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Fedora 26 Linux Distro Released (betanews.com)

Posted by msmash on from the new-Linux-distros dept.

Reader BrianFagioli writes: Today, Fedora 26 sheds its pre-release status and becomes available for download as a stable release. GNOME fans are in for a big treat, as version 3.24 is default. If you stick to stable Fedora releases, this will be your first time experiencing that version of the desktop environment since it was released in March. Also new is LibreOffice 5.3, which is an indispensable suite for productivity. If you still use mp3 music files I've moved onto streaming), support should be baked in for both encoding and decoding. "The latest version of Fedora's desktop-focused edition provides new tools and features for general users as well as developers. GNOME 3.24 is offered with Fedora 26 Workstation, which includes a host of updated functionality including Night Light, an application that subtly changes screen color based on time of day to reduce effect on sleep patterns, and LibreOffice 5.3, the latest update to the popular open source office productivity suite. For developers, GNOME 3.24 provides matured versions of Builder and Flatpak to make application development for a variety of systems, including Rust and Meson, easier across the board," says the Fedora Project.

37 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. systemd no thanks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Bleh a systemd distro. No Thanks!

  2. Does anyone actually run this anymore? by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    And, if so, why? Inertia? Just curious.

    --
    That is all.
    1. Re:Does anyone actually run this anymore? by brickhouse98 · · Score: 4, Informative

      I run it. It's really stable anymore, I run some CentOS servers so using the precursor to stuff hitting that is nice, it's nice to develop on (devassistant is a little bonus), and it usually has the latest Gnome.

    2. Re:Does anyone actually run this anymore? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Linus Torvalds

    3. Re:Does anyone actually run this anymore? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yes... went from Debian, to Arch to Ubuntu to Fedora (as of two years ago) and have not looked back. Killer distribution.

    4. Re:Does anyone actually run this anymore? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      When did fedora become socially unacceptable... i've used the distro for years and even though I've treid ubuntu... I still like fedora and the parent company red hat

    5. Re:Does anyone actually run this anymore? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I've had no major issues upgrading from Fedora 21 to 22 .. 25 with yum/dnf/fedup, so you don't have to re-install your OS for every release.

      Though I will admit if anything goes wrong it's a pain in the ass, so it's best to keep a system image handy before upgrading.

    6. Re:Does anyone actually run this anymore? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      And, if so, why? Inertia? Just curious.

      We use Fedora exclusively at work. Reason? It is rock solid, yet up to date. And no fiddling to get stuff to work. It is professional grade.

      We tested many other distros and no other one lived up to the hype. Debian stable (and testing) were outdated. Unstable was, well, unstable (to put it mildly). Ubuntu came with spyware and unusable desktop. It seemed very toy-like and it was very fragile. They also made weird decision regarding some packages and compiler options which made it not work with standard apps (for example, bash was replaced with dash, etc). Mint was Ubuntu but without the retarded desktop. Arch was decent but required a lot of fiddling. The list goes on.

    7. Re:Does anyone actually run this anymore? by StuartHankins · · Score: 3, Informative

      There are a lot of reasons to use Fedora especially if you also run RHEL. Fedora makes a good fileserver, SFTP server, small MySQL server etc. Sometimes you don't need support and until lately there was no upgrade path for RHEL short of reinstalling... Fedora lets me upgrade it. It has newer drivers than RHEL (NTFS write support for instance) and lets me try out new features before they become part of RHEL.

    8. Re:Does anyone actually run this anymore? by Fly+Swatter · · Score: 1

      I still use Fedora, mainly because I am very familiar with it.

      Started out with Redhat 6.2, long before there was a Fedora. Never had to reinstall to upgrade, even when they renamed it Fedora. Although sometimes you had to get into the nuts and bolts to make the upgrade work. Finally at Fedora 23 I decided to switch to 64 bit, so had to install from scratch for the first time in over a decade.

      Used to use gnome up until that thing they call 3.0, switched to XFCE and never looked back.

    9. Re:Does anyone actually run this anymore? by sensei+moreh · · Score: 1

      Sure. I'm responding from it now. It's partially inertia (I started with RH 5 using CDs in the back of a book I checked out of the local library), but mainly because it just works. Of course, there are a number of other distros that also just work, but I've not encountered a compelling reason to switch.

      --
      Geology - it's not rocket science; it's rock science
    10. Re:Does anyone actually run this anymore? by caseih · · Score: 1

      Bash (/bin/bash) is the default user shell in Ubuntu. It's the default system shell (/bin/sh) that is dash on Ubuntu, whereas all other distros use bash in bourne shell mode.

      I think Ubuntu chose to use dash to increase the performance of their upstart init system which relied on many shell scripts and dozens of shell invocations.

