Fedora 8 Released

Cat in the Hat writes "Fedora 8 has been officially released. Ars Technica has a run-down of what's new in Fedora 8, including the PulseAudio sound daemon, Nodoka visual style, and a new authentication system. 'Another major change in Fedora 8 is the new PolicyKit authentication system that makes authority escalation more secure. Instead of providing root access to an entire program when it needs higher privileges, PolicyKit makes it possible to isolate individual operations that require higher privileges and put them into system services that can be accessed through D-Bus. Another advantage of PolicyKit is that it will give administrators more control over which users and programs have access to individual operations that use escalated privileges.'"

Comments

FINALLY!

[heauxmeaux]

Just kidding - who gives a shit?

Re:FINALLY!

[Anonymous Coward]

This really brings back memories. Back in the day, I had red Hat (3-5) installed on a sparc "borrowed" from the computer lab (one of the perks of working there after hours and lax security). Joe, one of my coworkers, was ex military. He taught me a lot about security, and I've been an OpenBSD convert ever since he rooted my box. I've also been homosexual since he rooted my ass, but that's another story. Good times.

Re:FINALLY!

[Anonymous Coward]

Also today big news happen. Cobyneal suck Eric Cartman balls! Big American balls!

Re:FINALLY!

[erikvcl]

Who the hell modded you troll? Your post was hilarious -- it had me laughing out loud. I think the modders need to get out more.

So essentially

[dedazo]

They copied a bunch of stuff Windows has had for years (policy) or just got (advanced audio).

I mean that's good and all, that increases pressure on Microsoft to innovate and whatnot. Also for Apple. But it's just funny that when Microsoft copies something they are "stealing" and "incapable of innovation", but when someone else does it (Linux, OS X) it's praise the lord and pas the popcorn.

Re:So essentially

[mrbluze]

They copied a bunch of stuff Windows has had for years (policy) or just got (advanced audio). Hard to say what is a logical progression and what is copying. I mean, AppGuard (Suse) is not much different from having policies, and that has been around for a while now. Improving audio as a default is just a good idea, period. What disappoints me is that every time I choose a Linux OS to install on my systems, another brand comes up with some cool tricks that I wish I had. I just installed Ubuntu on my macbook, and now I'm tempted to go and try Fedora again after years of not touching it.

Re:So essentially

[Anonymous Coward]

I just installed Ubuntu on my macbook, and now I'm tempted to go and try Fedora again after years of not touching it.

You don't need to reinstall. Just use a virtualization engine like vmware or VirtualBox.

Re:So essentially

[Firewing1]

They copied a bunch of stuff Windows has had for years (policy) or just got (advanced audio). Do you mean the advanced Windows audio that decreases network performance by up to 90%? Oh wait, that was supposed to be a feature! My bad ;)

Re:So essentially

[UncleTogie]

What disappoints me is that every time I choose a Linux OS to install on my systems, another brand comes up with some cool tricks that I wish I had.

So why not dynamically resize your drive partition{s} to include some free space with GParted and then dual-boot?

You could also tri-boot with two partitions for stable "keepers" and a third as a "scratch install" space, just for testing... 'Bout 20GB oughta be plenty.

I'm not suggesting that with ALL your systems, but on at least one, and on as many different hardware combinations as possible...

Re:So essentially

[iccaros]

I know, don't feed the .. well you know..

this is not a copy of any Microsoft or Apple function. This is closer to Trusted Solaris and ppriv command. that allows users to be given access to services and at what level they are usable, IE the OS is at ADMIN LOW because all user will be able to read that security domain but not write to it.. (read down/ write up) and all logs are published to admin high because most users can write to that level but not read it (so you can't find your actions in a log and remove them, but your programs can write to the log)

in this case though its just a gui interface (not a new function) to the SELinux modules to set privileges at a much greater granularity. example we can give your application root privileges to write to the CDR but only user privileges on every other action, or replace with any OS function including limiting which memory locations it can access, this way the escalation can not be used on any other service/thread or action.

This is apart of the Mandatory access Controls, that along with Role based authentication (root is not a user but a role) gives Linux the ability to be certified as a PL3 and higher system, While Windows in any current state or Mac OS or that matter, would never be able to achieve this accreditation.

Re:So essentially

[dedazo]

Yeah, it's never a copy of anything. It's all pure innovation.

Re:So essentially

[pizzach]

They copied a bunch of stuff Windows has had for years (policy) or just got (advanced audio). Exactly. And when Ubuntu switched off of pulseaudio (then known as polypaudio) back to ALSA a few years ago, they reverse-copied. You should have seen the time space vacuum gravitate all sorts of the popularity!

If you really want to feel better, go to the go to the nearest Time Machine thread thread ( http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/16/0656212 ) and complain to kingdom come about how time machine is a copy of Windows.

Re:So essentially

[jd]

Since when has Windows had Mandatory Access Controls? ACLs, yes, but MACs? Although Linux has them, I'm not sure if Fedora 8 has MAC on memory, packets, etc, but Linux in general does. Microsoft does not and from Vista's retraction of security measures due to breaking software (as, indeed, happened with XP Service Pack 2), it seems clear that Microsoft will not introduce security. This is NOT, repeat NOT, the fault of Microsoft (for the most part) but the fault of software vendors who have utilized holes to the point where those holes CANNOT be fixed - the cost of fixing all of the consequential bugs is prohibitive.

Re:So essentially

[jd]

Oh, as for advanced audio, Windows does indeed have fairly sophisticated sound. I am impressed by some of the features of it and by the performance of some of the 5.1 and 7.1 drivers. However, remote sound (useful on remote desktops) isn't as good under Windows as it is under Linux. The Linux kernel can be made hard real-time, which Windows' kernel cannot, which should also improve the quality.

Re:So essentially

[smash]

Alternatively, you could... you know... install the relevant applications to provide the missing features? Like back in the stone-age (oh, i dunno, say 4 years ago or more?)

Re:So essentially

[Pros_n_Cons]

but MACs? Although Linux has them, I'm not sure if Fedora 8 has MAC on memory, packets, etc, but Linux in general does.

I was under the impression "general" linux does not have MAC, it is a DAC system and SeLinux is adding that MAC ability. Atleast as a true system ie trusted Solaris.

Re:So essentially

[Tet]

I was under the impression "general" linux does not have MAC, it is a DAC system and SeLinux is adding that MAC ability.

Yes, but SELinux has been installed by default in Fedora and RHEL for some time now. True, the other distributions are lagging behind a bit[1], but I'm sure they'll catch up in time. And after all, this is a Fedora story...

[1] It pisses me off no end that my Ubuntu server doesn't come with SELinux, and that it's a massive pain in the arse to try and add it afterwards. The only reason it's Ubuntu is because it's a Sparc box. Were Sparc hardware supported by Fedora and/or CentOS, Ubuntu would be ditched in a flash...

Re:So essentially

[ion.simon.c]

You don't need to reinstall.
Simply install and configure the cool bits on your distro!

Re:So essentially

[mrbluze]

Alternatively, you could... you know... install the relevant applications to provide the missing features? Like back in the stone-age (oh, i dunno, say 4 years ago or more?) Yeah but the problem with that is that Ubuntu integrates well with what they give you and tends to integrate less well with other random stuff. I could run a proper debian installation with a custom kernel and compiled this and compiled that, but.. well, I'd rather be sitting here laughing at slashdot comments whilst drinking my pilzner beer.

Another one?

[calebt3]

Two distros so released so close to one another? You'd almost think that they were working toge...
Oh. They are, aren't they? ;)

Re:Another one?

[hdparm]

RHEL 5.1 (if you mean this as one of two related distros) is a RHEL 5 re-packed to include all bug/security fixes to date, so if you need to do a new install, there's no need to pull hundreds of updates from RHN.

Fedora 8 isn't related too much to RHEL (RHEL 5 was built on Fedora Core 6). I use only Fedora and Red Hat and I'm probably biased. However, F8 includes some neat stuff that warrants checking up by Linux users in general. It works great, too.

Re:Another one?

[X0563511]

Yea, and you can tell. ALL redhat-hosted websites are hosed, and that makes it really hard for me to go and install cygwin. Does nobody have that damn setup.exe mirrored? arg!

Re:Another one?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, and you can tell. ALL redhat-hosted websites are hosed, and that makes it really hard for me to go and install cygwin. Does nobody have that damn setup.exe mirrored? arg! Umm, Corel Cache?.

Re:Another one?

[Eric Smith]

Fedora 8 isn't related too much to RHEL (RHEL 5 was built on Fedora Core 6).

RHEL 6 will most likely be built on a future Fedora release, such as Fedora 9 or Fedora 10. In some sense Fedora 8 can serve as a preview of some of what's to come in RHEL.

Re:Another one?

[batkiwi]

Can you OFFICIALLY update a server (no X11, no physical access) yet?

FC1->2, 2->3, 3->4 (I gave up then) the only supported way to upgrade was to boot to the CD, which is a no-go for those of us with hosted dedicated servers.

Re:Another one?

[timeOday]

Can you OFFICIALLY update a server (no X11, no physical access) yet?

