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Fedora 7 Released
fedoraman writes "Fedora 7 has been released. With Xorg 7.3, KDE 3.5.6, GNOME 2.18, and version 2.6.21 of the Linux kernel Fedora 7 comes with all the latest and greatest open source desktop software. Fedora 7 drops the traditional 'Core' nomenclature, since it includes both what used to be termed the Core and Extra components by default. Fedora 7 is also the first release to be constructed with Fedora's revolutionary new build system, which is designed to improve the ease of developing derivatives and Fedora-based software appliances. As usual, extensive documentation and release notes are available. Torrents are also available and ISO images can be downloaded from mirrors around the world."
Not even x.org has 7.3 yet! Fedora is really on top of things!
It's not Xorg 7.3 that's packaged with Fedora, but Xorg 7.2 with the xorg-server 1.3.0 release. It still features very interesting software, like, for example, noveau, a free reimplementation of NVIDIA's hardware-accelerated 3D-drivers (still work in progress, of course), as well as a kernel patched with the all-new and highly anticipated mac802.11-subsystem that whould yield much better compatibility and performance for all things WLAN. I also like this idea of "Revisor", an application easily allowing for building customized bootable (install-)media with specific packages only.
:%s/Open Source/Free Software/g
YTARY!
While Linus and the rest of the Kernel's (play on "Peanuts") gang adhere to GPL, many distributions do not, and they patch the kernel with non-GPL patches or configure the kernel to work with old and outdated "drivers" from hardware manufacturers who refuse to open up their source.
Additionally, the big distros are usually some of the main contributors of code to the kernel. Sometimes they have modifications to the kernel that they feel should have been included in the mainline. Sometimes it turns out that they were right but that the changes haven't been tested thoroughly yet.
Lastly, some stuff, like Bootsplash, could easily remain a project on its own without having to be part of the mainline kernel.
-Benjamin Vander Jagt
> Is there a good reason they seem to think they know better than Linus and all the other devs working hard on the standard kernel
> or is it just an ego trip for the developers at these distros?
Yes, there are lots of good reasons. We can start with Xen. All of the big distros support it but it isn't in the mainline kernel tree. So right there you blow away the ability to run the mainline kernel without breaking things. The list goes on from there. The latest device drivers that haven't yet made it upstream, bug fixes that are working their way upstream, etc. There are lots of other good reasons why a distro kernel gets patches.
SUSE, like RHEL is longterm stable. That means bug fixes and security issues get patched into the same base kernel that originally shipped with that version of the distro because revving the whole kernel would be a nightmare.
That said, Fedora does have a policy of trying to stay close to the upstream kernel, pushing their patches upline wherever possible and not being afraid to revv the whole kernel in the lifetime of a 'stable' release. But when it comes down to big patchsets like Xen that they really want to ship but that neither Xen nor Linus appear interested in seeing merged they don't really have much of a choice. Longterm, just as an interested bystander, I'd suspect Xen to disappear from Fedora once KVM gets stable enough to totally replace it for the non-enterprise workloads Fedora is aimed at.
Democrat delenda est
Check here.
What I'd like is for Red Hat to build better diffs, develop some alternative scheme for merging in new code, or get as many of their patches rolled into the -mm tree as possible, then use the -mm tree exclusively. It may not be a true vanilla kernel, but at least -mm is openly maintained, heavily used, popular and actively folded into the mainstream.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
"It seems to me they've fallen a little behind in the way they integrate the kernel and UI aspects of the Linux system, and Fedora has always required a fair amount of tweaking to get things like multimedia to work up to snuff"
I don't think they have fallen behind at all. The lack of mp3 support and other non-free software is a policy decision and I think it is a good one. I have tried Ubuntu and the only difference I can tell as an end user is the inclusion of the non-free software and drivers. This is very convenient for the free as is beer crowd but does is detrimental to free software in general.
Sweeet! Using Fedora 7 is going to be more fun than I expected. Except I probably won't remember much of the experience the next morning.
"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get." -- H. J. Simpson
Is there a good reason they seem to think they know better than Linus and all the other devs working hard on the standard kernel
Linus and the other kernel devs have different, but partially overlapping goals. Distributions value stable, well tested kernels with new features as a secondary goal. Kernel devs want new features, increased performance, etc, with stability perhaps a bit less of a priority.
So it's not that Redhat/SuSe/Ubuntu "know better", it's that the distributions work on kernel stability a lot more than the kernel devs. This is NOT anything new. The days of thinking you should go get "the latest kernel from Linus" and just expect everything to work properly went away years ago. Did I used to go re-compile my kernel from the vanilla source? Sure. Do I do it anymore? Hell no, and without a good reason to I never will. If you want that sort of thing, pick a distribution that values the vanilla kernel. Otherwise stop griping.
