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Fedora Core May Be Reborn
darthcamaro writes "At the first ever Fedora Flock conference this past weekend, a proposal was put forward by developer Mat Miller to re-architect Fedora with a core distribution, surrounded by layers of additional functionality for desktop, server and cloud. It's a proposal that Fedora Project Leader Robyn Bergeron is interested in too. 'How can we make Fedora be something that is modular enough to fit into all those different environments (device, desktop, server & cloud) , while still acknowledging that a one-size-fits-all approach isn't something that draws people into the project?' Bergeron said. 'People want something that is specifically for them.'"
Hasn't Arch Linux already solved this problem (for at least x86)?
Hasn't Gentoo already solved this problem for [almost] all architectures?
with very different content between members. Does that make sense? I don't think it does. Who benefits?
What if I want LLVM instead of GCC? Will I be told, "That's a great idea, hold that thought, we may have a subdistro for people interested in that"? It's all just promotional BS.
It's called a software package, and we've been using them for quite some time now. If they mean "what if we redesigned the basic Fedora distribution with little more than enough bits to make things light up and a GUI appear on the screen" that would be interesting, but redundant.
I'd only start getting excited once they finally solve dependencies once and for all.
Is a stable release, so I can actually use it. The sandbox style of Fedora and over stable style of Red Hat just doesn't cut it. It seems as though Fedora changes too rapidly and breaks stuff often and Red Hat is so "stable" that binaries lag far behind.
Fedora isn't really targeted to those environments anyway.
That's where you want stability, well proven packages and long term maintenance.
Fedora is the cutting edge, better suited to an enthusiast desktop or maybe a development environment.
In the past I used Fedora for office and servers. That was an error. Switching to CentOS (which is Fedora stabilized) was a much better decision.
The exception was one case in which I needed a brand new subsystem - kernel plus userspace. For that, Fedora made sense because the brand new version I needed was not on RedHat / CentOS yet.
And actually, he goes by Matthew.
Quit giving birth to my kittens!!
Get your free Dropbox account with 2 GB Free storage!
secure boot? is it really deployed? what mobo has this 'feature'?
Man, I am so sick of this 're-birth' crap from Fedora. I liked Fedora 'core' back 7+ years ago before we had to be this uber bleeding edge -slash- agile uber aggressive build cycle that fucks everything up and obsoletes distribution usage to about 6 months.
When it was 'just' an upstream snapshot look to what RedHat Enterprise was going to be in the future, I was totally cool with that, and it melded nicely in a lot of environments. But that spin-off has become such a damn mess now with developer heavy ideas that, in some case, go against every foundation of a traditional UNIX-like operating system design, I could really give who shits what the do now.
Making a 'one-size-fits-all' OS is, pain and simple: a horrible idea. I don't want a damn highly integrated OS that I can use for everything. You'll never get that right, and some 'next-in-line' guy they give 5 minutes of talk time at the next conference will say the same thing.
When you take shit, and try and re-invent it with only shit, I'm sure everyone knows the result you get.
secure boot? is it really deployed? what mobo has this 'feature'?
More importantly what PC motherboard has this feature and does *NOT* have the option to disable it?
With integrated secure boot and remote attestation Fedora is likely to be the *only* Linux distribution which can lawfully be used on the Internet in the coming years. It is important that they continue their good work if we are to have any Linux at all.
ah I believe ubuntu has its bootloader signed and did not the linux foundation have shim loader signed monthes ago?
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
Well i like GNOME 3 but the subsequent changes are way too much:
1. no dock, preferrably configurable one (left or right)
2. removing F3 from Nautilus
3. changing gvfs paths every 2nd relaease
4. moving menu options into the main title bar (like preferences in GNOME)
I've been using Fedora since the beginning but after F19 I am no longer recommending it to anyone.
I have a little over one year old Intel DQ77MK motherboard that has secure boot. Never tried it, but it's off by default and can be turned on and off and customized by the user at any point.
Isn't cloud services run on servers?
*WOOOOSH*
I'm still using Fedora 16 with no problems. I don't understand all these people claiming Fedora is "bleeding edge." I guess there are already a lot of different ways to use it. For me it is a fairly stodgy distro with a focus on business and dev tools.
