Fedora 21 Linux Will Be Nameless

darthcamaro writes "What follows in the footsteps of Heisenbug, Spherical Cow and Beefy Miracle? Apparently the answer is 'null' as is nothing. Fedora Linux 21 could well have no funky new name as its past predecessors have all had, thanks to a recent vote by the Fedora board to move away from the existing naming practices. Fedora 21 itself will not be out in the first half of 2014 either, instead the plan is now for a release sometime around August. A delayed release however doesn't mean something is wrong as Red Hat's community Linux distro aims to re-invent itself."

Comments

Good!

[inflamed]

The use of both naming and version numbers to differentiate distribution versions makes searching for bug workarounds harder.

Re:Good!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I don't have to see ASCII garbage in my bootloader because they use Unicode for Schrodinger's umlaut.

Re:Good!

[sconeu]

Is Schroedinger's Umlaut there or not there until you look at /etc/issue?

Re:Good!

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you should use names. Google is terrible at finding something by version number. For some reason it often seems to think any number is a sufficient hit.

Re:Good!

[vlueboy]

Then you should use names. Google is terrible at finding something by version number. For some reason it often seems to think any number is a sufficient hit.

Agreed. This is a problem with firefox version searches too. I preferred version numbers back 6 years ago when google didn't ignore your search queries and quotes.

Up until recently, if you looked for something like firefox 28 and get something like 3.5.28. What on earth? It seems to be better, as I can't replicate. Yahoo is still affected

I'd suggest naming it as '\0'

[tomer]

Let's see who doesn't filter this character, so it may break some systems.

Re:I'd suggest naming it as '\0'

[The MAZZTer]

Why not SQL injection?

Re:I'd suggest naming it as '\0'

[goombah99]

I would suggest "chrome dome" as in the absence of a Fedora.

Obvious

[tempest69]

Fedora 21 (Black Jack)
I'm calling it that, and I dont care if Fedora leaves it nameless.

Re:Obvious

[marcello_dl]

Fedora 21 (Black Jack)
I'm calling it that, and I dont care if Fedora leaves it nameless.

Don't hold back, make your own distro.
With blackjack and hookers.

Naming releases

[similar_name]

I used to not care for naming releases. Just give me version numbers. However, I've changed my mind. Now I find it more fruitful to search for issues with a particular version by name rather than by number.

Re:Naming releases

[Anonymous Coward]

However, I've changed my mind. Now I find it more fruitful to search for issues with a particular version by name rather than by number

Yes, but what do you do if you need to figure out the software requirements?
Quick, does "at least mountain lion" include "leopard"? How about "at least Cheetah version, but no later than Crouching Striped Tiger"?

Re:Naming releases

[Gravis Zero]

However, I've changed my mind. Now I find it more fruitful to search for issues with a particular version by name rather than by number

Yes, but what do you do if you need to figure out the software requirements?
Quick, does "at least mountain lion" include "leopard"? How about "at least Cheetah version, but no later than Crouching Striped Tiger"?

Crouching Striped Tiger? What about the Hidden Polka Dot Dragon?

Re:Naming releases

[armanox]

Which is why having both are useful.

Longer cycles and tick/tock please

[Sponge Bath]

I gave up on Fedora after 14. It is too much of a bleeding edge perpetual beta and moving target. Please make it a one year new feature release with a 6 month stabilization release. I realize RHEL is the production distribution, and the derivative CentOS 6.x is my favorite distribution by far. A testing distribution like Fedora won't get as wide of testing if it is as unstable as it was when I gave up.

