for its development to NOT be a waste of time. That is NOT duplicated effort, it is not only worthwhile, but it shows clear demonstrable benefits to its users. Ubuntu and Fedora competing for the same space is ineficient, of no benefit to anyone and actually limits the pace of improvments since effort is duplicated.
Eventually all the many distros out there will die off because the teams that develop them will get old and lose interest in working for niche products. We will eventually be left with a small number of distros that are really distinct and that have very large teams working on them. It is better for the users if this happens sooner rather than later, so that we can reap the benefits of accelerated development and suff that 'just works' now.
Sadly, there are still people who think its acceptable to have to add a repository to Fedora just so that you can play MP3s for example. It is precisely this sort of backwards thinking (remember the people who used to argue that 'no one needs a gui; command line is good enough for everything' where are they now?) that holds back the creation of a 'better than mac' distribution of Linux.
We only need one general use distribution of Linux. Its goal should be that it 'just works' with everything you throw at it. It should have an unambiguous single route to install, update and remove software. It should use one desktop. Nothing should be allowed in it that does not come with comprehensive illustrated documentation....etc etc....
ATH0 Bitcoin: 1DnwFLXczVZV8kLJbMYoheUrpqHesjxrSi
It might have more to do with the quality of package maintainers than the technology itself, but getting codecs or obscure packages installed from freshrpms, livna, etc. *often* left me with broken installs in Core. Fixing the problems meant uninstalling packages that I actually wanted to run, or picking between packages I wanted so as to not mix repositories.
Getting the same with Ubuntu has yet to be a problem, not to mention that getting all the weird repositories is done graphically, with less hassle than on RedHat. I say this as a former RedHat gushing fanboy too.
Again, it might happenstance, or it might have to do with how the two groups manage or coordinate (or don't!) the different package repositories.
I'm still on FC3. So can one go form FC3 to FC6 directly?
Simpy
Have you never heard about One of my main reasons for not even looking at Ubuntu for longer than about install+1 hour is that it just looks plain ugly compared to Fedora. How weird.... I mean I really hate the brown/orange thing and the Gnome icons and text seem to look years behind Fedora, more like RedHat before Bluecurve or SUSE's Gnome, it's just unfinished.
Have you never heard aboutGnome look orGnome art , if only there was an easier way to install eyecandy than drag - drop
def greetings(x): return {'friend': 'Howdy', 'enemy': 'Dye [sic]'}.get(x, 'g0 4w4y, l4m0r')
Did they put the "Install Everything" button back in yet?
If not, I'm not interested.
Based on http://www.google.com/trends?q=ubuntu%2C+fedora+%7 C+fc5+%7C+fc4+%7C+fc3%2C+RHEL+%7C+redhat+%7C+red+h at%2C++suse%2C+debian&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all at Google Trends, my belief is that RH and Fedora are losing ground while Ubuntu is making a serious run at becoming the most popular distribution.
I'm still using FC5 on my desktop for now, largely because I found it the simplest to 'extend' with non-vendor apps and drivers (such as the proprietary ATI drivers and the intense multimedia support available via the Livna repository to replace the frankly useless sound and video "support" in the vanilla FC5). I am fairly likely to stick with it either until FC7 or until Ubuntu reaches the critical mass where most app and driver vendors explicitly support it as a preferred distro.
FC5 is easily the best Fedora release yet. I switched from FC4 to Ubuntu and have used it since, but Dapper has been a huge disappointment for me, including the live installer and freezing at startup after enabling my wireless lan interface. And you want to talk about ugly? How about Dapper's translucent orange look?
I can count at least 10 times I've seen this post in fedora threads (including bad grammer).
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
...let me reply to some of the posts here:
H HHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Did they put the "Install Everything" button back in yet? If not, I'm not interested.
Waaah!
New KDE, new Gnome, an updater, and CUPS? Yawn...
Waaaaahh!
I switched to ${ANOTHER_DISTRO} and never looked back.
Waaaaaaaaaahhhh!
If you are a KDE fan, than you're being shortchanged...
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagggghhhh!
I'm REALLY happy with FC5. I don't need FC6.
Waaaah!!! Waaaah!!! Waaaaaaaaaaah!!!
The main problem I find with it is they seem too willing to update too quickly.
Waaaah waaaah waaaah waaaah waaaah!!!!!
Out of the box, Totem can't play *anything*.. completely useless.
Wah wah wah wah wah, wah wah wah, waaaaaaahhh!
Why do I have to type something at the command line to get basic multimedia support? Can't they just make a button...
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGH
[DISCLAIMER: This post is a joke. This post is only a joke. Had this post been intended to deliver actual derision or condescension it would have been supported by bad analogies, the anecdotal 'evidence' of a single user, and/or numerous mentions of other Linux distributions that are not germane to the current discussion. I apologize preemptively if anyone's fragile psyche was offended by this post. Additionally, I don't really have the authority to speak on Artie Lange's behalf.]
Don't you have someone you'd die for?