AccountKiller
The complete build process is FL/OSS!
The tool for taking all the RPM packages and composing them into an installation tree is pungi. It's FL/OSS.
The tool for taking source from CVS and turning it into packages is Koji and it's completely FL/OSS too
The tool for producing updated packages is bodhi and is FL/OSS
Be happy. The Fedora Project yet again has made major contributions to FL/OSS which can be enjoyed and improved by everyone. It means that Fedora is completely independent of Red Hat (apart from Red Hat's very generous donation of hardware and developers) and that anyone that wants to can easily produce a specialised "spin" of Fedora suited exactly to their own needs. That's one of the main innovations that Fedora is pursuing with the above: instead of being stuck dependent on the choices of a distributor you can benefit from the patched sources, even their packaging, yet diverge when needed. This should be the goal that every distribution follows, and the only thing that is similar in terms of flexibility is Gentoo, but that IMHO fails to provide an easy path for those that are happy with a distributor making the decisions for them.
I'll freely admit to being a Fedora and Red Hat fan, but I hope that the significance of the release of these build tools is not overlooked by people using other distributions.
Core and Extras have been merged into a single repository, so those names no longer exist. But what you are looking for DOES exist. It's all there in the "Everything" version of Fedora. That's an install tree that we provide at (for example):
x /releases/7/Everything/
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linu
The release notes page was already hosed before this hit slashdot. Go here.
The last version of Debian worked on a 486/133 with 32 MB RAM, I'm sure the current ought to too...
-uso.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
Check out Red Hat Magazine:
- fedora-7/
http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2007/05/31/remixing
Slackware (my favourite distro) uses utterly vanilla kernels. Want a new one? Download it from kernel.org, untar it, build it. No sweat.
I consider building a custom kernel to be an integral part of an installation: all the distro kernel does is bootstrap building the production one. All my systems run kernels that are a precise match to the hardware and my needs, with no superfluous junk. No superfluous security holes, either.
...laura
Fedora 7 is released with a DVD iso. If you need the set of CD isos, sorry. You'll have to wait to see if anyone is nice enough to create them in the future. You can try to use the rescue cd and a network install, but again, you'll have to wait until the bandwidth opens up enough for that. So, either upgrade your computer or stick with FC6.
The previous comment is purposely vague and generalized, but all of the facts are completely true.
With respect you're an idiot. Fedora is NOT designed or distributed as a stable plateform with long term support, if you want that from a Redhat type install use Enterprise or CentOs. Fedora *is* however the cutting edge of Redhat development and I use it across all my (personal) servers and PCs/Laptops ungrading when nessesary.
I noticed when I upgraded from FC4 to FC6 a lot of hardware that was recognized in 4 suddenly wasn't in 6. Shouldn't it be the other way around?
I've tried the latest Ubuntu, and it's installing on my laptop (have had it on my desktop for a week now, and am very happy) as I come across this article... I'm going to stick with Ubuntu.
I've used FC for a couple of years now, though, and I have to give it props, they've been excellent, overall. If I hadn't just done all the installing I've done, I'd be willing to give it a shot.
I'd like to take the opportunity to say that Linux has come a long way, and I really believe that users that'd need to stick with Windows are more the exception than the rule... gamers and people that need very specific software. Otherwise, I think most people would be pretty happy with one of the more popular Linux distributions.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Yes, Fedora and any sane distribution will have its own version of the Linux kernel.
/proc/config.gz from a modified kernel. The kernel build system will just discard any invalid symbol on a 'make oldconfig'.
No one think they're better then upstream developers, the point is that *this* *is* the recommend way to work, for several reasons:
1. Some patches that are important to customers, may not be in mainline yet due to the long process submit-review-fix-submit process (eg, xen) or even because no one cared of submitting it
2. The kernel is changing very fast these days, while distros usually has a longer release process. Then you end up by freezing an 'old' kernel that works for your distro
3. If you freeze a kernel, you'll have to backport things making the original kernel looks quite different
Also, forks in the Linux kernel is not seem as a bad thing. On the contrary, forking is the recommended way to work: you fork the Linus' tree, work on it locally and then submit your changes. That's the way GIT works.
And you CAN use
When the last version of Debian was new, wasn't that current hardware?
I don't care about your karma, I don't care about what's hip. --Weird Al
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned one of Fedora's major strengths; security. This is the primary reason that I use Fedora. The combination of security layers has made Fedora immune to many (all?) of the compromises/exploits in recent history.
While distributions like Ubuntu are more popular with end-users, I'm concerned that an exploit across such a popular (but security weak) distribution will paint all of Linux with an unfavorable brush.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
Allow me to introduce you to two very fun programs, "which" and "find". Which prints out where a program in your path is. This is useful when you install a new version and cant seem to run it, or for Paul to tell his coworker where he installed something. Find will search a specified tree for the properties you want, like perhaps the name of the file and executable permission.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
I posted a somewhat trollish comment about this earlier today. Nice to see that the fanbois made it out in such good time on this one to defend the indefensible. Good to see we leap to attack people instead of considering the actions of the Fedora project and their associated projects.