Regardless of whether you can OFICIALLY do it, can you ACTUALLY do it? Both of my favorite distros (gentoo and debian) sport this feature... but does that mean the system will actually update dozens of packages without breaking something? Of course not. Based on my personal experience, people who cavalierly "emerge -U world" or "apt-get dist-upgrade" are nuts.

Re:Another one?

[J.Y.Kelly]

Can you OFFICIALLY update a server (no X11, no physical access) yet?

No. This isn't officially supported yet. Of course many people do this very successfully and there are plenty of guides around detailing work-rounds for any problems.

For Fedora 9, being able to do a live upgrade is one of the targeted features. If you're interested in this then join the SIG and help out with the testing so this can become an official upgrade method.

Re:Another one?

[SlashV]

Just as long as the system boots and still runs sshd after the upgrade. Then the rest is 'fixable'.

Re:Another one?

[MBGMorden]

One thing I've learned with Gentoo: anything is fixable, but sometimes it's not worth it. I hosed up my system so bad once on a bad etc-update that it took me 4 days to get it working right again. After that I learned that past a certain point, it was less hassle to just reinstall the OS.

It still puzzles me why Gentoo doesn't develop a more sane approach to implementing config files to updated programs. If the syntax of the config file has not changed (even if new options were added - if the old ones are still fine), then DON'T pester me with whether or not I want to update it. I want the config file that I have already setup rather than some generic vanilla one, but without digging through release notes and readme's, I never know if I can keep my old config file or if it's gonna hose something up.

Oh well. I still like Gentoo the best, but that one facet irks me badly :).

Re:Another one?

[tomknight]

Why would you want to run Fedora on a server in the first place? If you're after the RedHat goodness then CentOS would make more sense. Hey I like Fedora, and run it on my laptop, but I sure as hell don't want it on any of my servers (or even any of my users' workstations).

Re:Another one?

[petermgreen]

Using apt-get dist-upgrade blindly is indeed nuts but if you read the release notes and pay attention to what apt plans to do you are pretty safe and unlike with fedora upgrading with the package manager is the supported and reccomended way to upgrade.

Re:Another one?

[hdparm]

...I sure as hell don't want it on any of my servers (or even any of my users' workstations).

That actually depends on what is the server used for. I have some fc5 and fc6 servers on various LANs. They are very stable, run number of network services but are not directly connected to Internet, so I don't need to worry about pulling updates that might break stuff or security holes.

I also maintain about 200 FC5 workstations. They are behind 2 firewalls and authenticated squid and that seems enough, from the security point of view. Those run some complicated VMware shit, for which updates would almost certainly cause partial re-write of a number of very long, badly documented perl and shell scripts. Stuff is outdated but fits the purpose and runs like charm.

Generally, I agree with you though - much safer option for people who can't afford RHEL is CentOS.

Waiting for Fedora 9

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Not enough reasosns to move from Fedora 7, IMHO, but to each their own. Maybe I'll wait for Fedora 9.

Re:Waiting for Fedora 9

[Anonymous Coward]

Not enough reasosns to move from Fedora 7, IMHO, but to each their own. Maybe I'll wait for Fedora 9. Yeah, I kind of think about it that way too. Though I'm still on FC6, so maybe this is my upgrade. I ended up on even releases resisting the transition to Fedora from RH9, but I always prefered the odd ones before (I was fond of RH7.1 and RH9 and hated 7.0, 7.2 and 8.0). Anyway, I prefer to give them a few months to finish working out the kinks, so maybe I'll go for Fedora 8 in early '08...

Re:Waiting for Fedora 9

[betterunixthanunix]

Fedora 7 is horribly unstable, and I stuck with Fedora Core 6. 8 seems to be a lot more stable, and I am burning an install disc as I type this. 9 is probably going to be stable as well, and is predicted to be the basis for RHEL 6. If I were you, I would leave 7 in the dust, it is too badly botched...

Re:Waiting for Fedora 9

[Eric Smith]

Fedora 7 is horribly unstable,

I've been running Fedora 7 on five machines, including one publicly-visible web and mail server, and have seen no stability issues at all, other than minor problems with one update kernel which were fixed in less than 24 hours. Of course, I'm probably using different parts of F7 than those with which you have had trouble. What areas caused problems for you? And weren't they fixed in F7 updates?

Re:Waiting for Fedora 9

[Pros_n_Cons]

not enough reasons to move
did you read the notes?
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/8/ReleaseSummary#head-4f0c6fbce5ef70b1b3c850fbd9dd725ddfd48a42
as someone else wrote
* custom spins
* fedora 8 on a usb key
* pulseaudio
* codecbuddy
* yum improvements (yes it's fast)
* packagemanagement improvements (change repos and more)
* gui for firewall
* online desktop
* the whole fedoraproject.org website and associated projects
* Network Manager suppose to have seamless capabilities
* New Syslog demon
* seamless bluetooth integration and laptop improvments
I can go on. I'm very excited about this release you kidding?

Re:Waiting for Fedora 9

[Rayban]

I've had lots of USB trouble myself (autosuspend cmd line doesn't help, sadly) with F7. I get hard process lockups on lsusb that are unkillable. It's got something to do with my Dell LCD's hub, but it's easier just not to use it than diagnose it. :) It's possible that it's because my machine is x86_64 and the support is still a little rusty though.

Re:Waiting for Fedora 9

[Billly Gates]

The codec situation and the lack of cleartype fonts suck.

With Ubuntu you can use getAutomatix to install them. Is there anything similiar with Fedora?

Re:Waiting for Fedora 9

[xtracto]

I agree, after reading some of the release info I got very interested in FC8. Specifically due to PulseAudio. I do not know why but ALSA has *never* liked me (since the first time I tried Linux back around 1997) in any distribution I have tried (Mandrake, Red Hat, Debian, Ubuntu). Some applications always end the randomly blocking audio and whatnot. I hope the guy at PulseAudio get Linux sound RIGHT once and for all.

About this GUI for firewall, i have an enquiry. Some weeks ago I was playing with ubuntu trying to make some apply bandwidth limitation (QoS) to a specific application. Specifically to the ubuntu updater which sucks all my 250Kbps when it is upgrading the distribution. After some time in google I learnt that it is nothing trivial and you must configure some iptables files to achieve it.

It would be great if you could bring up the system monitor (gnome) and, similarly to the way you see the CPU used by the processes you could see the bandwidth used and similarly to how you can re-nice some process you could allocate a maximum bandwidth just by right clicking and choose the appropriate option.

Now, that will be something that not even Windows or OSX have... and it will be really cool IMO. It is also very feasible as the technology to do it currently exists in Linux doesn't it?

Re:Waiting for Fedora 9

[Billly Gates]

Dell sucks.

I worked doing help desk for a few companies and Dells were always the oddball. The products we made required newer directx features and Dell never updates their drivers. Infact an nvidia based dell laptop can not use a nvidia driver because dell loves to modify it to save $.05 on each notebook because they are cheap.

Dell also doesn't want to invest money on older hardware drivers and prefer you to buy a new dell.

Its likely they modded the usb hardware where its no longer in spec iso compliant. All the other notebook makers do not modify hardware that way and a generic nvidia or ati driver will always work.

Strange

Re:Waiting for Fedora 9

[zerocool^]

I don't think it has GCC 4.2 yet. this shows gcc 4.1. I've had a few people I support asking for it; it'd be nice if a major distro came out with it.

~Wx

Re:Waiting for Fedora 9

[dotancohen]

Fedora on a public server? You are aware that Fedora is a bleeding edge, near unstable distro, aren't you? Don't get me wrong, it's my distro of choice, but things break regularly for me. Regularly, that's about once every two weeks. Why do you need something so bleeding edge on a server?

Re:Waiting for Fedora 9

[The_reformant]

The Fedora 8 on USB key sounds interesting but isnt mentioned in the document linked. Have you heard anything more about it?

Re:Waiting for Fedora 9

[quantaman]

not enough reasons to move

did you read the notes?

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/8/ReleaseSummary#head-4f0c6fbce5ef70b1b3c850fbd9dd725ddfd48a42

I can go on. I'm very excited about this release you kidding? You're missing what I consider to be the coolest part

* Java Support : IcedTea

IcedTea is OpenJDK with the remaining non-free parts replaced with free stuff, I'm not sure how much this impacts its usability but it's an awesome step forward.

For how long has Java been a massive PITA on Linux. GCJ doesn't work for half the apps, Sun's Java (formerly) required you to go to their site, click on some licenses, then you can either have it sitting in ~/ unlike almost every other app or use their RPMs which aren't quite configured to your distro.

Now if I want a working JVM it's sitting right there in my yum repo and I have one less non-standard app I have to worry about on my system.

Re:Waiting for Fedora 9

[aztracker1]

Now if I want a working JVM it's sitting right there in my yum repo and I have one less non-standard app I have to worry about on my system.

That's kind of funny.. considering IcedTea isn't the standard JVM implementation, Sun's is... Just the same, I can't speak for Fedora, I've been mostly openSuSE(before that SuSE) and Ubuntu for a couple years now... I've been leaning in strong favor of Ubuntu since 2006, and trying openSuSE a few times since then... No real issues getting Java setup in that time. Before that it had been painful to get Java (Sun's) setup properly, with the browser plugin.