I'd love a minimized version because right now it has gotten too big to run as a router on very old hardware. I hate having to choose debian in those situations.
Since 18 months updates is simply not enough.
I wish they could take the opportunity and do some work on the packaging system.
Now that systemd has pretty much overhauled most of the user land, and Wayland will be forcing them to write the whole dependencies trees anyhow, and they already have their new installer, I'd like to see something like a cross between GNU Guix and Gentoo Portage be made for Red Hat\Fedora.
It wouldn't have made much sense a year or two ago to redo everything. But now since they obviously need to clean house, they might as well get some added value in there.
I think the main problem with Fedora is they are on a mission to break stuff that works. I am about to give up on Fedora. If I build another computer, I'm going to look at some other distro. Ubuntu LTS + KDE, or maybe Linux Mint. Fedora used to be cutting-edge and have new stuff, which was great, but recently the distro has become so broken I don't know what to do with it anymore. I'm seriously contemplating buying a Windows machine and running Cygwin.
One example is that I've gotten to where I won't update the kernel if I have a stable one. Lately new kernels have caused my machine to start spontaneously rebooting and I have to back off to an older kernel.
Another is that I skipped Fedora 16 because Fedora has always let you upgrade from the past two releases. Not anymore! I had to upgrade to F17 and then F18. It literally took 24 non-stop hours. I woke up at night and went and started the next upgrade. This ordeal almost got me off of Linux permanently.
Another is that they won't let you upgrade from the DVD. You now have to download packages. I have two machines running Fedora. Oops. In the past, you could download one DVD image and upgrade all your machines. Then pick up any new packages you missed.
How about a reborn version that fixes these problems?
please type: yum update
and tell me what happens.
When it was 'just' an upstream snapshot look to what RedHat Enterprise was going to be in the future,
It was never that. It's the alpha test release for RHEL. It's not beta-quality, because there's a RHEL limited beta program. Fedora is Alpha-test-quality software. Why would you run that on your desktops? At least run CentOS.
Making a 'one-size-fits-all' OS is, pain and simple: a horrible idea. I don't want a damn highly integrated OS that I can use for everything.
You are confusing OS and distribution. That's normal because it's kind of a fuzzy and wavy line, but it's somewhere between the kernel, basic userland, and basic libraries, and the full-fledged system. Debian is useful for installs ranging from very small to full desktop because the minimal system is sufficiently minimal. Fedora hopes to accomplish the same thing. It's a matter of dependencies, and not getting carried away with them.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The AC said quote "in the coming years". That would never happen, just like the government would never track all of your emails and phone calls and certainly they wouldn't outlaw soft drinks.
Now that they have the capability to prevent
"hackers" from doing things like installing scary unauthorized operating systems, and multi billion dollar companies stand to profit billions from new regulations it's not impossible. I understand did you take the rejection Microsoft has had to layoff two of their congressmen, but they still own a couple of senators
Same thing that happens when I type that on my Fedora 12 machine: nothing breaks.
I run Fedora 19 with KDE on my home machines. Basically I set aside about 5 to 6 hours every six months to upgrade and when I say upgrade I mean a complete re-installation of the latest Fedora from DVD. Even though I actually backup my data (over 1TB) progressively I have never had to recover my data since I use LVM to manage my disks and all I have to do is make sure the system volumes including swap and of course the /boot partition are sized properly. Actually the only time I did have to recover my data when I converted the file-system from ext3 to ext4 and IMHO the performance improvement was worth it.
I have actually found Fedora from 10 onward have been remarkably stable although I will admit when KDE 4.0 came out (I think that was with Fedora 15) I actually switched to Gnome util they fixed the stability issues, however that was not a Fedora issue.
Would I recommend Fedora for the Enterprise? Hell no! since you want any enterprise solution to be supported and in large corporations this usually means a Microsoft OS (this is changing but slowly) for the desktop and a mix of Linux (in my experience Redhat), Microsoft and Unix for the server room.