      But as you say using dash when everyone else uses bash's bourne shell mode can lead to the occasional subtle issue with shell scripts between distros. Also if I recall it led to a security issue with Ubuntu some years ago.

      I play around with Mint on my laptop and it works fine there. On my desktop, though, I always prefer CentOS or Fedora. Running CentOS 7 right now, but like your issue with Debian stable, the software availability is not so great, so I'm going to move back to Fedora and just bite the bullet and upgrade every year. Running Mate desktop of course.

    11. Re:Does anyone actually run this anymore? by bigdavex · · Score: 1

      I do on my laptop. What would I gain by changing? What's the new hotness that I am missing?

      --
      -Dave
    12. Re:Does anyone actually run this anymore? by F.Ultra · · Score: 1

      Also if I recall it led to a security issue with Ubuntu some years ago.

      I think it was the other way around, since Ubuntu used Dash instead of Bash for these scripts they avoided the Shellshock exploit (unless Dash was affeected too of course).

      But yeah, when they switched over I had some head scratching moments when scripts worked perfectly in the terminal but not on cron or during init.

    13. Re:Does anyone actually run this anymore? by OneSmartFellow · · Score: 1

      I think you would be surprised how many Fedora installations are actually important servers in very, very large corporations - especially tech companies.

      Fedora is great, the kernel is surprisingly stable, important libraries like the latest version of OpenCL are current with the latest kernels.

    14. Re: Does anyone actually run this anymore? by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 2

      You are quite misinformed. Fedora is certainly not the RHEL testing branch. It is an excelent distribution for the desktop. RHEL is for servers. I could go on, but why bother. You don't want Linux. You want XP, but with security patches.

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
    15. Re:Does anyone actually run this anymore? by Tora · · Score: 1

      I run CentOS in production as it is (still) where a predominance of security hardening is defined (see SCAP). And Fedora is the "edge" for CentOS. Like it or not, RHEL still drives enterprise.

      Plus, yum/dnf is a lot less painful than apt :)

      In reality, I'm switching most of my production to Alpine; CentOS / Fedora will probably fade away for me as Docker takes over.

      --
      tora
    16. Re:Does anyone actually run this anymore? by gantry · · Score: 2

      I dumped Fedora for the same reason, but returned when Red Hat relaxed its lifecycle: my desktop is on Fedora 24, which still receives updates. I will probably upgrade to Fedora 26.

      RHEL/CentOS is great for servers, but its upgrade cycle is too slow for the desktop.

      Fedora is often mis-characterised as the testing branch for RHEL, but in fact its release engineering and updates are at least as good as those of any other desktop distro.

    17. Re:Does anyone actually run this anymore? by BESTouff · · Score: 1

      Ubuntu uses dash because it's a Debian derivative, and Debian uses dash as system shell (not as user shell, as you noted).

    18. Re: Does anyone actually run this anymore? by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 1

      Fedora is the community edition. It isn't run by Red Hat Corporate at all. Stop spreading misinformation.

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
    19. Re:Does anyone actually run this anymore? by WallyL · · Score: 1

      The first thing I do in ubuntu is test /bin/sh to see if it's a symlink to .*dash, then I replace it with a symlink to /bin/bash.

    20. Re:Does anyone actually run this anymore? by jon3k · · Score: 1

      I am, but I wouldn't say it's solely based on inertia. I regularly assess what distro I'm running on my workstation.

      I think the release cadence (6 months) provides a good balance between features and stability. I also use RHEL/CentOS professionally so being able to transfer skills between the two is very helpful (file system layout, RPM, etc). I don't see any distribution doing anything significantly better than Fedora. Possibly Ubuntu but I don't think there would be any significant gains for a lot of re-learning.

    21. Re:Does anyone actually run this anymore? by jon3k · · Score: 1

      Started out with Redhat 6.2, long before there was a Fedora. Never had to reinstall to upgrade, even when they renamed it Fedora.

      Back then we called it "Fedora Core":

      Before Fedora 7, Fedora was called Fedora Core after the name of one of the two main software repositories - Core and Extras. Fedora Core contained all the base packages that were required by the operating system, as well as other packages that were distributed along with the installation CD/DVDs, and was maintained only by Red Hat developers. Fedora Extras, the secondary repository that had been included since Fedora Core 3, was community-maintained and not distributed along with the installation CD/DVDs. Upon the release of Fedora 7, the distinction between Fedora Core and Fedora Extras was eliminated.[35]

      I started out with Redhat around 4.0 (mid 90s) and never looked back. I've tried out many distributions over the years but for me it's always provided a really great compromise in features and stability.