I'm all for open implementations myself, but calling the standard non-standard is just silly... Proprietary, yes... non-standard, no... That'd be like calling Windows Server a non-standard implementation for SMB(Samba).

Re:Waiting for Fedora 9

[aztracker1]

On the same note, I may give it a try... if it detects my fakeraid, that would be nice (openSuSE did, but failed when initializing X for my desktop)... Latest ubuntu installed, but running two vidcards didn't work correctly, I had to remove one, and have both monitors on one card... S-L-O-W and no Compiz/Beryl :( .... if Fedora 8 can handle both video cards, and displays without issue, cool... if it supports the fakeraid, or at least has an easier to configure raid setup than the pain with Ubuntu.. I'll switch my main OS... most of my work is done in VMware anyways... so doesn't matter to me what my main OS is... As long as firefox, thunderbird, pidgin X-Chat run (pretty much everywhere). So long as I can use VMWare, I'm happy.

Re:Waiting for Fedora 9

[RupW]

I don't think it has GCC 4.2 yet. this shows gcc 4.1. Remember that's Red Hat's GCC 4.1 branch, not stock FSF 4.1, and it has a lot of 4.2 features backported to it, e.g. OpenMP and I think recent Intel + AMD processor tuning too.

Actually Fedora are hoping to skip 4.2 altogether and use 4.3 for Fedora 9 - see this thread from the GCC mailing list.

Re:Waiting for Fedora 9

[betterunixthanunix]

When I installed it, the installer crashed because I had a multicore processor (but the same processor was fine with FC6). The fix was to disable multiple cores while installing, then reenable them. Then, suspend didn't work, then it worked but unreliably, then it didn't work again. Then it was the network card. None of these things were problems with FC6. As everyone else said, Fedora is a development distro, and so stability is not something that can be expected, but 7 was just particularly bad (even the Fedora developers noted this on their mailing list).

Re:Waiting for Fedora 9

[Pros_n_Cons]

http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/f8/en_US/sn-OverView.html
2.2.1.
Spins Fedora includes several different spins, which are variations of Fedora built from a specific set of software packages. Each spin has a combination of software to meet the requirements of a specific kind of end user. In addition to a very small boot.iso image for network installation, users have the following spin choices:

* A regular Fedora image for desktops, workstations, and server users. This spin provides a good upgrade path and similar environment for users of previous releases of Fedora.

* One of four Live images that can be run from a disc or USB flash device, and can be installed to hard disk as desired. See the "Live" section for more information about the Live images.

More custom spins are available at http://spins.fedoraproject.org./ Remember that these Live images can be used on USB media via the livecd-iso-to-disk utility available in the livecd-tools package.

Re:Waiting for Fedora 9

[Pros_n_Cons]

I guess slashdot wont let us EDIT posts anymore but i forgot to say this:

http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/f8/en_US/sn-Live.html

7.4.
USB Booting
Another way to use these Live images is to put them on a USB stick. To do this, install the livecd-tools package from the development repository. Then, run the livecd-iso-to-disk script:

/usr/bin/livecd-iso-to-disk /path/to/live.iso /dev/sdb1

Replace /dev/sdb1 with the partition where you want to put the image.
This is not a destructive process; any data you currently have on your USB stick is preserved.

Re:Waiting for Fedora 9

[verbatim_verbose]

You could have filed some bugs on 7 (with stack traces, etc.) if it had so many problems... seems to work pretty well for the rest of us.

Re:Waiting for Fedora 9

[Knara]

Dunno where you got the idea that slashdot ever let one edit their posts after submitting. That has never been the case.

Re:Waiting for Fedora 9

[tomknight]

Could you *ever* edit posts????

Re:Waiting for Fedora 9

[quantaman]

Now if I want a working JVM it's sitting right there in my yum repo and I have one less non-standard app I have to worry about on my system. That's kind of funny.. considering IcedTea isn't the standard JVM implementation, Sun's is... I meant non-standard in installation and maintainence. The standard way that programs come to live on my system is with "yum install program", to get updated it's "yum update", and to do this requires negligible effort. When I have to go out of my way to do an installation there's a bunch of other stuff that can go wrong and a bunch of other time I have to spend, last time to install Sun's JVM properly I had to rebuild a bunch of RPMs, half of which wouldn't install properly. That I consider a PITA and non-standard, I have better things to do then than custom install programs.

Re:Waiting for Fedora 9

[clem]

Could you *ever* edit posts???? Of course you could -- before you submitted the comment. Nowadays, though, Slashdot just randomly generates comments, bypassing the user entirely. Whether that has raised or lowered the quality of the posting is left as an exercise for the reader.

Re:Waiting for Fedora 9

[Eric Smith]

I use Fedora on a server because RHEL (or Centos) is too far behind the times to have some of the things I need for other purposes. I usually keep it about one Fedora release behind the bleeding edge, and apply security updates.

Re:Waiting for Fedora 9

[dotancohen]

Using Fedoa N-1 where N is current is safer, but might I ask what RHEL / CentOS is missing that you need? If it's only a package or two can it not be RPM'ed in? I'm not arguing, rather trying to put things in perspective to understand better. I did not thing that Fedora was very cutting edge feature-wise in server features.

Re:Waiting for Fedora 9

[Eric Smith]

Before the server ran Fedora, it ran Red Hat Linux (from back before Enterprise existed). At two times I considered switching to CentOS. The first time, there wasn't yet support in CentOS (and presumably RHEL) for the network interface on the new hardware the server had just migrated to. The second time, I wasn't able to get a piece of commercial software to run on the then-current release of CentOS, though it ran on Fedora or a down-rev CentOS.

I don't think of either case as a failing of CentOS or RHEL. My requirements simply were for newer code, which is inconsistent with the slower release cycle of RHEL.

If I started having trouble with the use of Fedora on my server, I'd certainly spend more time investigating switching to CentOS. Thus far, however, I've had few problems with Fedora.

finer grained priv levels

[TheGratefulNet]

anyone old enough to remember VAX/VMS?

talk about the old coming back in style again. but giving too coarse a set of 'root privs' has always been inferior in unix compared to the privs level VMS had.

otoh, once you start going fine-grained, its a whole order of magnitude more 'management' and debugging. so, the benefit won't be entirely for free. but it will be worth it. the 'all or nothing' model has had a good run. but it is tired and in need of some modernization, even if taking hints from 30 year old OS's.

Re:finer grained priv levels

[rrohbeck]

>anyone old enough to remember VAX/VMS?

Ok, where's DCL for Linux?

Re:finer grained priv levels

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.systella.fr/~bertrand/FreeVMS/indexGB.html

Re:finer grained priv levels

[Dunbal]

anyone old enough to remember VAX/VMS?

Hell I'm old enough to remember punch-cards.

Re:finer grained priv levels

[Clueless Moron]

To be fair here, it has never been an 'all or nothing' model. Don't forget setgid. For example, most mail related programs run setgid with the corresponding programs setgid rather than setuid.

One reason for the simplified security model in Unix was exactly because the more complicated system of Multics (with ACLs etc) tended to lead to poorer security since the security aspects were spread out all over the filesystem and ACLs instead of just being entirely in the code. Or to put it another way, security auditing becomes a lot harder.

Re:finer grained priv levels

[J053]

anyone old enough to remember VAX/VMS?
Remember it? I still have to support it! (VAX/VMS 5.4H on VAXstation 4090)

Re:finer grained priv levels

[TheGratefulNet]

Ok, where's DCL for Linux?

there is one! or used to be. I once cared - but then, well, I got better ;)

I loved vms and dcl - but it had no future once DEC became compaq. worse when HP got that.

it had its run, but I'd use a unix shell on a unix box and not hack around with dcl wannabees. I'm not sure the philosophies would really match that well, dcl and unix...

Re:finer grained priv levels

[camperdave]

anyone old enough to remember VAX/VMS?

I remember it. I liked the feature that allows you to "stack" directories like those anatomy transparencies in encyclopedias. You could layer the directories like this: safety:appupdates:apps:osupdates:os. The os files go at the bottom. Any updates go in osupdates. That way, you can keep the original file if there are any problems. You can just delete the update and the original file takes over. Ditto with apps and appsupdate. The safety layer prevents any writes to the directory stack from affecting any files in the lower layers. You could have some users using one set of apps, and others using a different set of apps by changing the "stack".

Re:finer grained priv levels

[scottv67]

I remember it. I liked the feature that allows you to "stack" directories like those anatomy transparencies in encyclopedias. You could layer the directories like this: safety:appupdates:apps:osupdates:os. The os files go at the bottom. Any updates go in osupdates. That way, you can keep the original file if there are any problems. You can just delete the update and the original file takes over. Ditto with apps and appsupdate. The safety layer prevents any writes to the directory stack from affecting any files in the lower layers. You could have some users using one set of apps, and others using a different set of apps by changing the "stack".

What the hell are you rambling about? I spent quite a few years working with VMS on VAX and then VMS on Alpha. I don't remember seeing anything like what you described.