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
I like the idea however the support (updates lifecycle) aspect of Fedora is the only reason I do not use it on servers. Fedora was never intended to be a long term distribution, I think of it more as "beta" where it's cutting edge and updated frequently. This makes it much more suiting for desktop clients, rather than servers. However, if support was extended, then it would definitely be worth considering for servers. As for desktop, server, and cloud, just add these choices to the installer and allow the user to customize at install time. That's been the model for many years and it allows one set of installation media for multiple scenarios. Either way, Fedora is a great distribution with backing from Red Hat, and I look forward to future versions.
systemd vs init, iptables replaced with firewall in fedora19, NetworkManager, etc. Fedora is the test bed for things that eventually roll into redhat. Those are big, established functions that have existed in some format in Linux for well over a decade.
I wish they could take the opportunity and do some work on the packaging system.
If you mean rpm's why would you want to install an rpm package using the rpm command unless that package is basically stand-alone? It is much easier using yum which determines all dependences and installs them.
Now that systemd has pretty much overhauled most of the user land, and Wayland will be forcing them to write the whole dependencies trees anyhow, and they already have their new installer, I'd like to see something like a cross between GNU Guix and Gentoo Portage be made for Red Hat\Fedora.
You do know that systemd is a system management daemon designed exclusively for the Linux kernel and Fedora became the first major Linux distribution to deploy systemd in May 2011.
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
Why are you assuming any given OS comes in only one size? Gentoo is a good example of the contrary. It comes in any size you want. I tend to think the mistake is more one of trying to make the OS fit the roles without any input from the user. There are a lot of assumptions made that really aren't necessary when that happens.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
The purpose of the Fedora Core project is to be a massive, real-world test-bed for software packages based on current versions of software that will eventually find its way into a future version of RHEL (and by extension CentOS and Oracle Enterprise Linux) once hardened. If you view it this way, it makes perfect sense why Red Hat treats Fedore Core the way they do.
how the fuck is this so different from ...
http://spins.fedoraproject.org/
let them just add another spin for their cloud non-sense etc etc. fix the existing bugs etc and get on with it.
I agree with you but Fedora is still less fucked (crazy, non-standard) than Ubuntu, where hostname -f doesn't even work and god-only-knows what they did to standard, core configuration files, like /etc/resolv.conf -- all in the name of making things (superficially) easier.
I'm sure there's some muti-media app that works better on Ubuntu, but I'll take Fedora on the desktop. For the server, Centos or RHEL.
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
Man, I am so sick of this 're-birth' crap from Fedora. I liked Fedora 'core' back 7+ years ago before we had to be this uber bleeding edge -slash- agile uber aggressive build cycle that fucks everything up and obsoletes distribution usage to about 6 months.
When it was 'just' an upstream snapshot look to what RedHat Enterprise was going to be in the future, I was totally cool with that, and it melded nicely in a lot of environments. But that spin-off has become such a damn mess now with developer heavy ideas that, in some case, go against every foundation of a traditional UNIX-like operating system design, I could really give who shits what the do now.
Making a 'one-size-fits-all' OS is, pain and simple: a horrible idea. I don't want a damn highly integrated OS that I can use for everything. You'll never get that right, and some 'next-in-line' guy they give 5 minutes of talk time at the next conference will say the same thing.
When you take shit, and try and re-invent it with only shit, I'm sure everyone knows the result you get.
It's not surprising that you are confused here, since the original poster went out of his/her way to omit all of the substance of the proposal and instead focus on screaming "Fedora Core!". Of the three targets that were proposed, one of them (Fedora Server) is intended to be *exactly* what you just asked for. A clearly-defined server OS that is essentially snap-shots on the road to Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS stability. Then, there are two other targets: cloud images suitable for use in an IaaS or PaaS infrastructure and the Client Workstation which will be targeted at creators and IT specialists.
The whole point of this proposal is that many of us in the Fedora Project agree with you: One-size-fits-no-one isn't a lasting solution.