Re:Longer cycles and tick/tock please

[TuxThePenguin2205]

Fedora 20 is excellent out of the (metaphorical) box. I'm going to move my dad across to it from Mint next time I do an update. (It has become difficult to build a git version of wine since Ubuntu made some upstream changes to multilib)

Re:Longer cycles and tick/tock please

[Aighearach]

I'm still on 16, and I've been using it since it was "RedHat Linux." I'm not convinced it is some sort of "testing" distro. It is actually mostly a developers distro, that also works really well on servers. It has to have newer stuff because developers need a tool chain that can run the latest versions. It also can't be too bleeding edge, because the servers need stable versions. A lot of the stuff on fedora is many versions in the past, for these reasons. Other stuff is nearly in the future. The big changes, like going from SysV init to systemd, were carefully thought out over a period of years, and they finally changed at a time when a lot of distros are changing. Most of the others chose stuff that is new and has serious known problems, but systemd has been around for years and has proven itself both in practice, and in its architecture. Were there bugs in the transition? Yes. Of course.

You can always choose the version before the current one, and get a polished distro because of the updates.

The problem with only numbers (uniqueness rocks)

[John Allsup]

When searching for information relavent to a release, say Debian 7, putting 'debian 7' into Google is useless, since Google can't infer the meaning of a number 7 in a document.  Searching for 'debian wheezy', however, is far more specific, since 'wheezy' isn't used where the number 7 might be (for example 'bug with proglet 7 on debian 3' might match pages talking about bugs with proglet running on debian 7 where the error code is 3).  If they don't have a codename, at least attach a unique memorable short string to each release so that it can be easily searched for.

Re:The problem with only numbers (uniqueness rocks

[wiredlogic]

Except that Google can infer from context that your search is related to Debian 7 and not Debian 6 or Debian 8.

Enough with the stupid names!

[RuffMasterD]

Thank you Fedora, for dropping the stupid names already. Code name my distro Humping Hippo for all I care, but don't put it into the final product. I shouldn't have to search the Internet every time I need to translate between release number and codename. Sure, I can run 'lsb_release -r' or whatever command on my own system, but what about every other system out there? Ubuntu, your move...

Re:Enough with the stupid names!

[nabsltd]

Ubuntu numbering is a decent way to do it, but names only work in conjunction with number, like saying "Ubuntu 13.10" followed by "Saucy Salamander." When people say things like "Oh, that's not supported in Gutsy Gibbon, the feature was added in Natty Narwhal." I want to whack them with a whacking stick.

Starting with 5.10 (Breezy Badger), it's fairly easy to tell the version ordering from the names, as they are in alphabetical order.

Re:The problem with only numbers (uniqueness rocks

[TuxThePenguin2205]

though putting "debian 7" (including the quotes) gets much better answers ;-)

Nothing to see here.

[Max Threshold]

They "reinvent" themselves every few years... basically whenever they start attracting too many users.

no name?

[Gravis Zero]

so i guess we have to call it The Release Formerly Known As Fedora 21.

Simple enough

[quantaman]

It will simply be the distro with no name

Re:Simple enough

[Chris Mattern]

Then 22 should be called A Fistful of Fedoras.

Re:Why does teh windowwwz have teh name?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ladies and gentlemen... there is actually a human being on this planet who composed this post in his head, typed it on his keyboard, and thought that sharing it with the world was a good idea. Let that rattle around in your heads for a while. I present to you Desperation.

Re:Ah, the Distro Not to be Named

[Aighearach]

If you want to know why hardcore fedora users have been asking for the switch to systemd for many years, here it is:

http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html

A lot of people who were otherwise in the "stick with SysV" crowd fall in love with systemd as soon as they learn the details. It is truly a step forwards over 80s UNIX.

Re:Like Prince

[tepples]

Or make it something that no magazine will print.

You mean like Ubuntu 8.04 Hairy Hardon?

Finally

[hduff]

RedHat admits that it cannot come up with dumber names than Canonical.

Re:The problem with only numbers (uniqueness rocks

[just_another_sean]

The third hit when I searched for Debian 8 was this:

Debian -- News -- Updated Debian 6.0: 6.0.8 released

Kind of validates the GP's comment...

* emphasis mine...