Re:finer grained priv levels

[Slashamatic]

I think he is referring to the logical name searchlists:

$ DEFINE/user SRC U:[CURRENT],U1:[BASELINE]

The logical name SRC become translated as both current and baseline. If the file SRC:hello.c was in CURRENT, it would use that, it it wasn't it would be looked for in BASELINE instead.

This alongside, the ability to use a filespec with a default spec and a related spec in the basic RMS filename parser was extremely powerful.

Re:finer grained priv levels

[alien_life_form]

> anyone old enough to remember VAX/VMS?

I am, and I do.
SET PRIV=ALL was in fact the favorite way to do anything that required elevated privileges at the lovely dollar prompt.... that is exactly the reasons that makes policy based security systems a failure (IMHO). (Windows NT security - which became the current windows security model, was originally fashioned after the VMS security model)

My problem with these models is that most of them appear to end up with a large set of rather opaque permissions ("Can create system mailbox" Uh?) whose relationship with other operations nobody appears to know, or remember - the set of operations may not even be complete, or orthogonal, who knows?

Programs end up using quite surprising privileges (e.g. running form the scheduler requires "Can login from network" privilege - this is for real), which are not documented (probably because the developer was unaware of this to begin with).

A developer finding out that a program runs as root/Administrator but fails as a lower privileged user has a hell of a time if she wants to find out the minimal set of privileges required for operations....

I could go on.

End result, all the oh-so-great multilevel policy system ends up as the old all-or-nothing horse trick.

Cheers,
alf

Re:finer grained priv levels

[MichaelSmith]

Which points to the underlying reason why VMS didn't take off like Unix. It had features to burn, and pretty good documentation, but no community such as existed for unix, bsd and linux.

Even with decus the agenda was mostly controlled by DEC, and directed at selling more stuff. I knew most of the answer you gave to the GP's question, but I never played with that feature, even though I had seen it used.

If there was most open source stuff available specifically for VMS I would have learned more. Unfortunately the freeware CD which DEC put out mainly contained ported UNIX apps.

Re:finer grained priv levels

[camperdave]

The logical name SRC become translated as both current and baseline. If the file SRC:hello.c was in CURRENT, it would use that, it it wasn't it would be looked for in BASELINE instead.

Yes, that was it - Logicals. They worked kind of like the PATH= statement in DOS (ie, a list of directories to search), and kind of like the tilde in linux (ie, a short form for a path).

Re:finer grained priv levels

[noldrin]

I remember when I removed system read privilege to my home directory. I was still able to login, but it would no longer run my login scripts. Anyways, I still miss notes.

Re:finer grained priv levels

[TheGratefulNet]

Which points to the underlying reason why VMS didn't take off like Unix. It had features to burn, and pretty good documentation, but no community such as existed for unix, bsd and linux.


as someone who has actually presented a talk to DECUS - unless it was a dream (or a vision, or a drunken haze, or maybe even an ice cream headache..) - I do believe DECUS did exist, once.

quite a large user group at that, too.

Re:finer grained priv levels

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to machine-hug DEC machines: PDP, VAX, and Alpha... until I stumbled upon Linux in '96. So you're a fucking retard... living in the past with the not-so-"Open"VMS. HP stopped making Alphas this past year, so say good-bye to yet another proprietary OS.
Anyone old enough to remember Windows 3.1? NT? 95? 98? 98SE? Me? 2000? XP?

All Hail Choice!

[Anonymous Coward]

Another Linux distro gets released that:

* Fixes some things that were broken in previous releases

* Breaks some things that were working in previous releases

* Places files and directories in a slightly but in no way better arrangement throughout the filesystem

* Handles some hardware better than other distros

* Handles different hardware worse than other distros

* Uses a different bandaid(package management system) than other distros for installing software

Gee, putting together an operating system that works on all levels as a consumer product is a lot of work. Just think of how good it could be if you could actually PAY people to put in the effort to make things right?

Re:All Hail Choice!

[hdparm]

Just think of how good it could be if you could actually PAY people to put in the effort to make things right?

You mean something like MS does?

Re:All Hail Choice!

[LingNoi]

Just think of how good it could be if you could actually PAY people to put in the effort to make things right?

mmm? A lot of distros do pay developers. I don't know about Fedora but Ubuntu for example has people on payroll to fix bugs and get things working.

Re:All Hail Choice!

[FooBarWidget]

It would become like Vista. Isn't that great? :D

Re:All Hail Choice!

[Dunbal]

Just think of how good it could be if you could actually PAY people to put in the effort to make things right?


      Uhh, no thanks. I've already done that and guess what, the software was STILL crap, but I got a huge impression of a misplaced sense of authority and entitlement from the publisher...

Re:All Hail Choice!

[betterunixthanunix]

Red Hat has many employees paid to work on Fedora. The changes in artwork from release to release are an indication.

Re:All Hail Choice!

[rayvd]

Red Hat pays many of their developers / admins to work full time or part time on the Fedora project. They have a vested interest after all -- much of Fedora eventually makes its way into RHEL.

Re:All Hail Choice!

[forkazoo]

Gee, putting together an operating system that works on all levels as a consumer product is a lot of work. Just think of how good it could be if you could actually PAY people to put in the effort to make things right?

Umm... Why can't you PAY people to work on Fedora? (Or, any other Linux distribution, for that matter.) Nothing stopping you or anybody else. What you can't do is pay arbitrary people to work on proprietary software. That was a really weak, weak troll, IMHO.

Re:All Hail Choice!

[bmartin]

Just think of how good it could be if you could actually PAY people to put in the effort to make things right? Money is one incentive to drive quality, I suppose, but if you read up on quality work, quality products tend to be motivated by other factors, especially job satisfaction. Many of the devs out there would love to be wealthier, but they do their jobs because they love the work. Look at Linus and Linux. It must be maddening to work on the code, but he loves it (and I'm sure the other devs do, too); look at the quality of the kernel code. I find that my GPL'd code is better than the quality of the code I write for work.

Back on Track

[clear_thought_05]

I remember reading somewhere today that this release puts Fedora "back on track for predictability". I wonder if that bodes well for their perception?

In any event anyone who has followed along with the "Fedora Philosophy" knows that they always had the objective of releasing fairly quickly and all the while trying the latest and greatest technologies, however rough they are. You don't have to be a genius to know where the newest technologies end up all polished: RHEL.

I tried out the RC3 release a week ago and felt it a slight notable improvement over Fedora 7 in terms of polish and performance although that's just a brief evaluation. Here are some links (most I just pulled off the last link):

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/8/ReleaseSummary
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/f8/
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/install-guide/
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Bugs/F8Common
http://www.mjmwired.net/resources/mjm-fedora-f8.html

Oh wait ... looks like fedoraproject site is overwhelmed!

Re:Back on Track

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't really performance-test RC against the release. RCs usually have lot of extra overhead caused by debugging flags turned on.

Re:Back on Track

[clear_thought_05]

"You can't really performance-test RC against the release. RCs usually have lot of extra overhead caused by debugging flags turned on."

I'm not so sure, I read on the fedora-devel mailing list that the RC3 release would be pretty much bit-for-bit what would be in the final release. I think there were only some minor bug fixes between the RC3 and final. If you were talking about the Fedora-Test releases, then you're right for sure.

Re:Back on Track

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, seriously?!

RC means Release Candidate. In most sane systems, this means that it's the build they intend to be the final build. It's first build with all the debugging flags turned off, which is what differentiates it from a beta.

Once a Release Candidate has few enough bugs left open against it, then it becomes the final build. In a sane system, there is no difference between the final release and the release candidate immediately before it.

Otherwise it's not really a release candidate, it's a beta.

Re:Back on Track

[Dunbal]

Once a Release Candidate has few enough bugs left open against it, then it becomes the final build.

      In Microsoft language this is called "Service Pack 3".

Better late than never.

[Animats]

Finer-grained privileges! Interprocess communication! Finally, Linux gets the stuff that's been missing from Unix since 1980 or so.

Maybe someday we'll get real exclusive use on files.

Re:Better late than never.

[X0563511]

Those are called access control lists. They have been around for a long time.

http://www.suse.de/~agruen/acl/linux-acls/online/

Note the date on the document.

POSIX Access Control Lists on Linux

This document was generated using the LaTeX2HTML translator Version 2002-2-1 (1.70)

Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, Nikos Drakos, Computer Based Learning Unit, University of Leeds.
Copyright © 1997, 1998, 1999, Ross Moore, Mathematics Department, Macquarie University, Sydney.

Re:Better late than never.

[bob.appleyard]

Obviously System V IPC has been available for years.

Re:Better late than never.

[Anonymous Coward]

1980? What is your comparison? DOS, CPM, or BSD?

Re:Better late than never.

[CaptnMArk]

>Maybe someday we'll get real exclusive use on files.

Maybe in year 3000, webusers over IIS will not lock my local files.

(not joking, this is one of my major Windows annoyances)

I'm having problems with GNOME.