Furthermore, the original poster misrepresented two compatible-but-not-identical proposals that came up at Flock. The splitting of the target audiences into separate, isolated deliverables was actually my proposal (Stephen Gallagher), not Matthew's (though he and most of the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee support it). The intent here is to have specific goals for sections of the Project and work towards meeting them. This is a large shift from Fedora's historical behavior which was to ship whatever the upstream projects shipped. With this proposal (backed by a design that is still in progress), we're going to make changes where they need to be made to produce a more cohesive whole.
In the end, we're working hard to ensure that Fedora is relevant in a changing age of cloud infrastructures and DevOps deployments, without ignoring our downstream RHEL and CentOS consumers as well. Certain other Linux OSes have decided to go the route of consumer electronics, but we as Fedora still believe that free software should be the infrastructure that powers those consumer products. And Fedora is a means to that end.
Stephen Gallagher (Fedora Engineering Steering Committee)
You may treat all information submitted above as wild speculation.
I run Fedora 19 with KDE on my home machines. Basically I set aside about 5 to 6 hours every six months to upgrade and when I say upgrade I mean a complete re-installation of the latest Fedora from DVD. Even though I actually backup my data (over 1TB) progressively I have never had to recover my data since I use LVM to manage my disks and all I have to do is make sure the system volumes including swap and of course the /boot partition are sized properly. Actually the only time I did have to recover my data when I converted the file-system from ext3 to ext4 and IMHO the performance improvement was worth it.
I strongly recommend that you try upgrading with 'fedup' next time around. It's far-and-away better than our historical upgrade processes and works in-place. I've personally gone from F17->F18->F19 using it with no ill effects.
I have actually found Fedora from 10 onward have been remarkably stable although I will admit when KDE 4.0 came out (I think that was with Fedora 15) I actually switched to Gnome util they fixed the stability issues, however that was not a Fedora issue.
Would I recommend Fedora for the Enterprise? Hell no! since you want any enterprise solution to be supported and in large corporations this usually means a Microsoft OS (this is changing but slowly) for the desktop and a mix of Linux (in my experience Redhat), Microsoft and Unix for the server room.
That's going to depend on your definition of Enterprise. Would I recommend Fedora today as your long-term FreeIPA or other core infrastructure server? No, probably not. On the other hand, would I recommend it for DevOps and rapidly deployed-used-and-killed VM instances for newer technologies such as Ruby on Rails or Node.js? Absolutely. Fedora's rapid development cycle is much more in line with those DevOps behaviors. It's actually a myth that "Fedora isn't for production". I know a great many DevOps deployments using Fedora successfully.
That all said, the major piece that was missing from this incredibly (and clearly intentionally) misleading summary is that the purpose of splitting off Fedora into three targets is to provide better support for those who want to use Fedora in production (the cloud image), those who want to develop their layered software so that it will run on the next version of RHEL/CentOS (the server) and people who want a comprehensive desktop for getting stuff done (the workstation/client).
Stephen Gallagher (Fedora Engineering Steering Committee)
You may treat all information submitted above as wild speculation.
Read his post again as you obviously did not understand it. He is suggesting replacing rpm/yum with another different package manager. Read up on GNU Guix.
I strongly recommend that you try upgrading with 'fedup' next time around. It's far-and-away better than our historical upgrade processes and works in-place. I've personally gone from F17->F18->F19 using it with no ill effects.
I had a lot of problems with fedup from 17 to 18. They were fixable after you figured out the issues, but, it caused problems on two systems anyway. Apart from that, the update problem has been pretty tame. Things have been sufficiently stable that I no longer update with a full new install in its own partition while retaining the original so that I can backtrack. I probably should, but I don't.
exactly! I waited years for systemd, it is newer than SysV but it is sure not bleeding edge.
NetworkManager, yeah, that is the very first thing I turn off in fedora. I doubt I'll adopt "firewall" either. <3 iptables :) These choices have never been difficult in Fedora. That's what I love about it... I have the new stuff, and the old stuff all still works. Many distros want to force you to change, and then things you opt out of you have to maintain your own WTFs in /usr/local
Why would you run that on your desktops? At least run CentOS.
Fedora is too bleeding edge and releases too quickly.
CentOS isn't new enough.
I want something in-between.