"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
Looks like *BSD such as OpenBSD, NetBSD, or FreeBSD are also on the downward slope with Redhat but not as badly:C +FreeBSD+%7C+NetBSD+%7C+DragonflyBSD%2C+fedora+%7C +fc5+%7C+fc4+%7C+fc3%2C+RHEL+%7C+redhat+%7C+red+ha t%2C++suse%2C+debian&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all
http://www.google.com/trends?q=BSD+%7C+OpenBSD+%7
My "point" I guess is that KDE/Gnome are not really "Fedora" as such. I mean, shit... I can run Gnome 2.16/KDE 3.5 on FreeBSD 4.4 if I really wanted to. Ditto for CUPS.
As to upgrading your Kernel on Fedora - not sure here, I don't run it. Tried core4 out for a couple of days, thought it was hugely over-rated, and went back to Ubuntu/FreeBSD :D
This is one of the MAJOR reasons I prefer the BSDs - the apps are seperated from the OS. When FreeBSD X.Y comes out, you know there's been major changes to the way core O/S components work, compared to X-1.Y... and if you're happy with your old version, you can simply upgrade the APPS and leave the perfectly good (for your purposes) base O/S alone :)
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Hey kiddo, I wrote an IPSEC howto and MPD howto for FreeBSD (currently lost, however when my previous employer took the webserver in question down) - what have YOU done?
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
I've used Fedora on servers and workstations with no stability problems. I have servers running Fedora with years of uptime despite the heavy loads and interesting uses I put them under.
My only real complaint about Fedora is it's use of yum which I don't feel works as well as competitiors such as rug (command-line component of Red Carpet). If they coould bring yum's quality up to snuff I'd be pretty happy with it. It'd be nice if they could calm some of the fighting between offical and unoffical repos too. That's partly related to the poor quality of yum so it's all one issue IMO.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Every comment I have read so far is about problems , when something is in this early stage they are not problems , any software designer knows you run beta versions and fix bugs but there not problems I assure you, can anyone tell me about a software program that has had no bugs in it or problems with it?
Ubuntu is just the latest buzzword distro. I've yet to see anything about it that really sets it apart anymore than any of the past buzzword distros. There are hundreds of distros but in my experience only two really matter - Debian and RedHat, now Fedora, are the ones that have stood the test of time. Most other distros are children to one of those two.
Rather than forking off endless similar child distros I'd rather see the distros work together. 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?
There is really no need for yet another distro that does essentially the same things so I really see no point in Ubuntu or any of the other forks. If you're going to fork off your own distro then at least do something radical with your new direction.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
I installed and ran it on a new iMac with the Intel Duo Core processor with no problem. Install was pretty easy and all the rough spots were actually in Mac OS. The install didn't configure the monitor very well though.. setting it at 800x600 isn't so great. They'll have to do some more work on driver support too as I wasn't able to get the monitor to it's full 1680x1050 resolution and the sound doesn't seem to work. Networking does work. Haven't had time to try out the other hardware yet but it seems usuable for basic stuff. I expect it'll be pretty nice by the time it goes stable.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
It doesn't matter in the slightest provided Ubuntu itself stays free. If they make money off support contracts then thats fine, nothing in the GPL or the philosophy against that. Ubuntu is just moving in the obvious economic direction which is a free product but paid for service.
I'm not sure that having several distributions is so bad. Fedora cannot be the one true Linux distribution, its aim is to eventually improve a commercial server distribution. It's not so incompatible with comfortable end-user experience, but it does mean FC will not include mp3 playing because they feel they can't take the risk, however small. Remember that FC has all the weight of RedHat behind them. They have money, they can be sued.
On the other hand Ubuntu has the potential to be the One True Linux distribution like everyone thought Debian would be back in the day. However they are finding out right now that it is more complicated than they thought, if 6.06 is any indication.
With all due respect, you are falling into the trap of thinking that putting all the manpower resources on a single project (the OTL distro) will imply greater progress. In fact larger teams lead to more red tape, even with FOSS. Developers will argue endlessly about the proper implementation of such and such feature and will split.
It is inevitable that FOSS like so many other human endeavours leads to disagreement. The great thing about FOSS is that even when people disagree they can continue to collaborate. Everyone take their sources home and duke it out.
In other words, I'm not sure a federated effort at building the OTL would succeed any better than the huge collection of distros we have now. Remember that at the time of Apollo/Soyuz great orbital meeting, the Russians were amazed that the Americans had two large manufacturers of hand calculators : TI and HP. This was unthinkable in ideal communist terms, Both had interesting but incompatible features. Yet the competition brought out the best in both competitors.
I installed FC6T1 on a P4/Intel 865/1GB RAM system today, and already there were 125(!) updates, so it's something under very active development. The default kernel (2.6.16.xx) works, but the updated kernel 2.6.17.xx results in kernel panic (apparently, trouble with the LVM). There was also some dependency issues with a library required for updating nfs-utils, so I had to uninstall that. Other than that, it seems to be working all right. Appearences wise, it seems very similar to FC5, and seems to be more of an incremental update. This problem with kernel updates was something I encountered with FC3 as well, at which point I had to switch to CentOS 4.3 which has been very solid so far. Fedora Core may have the latest and greatest, but practically it is still a toy as far as stability/maintenance requirements goes. It will be interesting to see it mature.
That's exactly my point: updating or installing software using Yum or Apt or Aptitude resolves dependencies for you. It seems it's only trolls who don't know that the repositories of managed software are best used with clever package managers like these.