[Anonymous Coward]

I installed it earlier today, but I'm having all sorts of problems with GNOME. Right after I first started using it, a bunch of different programs starting dumping core. I don't think it's my PC, since it was working fine with Ubuntu for the past 8 months. I switched to KDE, and all of the programs there work. None have crashed. So I'm thinking that the version of GNOME bundled with FC8 is just unstable.

Re:I'm having problems with GNOME.

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried ubuntu and it killed my hard drive
Course i dont have any documentation, bug reports or proof to back up my claims, i will even post as an anonymous cowards cause its obvious im a troll. Strange thing is though our posts are the same you'll get modded up and i'll be modded down.

Re:I'm having problems with GNOME.

[kripkenstein]

I installed it earlier today, but I'm having all sorts of problems with GNOME. Right after I first started using it, a bunch of different programs starting dumping core. I don't think it's my PC, since it was working fine with Ubuntu for the past 8 months. I switched to KDE, and all of the programs there work. None have crashed. So I'm thinking that the version of GNOME bundled with FC8 is just unstable. GNOME is the default on Fedora, so that would be a catastrophe for them. Before we jump to conclusions, we should check one thing: did you verify the checksums on your CD after you burned it? Perhaps there were errors; this can mess up an installation.

Re:I'm having problems with GNOME.

[erikvcl]

You must be new to Gnome. That's normal operation. Use KDE if you need a desktop environment. WindowMaker is fantastic if you don't.

Re:I'm having problems with GNOME.

[Anonymous Coward]

You should JUST switch to gentoo!

Re:I'm having problems with GNOME.

[jopsen]

Or perhaps it's a RAM or other hardware issue...

Re:I'm having problems with GNOME.

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably not. He says KDE works fine. And he said Ubuntu worked fine for months before that.

Face reality. It probably just is a problem with GNOME. GNOME just doesn't have the developer support that KDE does, even with all the funding it gets from Red Hat, Sun, Novell and others. The GNOME codebase has stagnated, and its quality is terrible. It's no wonder that it'd crash out on this fellow's computer; it's just bad software that's prone to crashing!

Re:I'm having problems with GNOME.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's funny. I had the same exact issues with Gutsy. Then again, I'm a Fedora fanboy hiding under Anonymous Coward. Much like you're an Ubuntu Fanboy hiding under the same cover. God bless slashdot and AnonCoward.

I tried the live cd

[xjlm]

Attractive, but it seems to think anyone using it to install needs their hand held every inch of the way. I loved Fedora Core 2, 3, and 4, but they pretty much chased me away by 5 through their refusal to accept those of us who use Nvidia products and those who want to play the DVDs we purchase. There are many other distros out there a lot friendlier to install and use. Fedora is like a testing ground for Red Hat, so they really don't care about folks like me.

Re:I tried the live cd

[The Cisco Kid]

You are blaming Fedora for something that isnt their fault.

1. DeVD's - RH is US-based. It would be illegal for them to include DeCSS libraries. You can get them from atrpms. Other US-based distributions arent going to have it either.

2. nvidia - actually nvidia is at fault here, they should either release specs or source for their drivers, so that they can be supported properly by Xorg. (As many other video card chipsets are) And as before, you can still add these yourself, either from atrpms or directly from nvidia.

Re:I tried the live cd

[Eric Smith]

actually nvidia is at fault here, they should either release specs or source for their drivers, so that they can be supported properly by Xorg

As ATI has started doing with the R500 and R600 series. So far the technical docs they've released basically only cover the frame buffer, but they've stated that the 3D docs will be forthcoming. (2D acceleration is done using the 3D engine.)

For now, it looks like the 3D graphics hardware with the best open source support is the Intel GMA-X3000 integrated graphics in the G965 and GM965 chipsets. The performance is lower than the bleeding-edge ATI and Nvidia parts, but it's adequate for most purposes.

Re:I tried the live cd

[mikael]

I just burnt the Fedora Core 8 install DVD. It seems the nvidia driver is detected automatically. It got as far as installing the X-server, but then freaked me out by complaining that *ALL* my partitions needed to be reformatted because I had a "loop partition" on my hard disk drive. I did a search for some similar comments and this seems to be something to do with the boot loader. Maybe I will upgrade to a larger hard disk drive before I install FC8.

I also tried running Ubuntu - that didn't get really far except to display a funny stripy square in the top left corner, and a checkerboard pattern of orange lines on my screen. This happened at the same time as it tried to play a trumpet sound off the DVD.

Knoppix is still my favourite LiveCD so far.

Re:I tried the live cd

[xjlm]

1. Fedora offers a solution (a pretty poor one) through use of alternate repositories like Livna and ATRpms. Use of these repositories can bork your whole system, though. I used to use Dag Wieers' repositories, but although Dag takes care to make sure his packages are compatible with Fedora Livna and ATRpms do not. 2. Maybe I'm at fault, since i purchased the Nvidia card with my own money. Why should I expect it to work with an open source system? Oh, wait a minute, it does work (fantastically well) with Debian. Full 3-D acceleration with games, and my videos are smooth and not jerky. I guess I'm at fault for thinking a Red Hat clone was meant for my kind of use.

Re:I tried the live cd

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny how Gentoo has libdvdcss.

I think they're the only distro with testicles.

Re:I tried the live cd

[tomknight]

I think you're mistaking the error here. RedHat works fine with nVidia, maybe it's you who's the problem?

Seriously, all you have to do is install using the nVidia binaries and you're away.

Re:I tried the live cd

[petermgreen]

As ATI has started doing with the R500 and R600 series. So far the technical docs they've released basically only cover the frame buffer, but they've stated that the 3D docs will be forthcoming. (2D acceleration is done using the 3D engine.)
Lets hope they really follow through. If they do and a workable opensource 3D graphics driver comes out of it and gets included in the major linux distros I will be specifying ATI rather than Nvidia when I buy machines.

For now, it looks like the 3D graphics hardware with the best open source support is the Intel GMA-X3000 integrated graphics in the G965 and GM965 chipsets. The performance is lower than the bleeding-edge ATI and Nvidia parts, but it's adequate for most purposes.
I know whichever intel chipset apple put in the macbook isn't even capable of running planetpenguin-racer acceptablly :(. Looking at the wikipedia article it seems to be one of the chipsets you mentioned. Even a £20 geforce FX5200 runs it fine so it isn't just bleeding edge cards the intel integrated is losing to. They are probablly good enough for desktop eye candy though.

For now i'm sticking with nvidia for any machines where I care about graphics performance because the impression I get from linux forums is that they are less hassle to set up on linux than ATI ones.

Re:I tried the live cd

[MikeFM]

The nvidia drivers suck. Those provided by nvidia constantly caused my system to crawl due to memory leaks and such. Unless Nvidia opens their drivers I'll probably be buying ATI products from now on.

Fedora 8 release summary and announcements

[spevack]

There are a few "official" links that people might find useful:

Release Summary -- http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/8/ReleaseSummary

Release Notes -- http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/f8/en_US/

Fedora Project Leader's release announcement -- http://lwn.net/Articles/257644/

And of course the downloads at http://torrent.fedoraproject.org/

Re:Fedora 8 release summary and announcements

[DukeLinux]

I am running it right now...well actually the Live distribution. My DVD iso has not yet finished. Not bad. I have been running Fedora 5 for awhile and it is time to get with program and update. Maybe over Thanksgiving.

Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

If you would like to compare and contrast various sound daemons in Linux, including Pulse Audio and Jack with the sound in OSX, and the Virus prone OS, please do so.

If you would like to explain how the security of the Virus prone OS is better, please do so. Please tell us how it's better at preventing Viruses, and explain how SELinux, PolicyKit or whatever is a poor copy of the obviously more secure near monopoly OS. Please tell us how it was invented in a vacuum and was not an idea that already existed.

I look forward to your reply.

GNOME, KDE, and other custom spins

[spevack]

For folks who are downloading, http://fedoraproject.org/get-fedora is the best starting point to the GNOME, KDE, and other spins.

Fedora 8 running on USB keys

[spevack]

Red Hat Magazine posted a HOWTO explaining Fedora 8 booting from a USB key.

It is one of the more interesting features in Fedora -- users can build their own customized spin of the distro, and then run it on a USB key. Totally custom and portable.

Yet ANOTHER sound server?

[Burz]

This is getting ridiculous.

And Linux audio STILL has a problem with blocking IO! So now I get to have networked audio in a few PulseAudio-aware apps, while my softphone won't ring and my calendar alarm is mute because some web page in the background uses Flash.

Re:Yet ANOTHER sound server?

[Rayban]

PulseAudio emulates all the other systems with LD_PRELOAD libs so that they are all PulseAudio-aware. This means that your 1998 softphone that uses exclusive open() on /dev/dsp will function, with the magical policy of PulseAudio.

Re:Yet ANOTHER sound server?

[pizzach]

I assume you are talking about some programs using OSS, which actually has little to do with PulseAudio. With Linux boxes you are generally best off searching out at least Alsa when possible. OSS...is just about as bad as esd.

Re:Yet ANOTHER sound server?

[Burz]

No, the problem is that ALSA also exhibits audio blocking by default, too. Many applications use ALSA directly, and some of those block audio even when nothing at all is trying to use OSS.

