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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."
Fedora is really for those who want to be on the bleeding edge.
If you want a Redhattish distro that is NOT bleeding edge, try CentOS 4.3 (which is built from Red Hat Enterprise 4.3) or the other RHEL descendents like WBEL. CentOS is very solid - but it does not tend to have the bleeding edge stuff (and it will remain supported for years).
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
No, you've not had to jump through ridiculous hoops since at least Fedora Core 2, probably earlier. There _is_ just a repo you can add - it's called the Livna repository. It contains all the 'patented' codec support (sound, video, DVD playing etc.) as well as proprietary video card drivers from nvidia and ATi.
See http://rpm.livna.org/
The ridiculous hoop you have to jump through is to simply type:
rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-5.rpm
and you've added the Livna repository. All the stuff in Livna now appears in GUI software installer (Applications -> Add and Remove Software) as well as on the command line (using 'yum'). Couldn't be simpler. Livna is an essential repository for a home user of Fedora Core.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
There are so many software patents nowadays, I'm sure it's impossible to write all but the simplest software without treading on somebody's patent. But to suggest that distro owners should knowingly violate patents is kind of negligent.
I know they're slightly biased, but on the MP3 Licensing web site, there's an extensive list of patents which have been granted in an equally extensive list of countries.
Again, I'd refer you to the MP3 Licensing web page. If you assume a patent duration of 20 years from filing, the first patents may have begun to expire but there's still quite a number of years to go until all the ones necessary to implement a full-featured decoder will have expired.
Apparently quite a number of the big free distros have legal teams who would disagree with you. From what I've used, neither Fedora nor Ubuntu include MP3 playback support and it's precisely for this reason. It's OK you advocating violating patents but these distros are made by non-profit organisations who have a lot to lose if they come on the wrong end of a patent lawsuit. At least they make the effort to make MP3 support available. If you want MP3 support, either pay for a commercial distro or quit whining and take the 2 minutes to install support for your distro. As you say, one day all these patents will have expired and even the free distros will be able to ship with MP3 support out of the box.
Of course, most Linux distros ship with support for 2 excellent audio formats out of the box: Ogg Vorbis and FLAC, both of which are better than MP3. Ogg Vorbis is a lossy CODEC which provides better quality than MP3 at a lower bitrate. FLAC is the lossless CODEC and provides CD quality with 30-60% compression. Neither contain any patents that we know of (that in itself is important) and both work great on Windows too.
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.