    22. Re:Does anyone actually run this anymore? by Trogre · · Score: 1

      I use Debian for servers but prefer Fedora for workstations for many reasons.

      Not the least of which is dnf (formerly yum). It's so far ahead of apt-get it's just not funny.

      Interesting side note: When it comes to installers, it's a draw - both are terrible.

      --
      "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
  3. dnf update by technoid_ · · Score: 1

    Updating right now.

    Not a full time Fedora user, but looking for something that has a good combo of stability and newer software. Now that the version is out of pre-release, I will give it a good test run.

    --
    Two wrongs don't make a right, but 3 lefts do - Lew of GO magazine
    1. Re:dnf update by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Not a full time Fedora user, but looking for something that has a good combo of stability and newer software.

      That's called Ubuntu. Fedora is the alpha test release for RHEL, which is why it includes bleeding-edge features and why it in the past has destroyed data and even hardware. You could always run a RHEL beta. That would only be beta testing, instead of alpha testing. It's your time, though.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:dnf update by Tranzistors · · Score: 1

      Fedora is the alpha test release for RHEL

      In that case it shows how far the Linux ecosystem has matured. I have been using Fedora for couple of years and latest Fedora Alpha had no issues (for me, at least). Ten years ago even LTS Ubuntu was bag of bugs in comparison.

    3. Re:dnf update by technoid_ · · Score: 1

      I don't care for the Ubuntu community, so I will look at other options before going back to it.

      It has been years, but I was so turned off by my interactions with other Ubuntu users and the Ubuntu mouthpieces that I still have a bad taste in my mouth from it.

      --
      Two wrongs don't make a right, but 3 lefts do - Lew of GO magazine
    4. Re: dnf update by KGIII · · Score: 1

      Can you expand on that? I have really enjoyed interacting with the Ubuntu community. Well, technically, I use Lubuntu, it is still the same community that I interact with.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    5. Re: dnf update by technoid_ · · Score: 1

      Look at any random asshole things that Shuttleworth has done and the clean up that Jono Bacon at the time would try to clean up.

      There was a discussion on OMGUbuntu where I (and others) got attacked by multiple users because we didn't jump on the "Let's gut linux and forget anything history has taught us" bandwagon. I should have taken screenshots, but I didn't think about it at the time. We tried to have a reasonable conversation and got attacked to a level that broke the Ubuntu CoC. It was then that I realized the Ubuntu community was not the place for me.

      This wasn't the first thing that bothered me about the Ubuntu community, but it is the one that broke the proverbial camel's back. That said, I have met some nice people in the Ubuntu community, but my experiences with the larger community have been bad.

      --
      Two wrongs don't make a right, but 3 lefts do - Lew of GO magazine
    6. Re: dnf update by KGIII · · Score: 1

      Thanks. I've only used the official support and the StackExchange site.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  4. 64 bit for raspi3? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    this was supposed to enable 64-bit for raspberry pi 3 - did that happen?

    1. Re:64 bit for raspi3? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The RP3 is 64 bit.

  5. Yeah, solid by Kludge · · Score: 2

    I have tried Mandrake, Suse, Ubuntu, Debian, Knoppix, etc.
    Fedora is very good at having lots of easily installable bells and whistles, but still being extremely stable.

  6. Re:rolling updates not twice-yearly ordeals by TheSunborn · · Score: 1

    What ordeal is that? You just start the upgrade which then download all needed packages. After that you just reboot your computer, and wait about an hour for the upgrade to finish. (Might be longer/shorter depending on number of packages installed, and if you have an ssd).

  7. RHEL / CENTOS shops will use Fedora by Luminary+Crush · · Score: 1

    Fedora has been my go-to for over a decade. I've tried others, but it's modern, solid, has advanced features/libraries, and is architecturally similar to the most common Linux server OS I encounter - RHEL. Using Ubuntu would just be silly if 90% of the servers you work with are RHEL/CENTOS. My only regret is the rate of distro obsolescence... the churn is pretty high.

  8. Re:rolling updates not twice-yearly ordeals by MancunianMaskMan · · Score: 1

    yes i agree it works great... i wouldn't call it an ordeal, but it does mean hours of downtime. I tend to do that while I'm sleeping but for a production server it might not be OK. recent upgrades have run through completely unattended for me. I help my father-in-law out by maintaining his Ubuntu box, that loads/installs upgrades in the running system, which means there is little downtime, but it does need more babysitting, because (even on a "pure" install with no external repositories, handcrafted config changes etc) there is the occasional halt in the upgrade process when dpkg wants to ask a question about replacing a file. That's annoying because I kick off the upgrade, come back the next morning and find it has processed 15% and then waited all night for me to type "Y".