Adding another userspace soundserver will just compound the confusion that already exists, while leaving the largest architectural flaw in place.

Re:Yet ANOTHER sound server?

[Burz]

No I am talking about ALSA.

And anyway, if the presence of OSS-using programs blocks the newer architecture, then nothing's been fixed. You can't expect users to learn these details about apps and juggle them to keep their soundcard accessible.

I have a system right in front of me with NO /dev/dsp or other OSS apps on it, and the audio still blocks. You still need a soundcard with mutli-channel hardware in order for the audio to seem non-blocking.

Re:Yet ANOTHER sound server?

[Rayban]

You're supposed to configure the ALSA plugin for PulseAudio so that ALSA apps get PulseAudio automagically:

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PulseAudio

PulseAudio is designed to fit into your audio stack all over the place. Since they'd never get any adoption if everything had to be recoded, they took the smart route and added input/output plugins and emulation systems for every system that exists already.

It's a smart move. Once developers realize that PulsaAudio is on *every* modern system, apps will start being coded against the PulseAudio stack instead of using /dev/dsp, ALSA, ESD or some other option.

Re:Yet ANOTHER sound server?

[Rayban]

Read the PulseAudio docs on padsp, the PulseAudio /dev/dsp emulation layer. It's designed to transparently intercept all /dev/dsp calls and route them through PulseAudio itself.

Re:Yet ANOTHER sound server?

[pizzach]

OSS blocking audio is a classic Linux problem. Though nowadays most programs have switched over to alsa anyway including Flash etc. If you have no dsp, then OSS is not your problem. You would get an error dialog every time an OSS program tried to access dsp. I have never had a problem with audio blocking on alsa, but I have heard of something like it happening. Polypaudio might be your eventual savior. Polypaudio was made to be a drop in replacement for the very very old enlightenment sound daemon. esd was used so that multiple sound sources could be played at the same time on OSS. You might want to research alsa dmix in your local distributions forums. Good luck.

Re:Yet ANOTHER sound server?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes well the man who writes it, Linux Torovaldis, is extrememly busy all the time. That's the problem with communism.

Re:Yet ANOTHER sound server?

[Anonymous Coward]

Polypaudio might be your eventual savior. Polypaudio was made to be a drop in replacement for the very very old enlightenment sound daemon. esd was used so that multiple sound sources could be played at the same time on OSS. You might want to research alsa dmix in your local distributions forums. Good luck.

Original poster obviously didn't look at all into what PulseAudio actually does, because the one thing PulseAudio does really well compared to everything that came before it is unify all these various sound interfaces under one very modern system.

Incidentally, PulseAudio is PolypAudio. :) (Renamed, of course.) I've been using it on my Debian box for a while instead of ESD (for which it is a very nice replacement). One of my favorite things is that if I hold down a key to make my terminal beep (like the back arrow), the sound mixing is low latency--it plays immediately, and creates this awful sound. But it's what it should do--which makes it so cool. :)

Re:Yet ANOTHER sound server?

[doti]

I agree.

This should be handled by ALSA, on the audio driver level.

Re:Yet ANOTHER sound server?

[Spy Hunter]

Thankfully, it does appear that PulseAudio is the One True sound server that we can all finally agree on. It emulates esd, OSS, and ALSA, so legacy apps like Flash and your smartphone work. It supports hotplug of audio devices, including networked ones (using Zeroconf even). It supports synchronized output between multiple devices, even when those devices use different sampling rates or have out-of-sync clocks (it resamples automatically). It has a zero-copy low latency architecture, taking advantage of the latest high resolution timer and real-time scheduling capabilities in new Linux kernels (when available), and it supports latency measurement for sound/video sync even when high latency is unavoidable (such as over a network). It has a modern user interface that provides per-application volume sliders like Windows Vista, and allows on-the-fly routing of audio to devices, including "saving" audio streams to another device if the device they are using is unplugged.

The guys behind PulseAudio really "get it". They even decided to drop their typically-awful open-source project name "PolypAudio" in favor of the infinitely better "PulseAudio", for wider acceptance. You've got to give them points for that; the GIMP could learn a thing or two from them.

Re:Yet ANOTHER sound server?

[Spy Hunter]

Oh, and I forgot to mention that PulseAudio has aspirations to become "Compiz for audio", providing earcandy effects such as surround-sound positioning for on-screen events (so sounds from a window on the left of the screen come from the left speaker, etc) and muffled sound from background windows (so the Flash ad in Firefox's background tab doesn't blast your eardrums and the new-mail notification doesn't sound over the movie you're watching full-screen).

Re:Yet ANOTHER sound server?

[Spikeles]

Once developers realize that PulsaAudio is on *every* modern system

Yes, but isn't DSP supposed to be on *every* modern system? Then wasn't ESD.. no.. i'm sure it was ALSA.. no wait, wasn't it aRTS?

Re:Yet ANOTHER sound server?

[pizzach]

Those were the exact reasons why Ubuntu tried setting PulseAudio to default a year or two ago. But then it was so buggy they were forced to return to just Alsa. Let's hope that Fedora doesn't suffer the same fate.

You're very lucky if movies didn't go out of sync with esd when playing movies. It's latency had a tendency to be horrible. While PulseAudio fixes this, I can't help but wonder if it is as needed as it once was. ALSA has matured and few programs only offer OSS output anymore. All of my installed programs use ALSA for output and can play sound effects etc without cutting each other out.

Re:Yet ANOTHER sound server?

[Mad Merlin]

It is actually. ALSA's dmix allows multiple programs to use the sound card concurrently and transparently, regardless of hardware support. Dmix has been on by default for at least a year or two now (since ALSA 1.0.8, IIRC), and you could enable if you wanted it before that.

Re:Yet ANOTHER sound server?

[colin_s_guthrie]

Dmix is just a "sound server" by a wrapped up name and "inside alsa". Lot's of people have been slamming PA for adding "another sound server" when it's not even necessary due to the fact that dmix inside alsa can do the job without a sound server. When people wake up and realise that dmix is a sound server and it runs in userspace, they will realise that pulseaudio is a lot better and offers far more features.

AFAIK, the guy who wrote/maintains dmix also does the packaging for pulseaudio on suse, so it's not like he's fundamentally opposed ot the idea of pulse. If he isn't why should you???

Re:Yet ANOTHER sound server?

[colin_s_guthrie]

I completely agree with you but we should say that Flash's alsa support is pretty crap. It does some weird interal thing of trying to open up lots of streams/channels/[insert correct terminology here] and quite quickly breaks things when used with pulse audio (via alsa's pulse plugin). Fortunately, Fedora (and other distros like Mandriva) also ship a package called libflashsupport which uses the extension mechanisms of flash to add direct support for pulse, esd and openssl to flash player/plugin. Gotta be annoyed at adobe for the gaff but happy with them for the extensibility!

Re:Yet ANOTHER sound server?

[Bambi Dee]

I rarely/never seem to find OSS apps blocked, whereas I run into troubles with ALSA (specifically with Amarok and Kaffeine using the Xine backend, and on occasion Audacity):

Firefox runs some random Flash thingie
I start Amarok (ALSA): Xine could not initialise any audio drivers
I switch Amarok to PulseAudo: device is busy
I switch Amarok to OSS (or just keep it on autodetect) - now it works
I start jackd using ALSA - also works?

There's never really anything that doesn't work (well, Doom 3...) but I can't say the process is at all obvious to me...

(I used to use a dmix- and dsnoop-providing .asoundrc, but deleting it didn't seem to make much of a difference lately... I guess ALSA changed)

Re:Yet ANOTHER sound server?

[Ed Avis]

Is anyone collecting a list of bad free software project names? My favourite is 'RabbitWare Linux' which was, alas, never released.

Re:Yet ANOTHER sound server?

[Burz]

Read the PulseAudio docs on padsp, the PulseAudio /dev/dsp emulation layer. It's designed to transparently intercept all /dev/dsp calls and route them through PulseAudio itself. Really? Transparent??

Like artsdsp and esddsp?

Ha. Linux people really don't "get" user-friendly, do they? Why should I or anyone I'm showing Linux to have to add shell commands to their apps to get them working with audio???!! You idiot!

And it doesn't help with blocking caused by programs that use ALSA directly. The blocking isn't just an OSS thing, it a stupid kernel developer thing.

Re:Yet ANOTHER sound server?

[Burz]

The problem is in the kernel. No userspace tool (like piles of junky sound servers) will fix it.

Why did you take what I said about ALSA and leave out of your answer?

Re:Yet ANOTHER sound server?

[DanielJosphXhan]

None of those systems do the same thing. ESD and ALSA do different things. PulseAudio and ALSA do different things. ALSA and OSS do the same thing differently.

The question you need to be asking isn't, Why another sound thingamajig? There are five or six major file systems; no-one sane gets up in arms about those. The question should be, Does PulseAudio fix a lot of the things that ESD got wrong? Does it help solve some major ALSA issues? Does it bring new and better features? Does it do something for the sound system in Linux that is desperately needed?

