Fedora 11 Is Now Available

rexx mainframe writes "Fedora 11 is now available on BitTorrent. Fedora 11 offers ext4, a 20-second startup, and the latest GNOME, KDE and XFCE releases. Firefox 3.5 and Thunderbird 3's latest pre-releases are available as well. Fedora 11 features Presto, a yum plugin that reduces bandwidth consumption drastically by downloading only binary differences between updates. It also features Openchange for interoperability with Microsoft Exchange. There are new security enhancements, improved and upgraded development tools, and cutting-edge features in areas such as virtualization."

Comments

It's soo cutting edge

[networkconsultant]

I hurt myself trying to install it.

Re:It's soo cutting edge

[rbrausse]

and this is the reason why I use it on my private laptop: I want to know what will hit my servers with Debian stable in 4 years :)

Re:It's soo cutting edge

[zr-rifle]

I hurt myself trying to install it.

...so now it's bleeding edge?

Ho ho.

[gbarules2999]

I wish I had a spare partition to install this on. The Beta and Preview releases were good, and they seem to be interested in trying a few new things.

The release announcement makes we wonder, though.

Re:Ho ho.

[melted]

That's what virtualization is for. I always install a new OS in a VM first. This time around, doing this led me to switching a couple of servers from Fedora to Ubuntu Server.

Re:Ho ho.

[gbarules2999]

I wish I could. My main computer's barely powerful enough to run one OS at a time, much less two.

I know, I know, it's time for an upgrade. You tell my wallet that.

Re:Ho ho.

[MSG]

Fedora 11 has been out for two hours. You've already downloaded it, evaluated it, and switched some of your servers to a different distribution?

You work faster than anyone I've ever met. I am humbled by your awesome ability.

Re:Ho ho.

[flydpnkrtn]

Wait, you were running servers using Fedora? Madness I tell you!

If you want a RedHat-like OS on a server why not install CentOS?

Re:Ho ho.

[erroneus]

I am a long time Redhat user. Have used Redhat since 4.2 and continued using it when it changed names to "Fedora." I'll be doing my install of Fedora 11 tonight I hope... too many things to do today. But one thing is certain -- I would never use Fedora to serve as a server. I know there are people who do, and god bless their hearts because they enable whatever they find to be included in with Redhat Enterprise Linux. The reason? No long term support. Ubuntu offers an LTS release every so often while also offering more cutting edge stuff as well. But Fedora is not exactly a cutting edge distro either. It is usually quite stable... people on the cutting edge use Rawhide.

So with all that said, I use CentOS (and variants) on the server side and Fedora on the desktop. I have used CentOS on the desktop and it's okay, but it's pretty dull by comparison to Fedora for obvious reasons.

Without long term support, a server will be a lot more work than it needs to be. I recall stepping into a role where the company's web site was hosted on a Fedora 4 server. I was shocked. I got that stuff rectified as soon as possible... Fedora 4 support has long since expired so there was no way to keep it updated. I moved to new hosting and put it all under CentOS. Done and done for years to come. Well, that's not entirely true -- I don't work there any more and I know the outsource company they hired isn't smart enough to manage those servers. (Why is it that almost all IT outsource services are Microsoft partnered and all but refuse anything to do with Linux or Mac OS?)

Re:Ho ho.

[Zocalo]

Unless you're really fussed about free (speech) software or desperately strapped for hardware resources, you could try the free (beer) version of the VMware ESXi Hypervisor. You don't get all of the nice toys of the paid for version, but it's a pretty neat way of trying out distros when hardware resources are limited and has next to no impact when only running one VM. Some of the main advantages to this:

• Unless resources are really tight, you can still run multiple OS's side by side should it be helpful to do so
• You have the fallback of not needed to completely blow away an existing setup until you are happy with the new one
• Makes it very easy to make every install a clean build
• Makes it very easy to make every install an upgrade (of a copy) too - what's your preference?

Having had a few OS installs go wrong and being down a system for a few days, I'm giving some serious thought to doing this on all my personal systems in future, but what would be even better for that would be to get the Hypervisor in the BIOS. At the moment though, that kind of functionality seems to be only available on higher end motherboards aimed at the server market...