What most people are completely missing in their ad hominem attacks on my earlier thread is that when a lot of people installed FC5, there was an expectation that it would be supported for 2 years through the Fedora Legacy project. On February 9 2007, this project ceased to exist, giving people just 4 months to migrate their servers.
If Microsoft suddenly halved the supported lifespan of products currently in production, they would be crucified by the very people attacking me on this site. But when an open source project does this, it's ok.
You can call the people who installed FC5 idiots all you want, but they're not. They trusted this 'community' that they kept being preached at about. "When a company goes under, you're screwed, but with community supported products, you're never forced to upgrade" - That sound familiar to anyone here? You ever told anyone that? You ever heard that line of bullshit from someone ?
A lot of people figured 2 years was an acceptable lifespan for the product because it fits well with hardware refresh cycles on older equipment. Then half way through their 2 year server lifecycle, they had the rug pulled out from under them. On a date when they thought they had about 11 - 13 months support left, they got told that they have 4 months to do a complete migration.
Calling people who trusted you an idiot for believing you does not convert people to Linux!
I made one mistake in my earlier post - I said that support for FC5 ends today. It turns out that it still has a month to go, so I'll apologise for that. But the Fedora community has let a lot of people down today and given Microsoft a load more useful FUD fuel.
Every time something like this happens, MS have some more examples of how this community will turn on you in a heartbeat. When the Tuttle Centos issue happened, MS were taking the response of the 'community' into sales meetings where Linux was a threat. When a Squirrelmail developer called for an end-user to be fired and belittled her in public for daring to use contact details posted on the Squirrelmail site when she didn't know where else to turn, MS smiled with glee (and a small white cat). And you can bet your bottom dollar that someone at MS will be pointing out this latest gaff to someone in the PR department and they'll be using this behind closed doors in the near future too.
You probably don't care - you probably know better. But somewhere, some PHB who could have been converted to Linux will become an even firmer closed source supporter because of the actions of the Fedora and Fedora legacy projects that come into effect today. And when you're fighting a monopolist, every sale or install that you give up through rudeness, through arrogance and most especially through broken promises and lies is one install too many!
I'll say it again - If Microsoft suddenly halved the supported lifespan of products currently in production, they would be crucified by the very people attacking me on this site. But when an open source project does this, it's ok. Why?
Distrowatch, maybe?
I started out with RedHat 6.x, and kept with it until about Fedora Core 2, at which point I started looking around at some other distros. I settled on Ubuntu, and while I think Fedora is great for certain people, I think Ubuntu is a better general-purpose distro.
There's one install disc, which contains everything most users need to get started, then users can use the "Add/Remove Programs" app or Synaptic to get whatever else they need from the repos. Fedora on the other hand, has 5 or 6, unless you use a dvd iso (hope you don't run into bandwidth cap problems), and if you try to skip burning one CD, but the installer decides it needs one package off that CD you're screwed (I don't think there's even a way to cancel the install at that point, or go back and change which packages you want installed). On the other hand, it looks like Fedora offers a network install option, which would be very handy, I think.
I don't know about Fedora 7, but I do know that the latest Ubuntu has put a lot of effort into making it easy to get binary drivers and proprietary codecs if you want them, whereas past versions of Fedora didn't include those.
Ubuntu, on the other hand, doesn't include any development packages by default, so if you want to even consider building anything from source, you have to install the build-essential package. Fedora includes most of the common development stuff by default (or at the very least, you can choose to include it during the install).
For me, I just prefer the look and feel of Ubuntu's default Gnome setup over Fedora's. The default Fedora desktop gives me a headache. Same goes for the respective KDE desktops.
So, in all, I think Ubuntu is a better all-purpose user distro, especially for those new to Linux. Fedora would probably be better for developers, or for someone who wants to customize their installation more, to get exactly the type of system they want.
what was the rationale behind merging core and extras? I've never found it to be a problem as an end user. Is this solely a developer centered thing?
Sort of - but 'developer centered things' tend to trickle down.
One of the many reasons I've heard was that Extras packages were treated like second-class citizens. If somebody broke something that was in Extras, there was a tendency towards 'Oh, well, it's not in Core'. In a way that's a developer issue, but really it affects everybody.
From a marketing perspective, having all of Extras in Fedora (proper) is huge.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
That's not actually FC7's fault. That's a "feature" of kernel 2.6.21 - libata now asigns all ide drives to /dev/sd*. I suppose that you might be able to use udev to solve that issue though.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.