The answer to these questions is arguably yes, and sometime no. Try installing it for yourself sometime: it's not hard. Network auto-discovery is cool. Per-program volume is cool. Streaming audio is cool. It's not bulletproof yet, which sucks. It's a little complicated. But it serves a purpose, and clearly those driving Linux forward are trying to move away from ESD, just as the moved away from OSS and aRTS. Why is that? Could it be because sound on Linux pretty much stinks with ALSA and ESD?

Re:Yet ANOTHER sound server?

[Spikeles]

Why is that? Could it be because sound on Linux pretty much stinks with ALSA and ESD?

And you would have me believe that Pulse is better? Uh-huh...

Re:Yet ANOTHER sound server?

[Otter]

I think the open-source CMSs have locked up at least the top five slots (Joomla, Pheap, Blosxom, ...). Although PolypAudio would have been competitive if they hadn't changed the name. It sounds like you'd need chemotherapy after installing it.

Re:Yet ANOTHER sound server?

[noldrin]

My personal mission is to eradicate all unneeded earcandy. Although I still welcome our PulseAudio overlords, sound conflicts in Linux have still been one of those rough edges that's embarrassing for newbies to see.

Re:Yet ANOTHER sound server?

[clem]

Makes a compelling case for OpenAL.

Re:Yet ANOTHER sound server?

[ion.simon.c]

What sort of sound card are you using?

Old news

[Jello B.]

Downloaded it, installed it, messed around with it trying to get it to work, and then gave up and installed Fedora 7 again, all before the Slashdot article hit the front page.

Fast torrent this time

[schwaang]

For past Fedora releases I've had slow torrent downloads (and I'm not even on Comcast). This time I downloaded at nearly full bore the whole time. I don't know why that is, but thank you seeds.

Mwo??? Available at Facebook?

[davidsyes]

http://mirror.facebook.com/fedora/linux/releases/

I wonder how long ballmer will be throwing chairs because one of his favored investments is giving away/make freely available an operating system he'd like to suffocate.

He is probably going to have a cozy little chat with one young Mr. Mark Zuckerberg. But, he'll start out easy. Won't throw REAL chairs in his office, but maybe lawn or bean-bags first.

Mark: (seeing chairs break the speed of light for the first time...) DUDE! Aurora Boralis, up close!

Dang! I just got Gutsy Gibbon configured....

[Ungrounded Lightning]

(Well, I'll be done once AT&T dialup in San Jose actually accepts my authentication credentials and I've checked that the wireless will pass traffic after associating with the office WiFi LAN...)

what's up with updates

[recharged95]

installed it and cannot update from the mirrors. I can read the development repo at least.

So far between the two, I like openSUSE 10.3 better (more recent kernel). feels more polished. Haven't try Gusty yet since I can never get the DVD writer to work in 7.04... I figure it maybe more polished than 10.3, but I happy for now.

"Desktop effects could not be enabled"

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu could do it on the same (nVidia) hardware. Yes I put in the propritary drivers (and recompiled them when the kernel was updated). Also Ubuntu could boot from PATA drives in a mixed PATA/SATA system. Fedora 8 doesn't want to do that.

Re:"Desktop effects could not be enabled"

[n00kie]

- nVidia GeForce 5900 XT with livna driver works flawlessly with compiz-fusion. The only complaint I have regarding effects is that nobody from Fedora cared enough to package the compiz-fusion-icon and the compizconfig settings manager (ccsm). Hopefully soon though.
- I have a mixed sata/pata environment at home where the sata drive has: /boot, /, /home and the pata one has: winxp and /export. Never had a problem regarding this setup at install time.

However, what I did have trouble with was the Upgrade old installation feature on the DVD. It just plainly didn't work. Anaconda was eating 100% CPU for 90 minutes while 'resolving dependencies' on an AMD64 3000+ Venice. I said 'fuck it' and did a fresh install. The root cause was probably the alien repos I had installed on the old system.

Re:Dang! I just got Gutsy Gibbon configured....

[Ungrounded Lightning]

If this posts I got office WiFi and SSH working...

ho80

[Anonymous Coward]

simple solutioN ofone single Puny Jesus Up The

"Magic" of LD_PRELOAD?!?!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

What about statically-linked apps?

What if someone calls _open() instead of open()?

What if someone decides to call their sound device something other than /dev/dsp?

What about programs that need to be setuid and/or setgid?

What about 64-bit machines that can run both 32- and 64-bit apps?

Relying on LD_PRELOAD is a hack and a kludge.

Re:"Magic" of LD_PRELOAD?!?!?!

[Burz]

It worked like sh-t for emulating OSS. Why would it work any better for emulating OSS + ALSA?

what about jackd?

[pikine]

I've been Googling around, and I've yet to find a convincing reason to use PulseAudio over jackd. Why reinvent the wheel? Jackd has network transparency (see NetJack). People say jackd is for professional audio, and PulseAudio is for desktop user. I don't see a reason why jackd cannot be made for desktop users. After all, CoreAudio framework on Mac OS X works for both desktop and professional audio. I've also used jackd just to listen to music or watch movies. What are the GNOME people thinking?

Re:Another one? (yum upgrade...)

[DusterBar]

I have use the yum upgrade method for quite some time. You may wish to check out the Fedora yum upgrade faq at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/YumUpgradeFaq - there is also a non-official guide to using yum to upgrade a number of RedHat distributions at http://www.brandonhutchinson.com/Upgrading_Red_Hat_Linux_with_yum.html

You may want to make sure you read some of the gotchas as if you have packages that are not from the Fedora Project and they are not upgraded or compatible with the newer version you are upgrading to you may need to delete them.

Note also that there are some difficulties in the x84_64 CPU architecture as more things become native 64-bit and thus some conflicts with older releases may happen...

W00t Fp

[Anonymous Coward]

be treat3d by your as those non gay, but I'd rather hear MAKES ME SICK JUST

GMP 4.2.1

[Myria]

Finally, you won't have to install a custom package to get decent cryptography performance in Fedora. It took them a long time to get away from 4.1.4.

PulseAdio and Jack Audacity

[blind monkey 3]

Hi, Just wondering if PulseAudio plays nicely with Audacity these days, I have a pc set up for Audio manipulation/editing/music composition stuff that I was going to upgrade (setting up a 64 bit box at last!), thought I might have a look at the offerings of "the dark side" (rpm based systems - I use Debian) oops....is that term a Microsoft TM?

Or maybe my 2007 Skype client?

[mgkimsal2]

"This means that your 1998 softphone that uses exclusive open() on /dev/dsp will function".

Maybe my 2007 Skype client might work with PulseAudio? Cause it uses /dev/dsp directly as well, AFAICT, and it was just built a couple months ago. Stop assuming only ancient programs use this technique - modern ones do too.

Re:Or maybe my 2007 Skype client?

[colin_s_guthrie]

Skype uses ALSA for a long time on Linux. If you're not even going to look at the audio prefs. dialog in apps how the hell are you going to know the current state of affairs with linux audio?

just moved to ubuntu server

[dwater]

had been on fedora for a few years, but was getting fed up of the fast upgrade cycle.

Ubuntu is, er, different :|

Re:just moved to ubuntu server

[jroysdon]

I fealt the same way, and switched to CentOS 5 (based on FC6). With additional repos, I have everything I want from the Fedora line, but with the core CentOS stability for 7 years.

Re:just moved to ubuntu server

[dwater]

...probably a more sensible decision.

I guess I wanted to get more used to the Ubuntu/debian system.

Re:just moved to ubuntu server

[gilboad]

... Ummm... I don't get it.
Each release is supported for ~13 month, so you are forced to upgrade once a year.
On the other hand, if you require long term support (>1 year), you shouldn't be thinking about Fedora in the first place - you should really consider using RHEL and/or CentOS.

You shouldn't compare Fedora (bleeding edge distro) to a long term server distro (Ubuntu server, RHEL, etc)

- Gilboa

Re:just moved to ubuntu server

[dwater]

> ... Ummm... I don't get it.

Clearly :)

I changed *because* it was upgrading too often. It wasn't news or a surprise that it was, but that's the reason anyway.

I can compare the two, of course - one updates very often, and the other doesn't. That's not to say they're the same, or even similar, but it's perfectly valid to compare them, and I don't see why I "shouldn't". I didn't think that upgrading each year would be such a big deal, but it is - it's far from trivial, in my experience.

Anyway...

Re:just moved to ubuntu server

[gilboad]

Bad wording on my side.

RHEL/CentOS/Ubuntu LTS cater for different needs/requirements then Fedora/Ubuntu/OpenSUSE/etc.
Sure, you can compare the two, but it'll be apples vs. oranges.

- Gilboa

I always wince

[msimm]

I always wince when I read things like "XXX is horribly unstable". If it's a development branch and you need bullet-proof use something Q/A'd. If you want gee-wiz and maybe some more cutting edge performance (or simply to help develop a great project) then stick with the cutting edge.

BUT, if you put any development quality software on a server for purposes other then your own testing my sympathy and willingness to listen to you are gone.

Closer to privileged subsystems...

[Slashamatic]

OpenVMS allowed the use of privileged images as well as libraries. These allowed for subsystem seperation. Of course, you had to be a fairly disciplined programmer to ensure that privs didn't leak.