Re:Ho ho.

[Maniacal]

I researched this question and can't find a good answer. Maybe you or someone else here has one:

Why would you use Ubuntu Server? Why not just use Debian? CentOS rocks because it gives you a great alternative to an OS you have to pay for. Ubuntu Server gives a free version of a free OS?? Debian is rock solid and has been forever, from what I just read. I can see being a fanboy for Ubuntu because you like brown but what advantages does it bring to the server side?

Re:Ho ho.

[donaldm]

Fedora is only supported for 18 months or so, do you want to reinstall your server in 18 months time ?

To reinstall a server is silly unless you are performing a disaster recovery. In a commercial environment it is almost impossible to get some firms to approve of an update never mind an upgrade. I know of firms who are still running Redhat 2.1 which is now unsupported even though we have been hounding them about this for the last two years.

20 seconds? Mama mia

[Garbad Ropedink]

A 20 second boot? What happens after that?

Re:20 seconds? Mama mia

[gbarules2999]

These boots are made for walkin', and that's just what they'll do...after twenty seconds the boots are gonna walk all over you.

Re:20 seconds? Mama mia

[Blakey Rat]

It takes 15 minutes to log in.

Re:we must keep releasing stuff

[viralMeme]

"we must keep releasing stuff and get things moving... and maybe one day, they will see us as a serious contender for a professional OS. good job, Red Hat"

Yea, KDE 4.2.3 will never be as polished as the commercial Vis, er Windows 7 1/2 Operating System ..

KDE 4.2.3 KDE 4.3 Beta Gnome 2.26.1

Fedora 11 is now available on BitTorrent

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn pirates.

Too many releases!

[pablo_max]

Seriously, why does linux have so many release cycles. That's one thing I didnt like about Ubuntu. It took me forever to get it running just the way I wanted and by then a new version was out and I had the pressure to upgrade..and of course..I had to set up everything again since invariably, it broke something.
It's funny how many people here bitched that windows was coming out with Win 7 so soon after vista, but they don't mind that linux seems to release something every couple months depending on the distro. Odd.

Re:Too many releases!

[Ex-Linux-Fanboy]

why does linux have so many release cycles

Because Fedora is a cutting-edge testing release that's done about twice a year. The RedHat Linux way is to take software that Microsoft would only make available to internal testers in Redmond, and make it available to the general public as "Fedora".

If you want something with fewer release cycles, you're best bet is Red Hat Enterprise Linux (which every three years or so, takes a release of Fedora, declares it stable, renames it "RHEL", and updates that version of Fedora for seven years). If you're too cheap to buy RHEL, you can get CentOS, which is a free derivative of RHEL. CentOS 5.3 is the Linux equivalent of "CentOS 5, service pack 3" [1]

[1] Well, except that adding new drivers to older releases of CentOS is harder than it is to do with Microsoft Windows. What can I say, Linux isn't perfect.

Re:Too many releases!

[harryandthehenderson]

Seriously, why does linux have so many release cycles.

Because people want the latest versions of software?

That's one thing I didnt like about Ubuntu. It took me forever to get it running just the way I wanted and by then a new version was out and I had the pressure to upgrade..and of course..I had to set up everything again since invariably, it broke something.

You didn't have to upgrade at all. No one forces you to do so if everything already works just fine.

It's funny how many people here bitched that windows was coming out with Win 7 so soon after vista, but they don't mind that linux seems to release something every couple months depending on the distro. Odd.

Because it doesn't cost me a couple of hundred dollars to upgrade from Ubuntu 9.04 to 9.10? Or from Fedora 10 to 11? I'm sure that has nothing to do with it.

Re:Too many releases!

[migla]

Moving quickly is the biggest strength of open source development. That and choice, so that'd be the two big strengths of open source. And the community.

Yes, our three main weapons are speed, choice, community and an almost fanatical devotion to freedom.

Re:Too many releases!

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, the four best things about linux will always be speed, choice, community, freedom, and the fact that it costs nothing.