Finegrained security

[jandersen]

...PolicyKit makes it possible to isolate individual operations that require higher privileges...

I'm not sure I like that one too much. Finegrained security models have always been a bloody nightmare, one way or another, and very often don't get used/are switched off, resulting in the opposite effect of that intended. Look to Vista to see why it sn't a good idea - users feel their are being bugged by constant dialog boxes asking them to confirm that it is OK to do trivial tasks, or asking for administrator passwords etc. People just want to get on with life, so this is a huge irritation - it may be true that all you need is to spend a little time and effort on setting it up, but people in general are not security minded and meticulous. This is, by the way, why Windows became so popular despite the huge problems with security and stability - a PC was almost an appliance that allowed you to use the internet and write documents, you just turned it on and used it.

Vista isn't the only example of finegrained security, only the latest and perhaps the one that has succeeded in pissing off most people. Oracle has it's own, very finely grained model, which I have never seen used seriously; and then there is RACF on IBM's mainframes, not a joy to work with either, IMO.

I think the basic UNIX security model is just about as much as most people want to bother with.

Re:Finegrained security

[Nibbler999]

The new system is replacing userhelper, so there will be the same number of (or likely fewer) password popup prompts - not more. See the wiki (google cache) for details.

Re:Finegrained security

[Anonymous Coward]

> Look to Vista to see why it sn't a good idea - users feel their are being bugged by constant dialog boxes asking them to confirm that it is OK to do trivial tasks, or asking for administrator passwords etc. People just want to get on with life, so this is a huge irritation

You've got it backward. This isn't designed to add more dialogs, this is designed to let the LOCAL user do what they should be able to do. NetworkManager is one example of the idea of PolicyKit but a more contained implementation. The local console user should be able to change their wireless network without being root. This is what PolicyKit/ConsoleKit enables. Now, NetworkManager can move the logic out of itself and let PolicyKit handle whether or not you should be able to switch networks. In fact, this is better because now you can't simply send a DBus message from somewhere outside of the local session to change the wireless network. (E.g. if someone is sitting at the computer, and is active, you shouldn't be able to ssh in and without root request the wireless network change).

Another good example is setting the system time. Without it, you'd need to be root. But you can allow the console user to do this one task (assuming that the date applet is hooked up properly).

Re:Finegrained security

[petermgreen]

Letting ordinary users set the system time isn't particularlly smart imo. If time configuration is done by someone who dosn't understand timezones you will end up with fucked up timestamps.

Re:Finegrained security

[Anonymous Coward]

Letting console user to change system time is not a correct behaviour. System time is as name suggests, something related with system. Lots of stuff is dependant on system time, such as logging features. If regular users changes the time a system administrator can easily get fooled.

Complaining and more complaining

[FooBarWidget]

And that's the problem with you people, all you do is complaining.

Now someone is actually doing his best to solve the sound problem instead of sitting around and complaining and doing nothing productive, and what do they get? MORE complaints. Get this into your head, nothing's going to happen if you complain and do nothing. The hard work is done by other people, for you, for free. The least you can do is show some respect.

Has it got working integration of ieee1394 & D

[rapiddescent]

I know that I should have participated in the test releases to check out the state of the new IEEE1394 system that was brought in (terribly) in Fedora 7, however has anyone tested to see if apps like dvgrab/kino work with the new IEEE1394 stuff in Fedora 8?

it's important that folks try out the test releases (I will do with 9 onwards) so that all the peculiar user functionality is tested and works. The Fedora 7 IEEE1394 bug happened because no one tried to grab a DV video stream from a video camera with Kino/Cinerella etc during the testing and so it went out broken. Fedora 7 brought in a new firewire system but the apps in the distro still expected the old firewire stuff to be there - no one noticed, so no one fixed it...

rd

Re:Dang! I just got Gutsy Gibbon configured....

[baldass_newbie]

If this posts I got office WiFi and SSH working...

And if it didn't post?

i686 binaries...

[MMC Monster]

Another plus about fedora is that they release i686 binaries.

Really, Canonical. How many people really need i386-targeted binaries? I got my first 386 in 1990.

Re:i686 binaries...

[noldrin]

One day I'm going to upgrade my 386 from PC DOS 7, to FreeDOS. But as it's only current use is a door stop, it's not a high priority for me.

Where are the authoritative SHA1 values?

[lar3ry]

OK. I downloaded the torrent. I can see two ISOs and an SHA1 file. I am not one to immediately trust an SHA1 that was part of the file I just downloaded. I'd rather calculate the SHA1 values and compare them to values stored on the FedoraProject site.

A google search for SHA1 on fedoraproject.com failed to find a single hit.

How do I verify that what I just downloaded is, in fact, really Fedora 8, and not a simple boot-loader with code to write random numbers to all sectors to all my attached hard disks?

Re:Where are the authoritative SHA1 values?

[Culture20]

ftp://ftp.ussg.iu.edu/linux/fedora/linux/releases/8/Fedora/i386/iso/SHA1SUM

Re:Where are the authoritative SHA1 values?

[Anonymous Coward]

have you, or anyone you know, ever +actually+ downloaded a linux iso off the distributors site only to find out it had been compromised to include malicious content?

Re:Where are the authoritative SHA1 values?

[VENONA]

It would be quickly detected. By people who take a bit of extra care, and check their downloads against authoritative hashes. Which would seem obvious, but clearly mystifies you.

Re:Where are the authoritative SHA1 values?

[Anonymous Coward]

The SHA1SUM-file is signed with Fedora Projects GPG-key.
This particular key is the same key which signs all the RPMS in earlier versions so if you already run fedora you should already trust this key.
If not, you can find the key, for example, at:
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/6/i386/os/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora

Relevancy

[SpacePunk]

I didn't even know that 7 was out.

PulseAudio available for Ubuntu too

[CrazedWalrus]

After I read this article, I installed the pulseaudio packages on Ubuntu. It wasn't quite as easy or integrated as a default install would have been, but I got it working fairly well in about 15 minutes. Just Google for Ubuntu and PulseAudio for the forum articles.

The GNOME stuff (totem, rhythmbox, etc) works flawlessly with pulseaudio's gstreamer plugins. The only trouble I'm having now is with vlc, which doesn't seem to support it in any straightforward way. There are workarounds, but I haven't had a chance to really chase it yet. Overall, not bad for 15 minutes -- all but one program works great, and I didn't need to install Fedora to do it.

That said, I'm tempted to install FC8, since I haven't tried Fedora since FC3. It certainly sounds like it's got some nice features.

Re:PulseAudio available for Ubuntu too

[hdparm]

On Fedora 8, vlc (livna rpm) works with Pulseaudio - I was just trying DVD + mp3 in a music player, all goes fine.

Fedora ISOs via FTP

[Culture20]

If you want a fast FTP connection w/o having to look for a mirror, try ftp://ftp.ussg.iu.edu/linux/fedora/linux/releases/8/ Torrents are nice and all, but they're not for everyone...

Policy Kit crap got me to format SuSE 10.3 away

[Anonymous Coward]

The Policy Kit crap got me to format SuSE 10.3 away. The only way to access USB devices on SuSE 10.3 is by loging on root.
I erased my SuSE 10.3 and installed Fedora 7 to fix the problem.
Fedora has issues of its own with the paranoiac selinux mode but with it disabled it can actually be used as a desktop machine, not just a server.

maybe b/c they're not from/in USA ?

[curri]

They're not from the USA, so they can afford to ignore USA laws :) RedHat can't

no liveCD support for AMD K6-2

[ritzer]

My second machine is an AMD K6-2 which shows up on boot as a 586 -- Fedora liveCDs refuse to boot for some strange reason. Same problem with Fedora 7. Yet, I installed it from the installation repository and it runs fine to this day. One of the reasons I run Linux is because I am fed up with the new computer every three years nonsense requisite in the windoze arena. One of the strengths of Linux is that it runs on older stock. I hope we don't shed that valuable asset as Linux becomes increasingly mainstream. -- ER

Re:Has it got working integration of ieee1394 &

[HuguesT]

That's OK, others did the work for you. Apparently it's fine now, at least the threads in Bugzilla say so.

In fact the 1394 stack in F7 was completely and utterly hosed. It didn't work for external disks either. Should be OK in F8 now, but I have yet to try.

Cheers

fc8 buglets

[lsatenstein]

Perhaps I am the only one experiencing problems or shortcomings with the new release. Here is what does not work for me. Local networking, where I can see files on a second pc and copy or write to that disk (local network is not working) RPM install from home directory, even with security set, crashes. Pirut (automatic updating for 64 bit system is broken) Compiz, is very flakey. If you turn it on, you have a good chance of losing the top window frame of an open session. That means, you cannot close, or minimize the window. It also does not allow for relocating the window to another part of the screen.

All this worked well from Fc7.

Aside from the above, it appears to be fine. I refused their codecbuddy install as I want to visit the livna and other repositories for their versions. I hope that with pulseaudio, that there will be a standardizing on codec interfacing, so that one set of codecs will serve all multi-media applications.

Les