Re:Too many releases!

[Sensible Clod]

Actually, I just upgraded to Jaunty on a machine that had only seen about 40 hours of use since I installed Intrepid on it, and it hosed the system. The filesystem was still there, but I couldn't get it working for several hours. Finally, I just clean-installed Jaunty, since I didn't have much I wanted to save.

GP may be trolling or not, but don't imagine that upgrades are always hearts and flowers.

Oh, and I'm not upgrading my Fedora 10 box right away, either, just in case.

take a screenshot tour

[viralMeme]

Fedora 11 Screenshot Tour

--

I like it except it doesn't have X feeture :)

Re:take a screenshot tour

[H0p313ss]

Fedora 11 Screenshot Tour

So... just like Ubuntu only blueier.

Perhaps we could roll a new Ubuntu sub-project: Blubuntu

This will probably become RHEL6

[Ex-Linux-Fanboy]

This release of Fedora is the release that will probably be the basis for the next release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). This is a good thing, because I like using commercial software on Linux (read: I like using VMware Player to run virtual machines), and right now RHEL 5 does not run with the 2007-era hardware I have, being based on a version of Fedora from 2006.

Once this becomes RHEL, commercial ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) will start supporting the release and both the hardware I use and the commercial software I need to be productive (sorry guys, I find VirtualBox a lot more buggy and less intuitive to use than VMware) will be supported in a version of Linux that will have the stability I need.

Can anyone confirm that RHEL6 will be based on Fedora 11?

Re:This will probably become RHEL6

[Anonymous Coward]

Wikipedia says yes

Re:The stats are looking good

[inode_buddha]

Although I still prefer FTP or HTTP, I've learned over the years to wait a few days before downloading. It also gives some time to see what the early adopters say, usually right here on slash.

Yay, KMS!

[MostAwesomeDude]

Fedora 11 is the first release of any major distribution to include kernel mode-setting (KMS) for Intel GMA, ATI Radeon, and nVidia TNT2/GeForce chipsets. This is an excellent step forward in terms of moving off of crufty old graphics APIs and being able to use video cards in a more uniform, reliable manner.

Preupgrade

[ichthus]

I just used preupgrade to move from fc10 on my Samsung NC10 netbook. As I type this, Anaconda is installing the packages for upgrade.

So far, this upgrade is going smoothly. According to the release notes, I should see an improvement in battery life. We'll see...

Re:What an immature release announcement!

[vivaelamor]

Maybe you'd prefer the release notes or the tour instead?

Fedora server components are not bleeding-edge

[FranTaylor]

The desktop may be bleeding-edge, but the server components are rock-solid.

I might have a tough time adjusting the volume or getting the desktop applets to work right, but the server implementations are stable and work right every time.

Meh...

[Murpster]

I began using Slackware back when the shiny new Linux kernel was 0.95a and used Slackware until about 1996 or early 1997 when I switched to RedHat. I was a huge fan of RedHat and the first few Fedoras, but with newer releases, they seem to be focusing on making a Winux system for dummies and put more effort into making snazzy looking desktop environments and writing clunky inefficient GUIs for simple systems tasks. The systems aren't as reliable as they used to be, you get all kinds of garbage dependencies and badly configured packages. I haven't put anything newer than FC8 on my home systems, but I installed Fedora 10 on a work system last year. I wash my hands of this crap. I don't know what distro I'll use next, but I'm not installing any flavor of RedHat again on any of my systems.

11?

[Tubal-Cain]

Whoops. Completely missed 11. I've been tracking 12.

(Alpha comes out July 7)

20 Second Startup Time

[TheStonepedo]

Is that on my grandmother's Pentium II laptop or my boss's multi-core workstation? Startup time seems like an arbitrary statistic for a Linux distribution that should run on a broad range of outdated and current hardware.

Re:I've evaluated pre-release version

[bwt]

How are we supposed to evaluate your statements if you don't say HOW running distro A is a pain in the ass, and how distro B fixed it. From the fact that you don't even try to explain this I think we're left with the obvious conclusion: distro A doesn't meet your requirement of being distro B.